As a follow up and another restart of this blog ... on the boat thing, the leak was indeed the stuffing box. The "box" has a lock nut. I backed off the lock nut and tightened the stuffing box cap ever so slightly until the drip stopped. Viola! no more leak. It took almost 1/2 a turn, which is about 5 years worth of routine tightening that had apparently not been done. What a thing it is to be relived of the worry over not knowing what was causing our sailboat to drown itself (the gravity part we knew about).
We had several more days of beautiful sailing on Wicked Pissah that summer. We even successfully anchored her a few times. I will aways remember the sensation of motoring out, hoisting the main and cutting off the engine and ... sailing! It put me into an open, relaxed ... reverie? I referred to it as a vacation state of mind at the time. I just know the sensation of moving under the wind has a wonderfully freeing, unknotting quality about it.
My next exclamation point with Wicked Pissah was haul out day. I had help from some veteran sailors and still it was hellish for me, being my first such maneuver. Suffice it to say we succeeded in hauling her out, dropping her mast, scrubbing her hull and putting her up for winter.
Ah winter ...
After ruminating on the Great loop and gathering more information it became more evident that doing the loop in a sailboat made less and less sense to us. We learned that 70% of the loop is not sailable. Inland waterways, rivers, channels, locks etc have to be "motored". Yes a sailboat is the most efficient vessel to move thru the water. So what about a sailboat without the mast and running rigging? Well now we are talking a full displacement trawler aren't we? Or maybe a recreational tug. We'd want something that we did not have to trip over mast and rigging while navigating the canals etc.
Into the midst of this thought process Melinda injected a thought virus that I was not exactly immune to. Travel trailer?
We already know how to drive and navigate the nations highways, no special license to acquire, no special aquatic specific rules of the road to learn. No tides to handle. And we still get to take our home with us wherever we go. It became quite obvious to us that a rolling vessel is quite a bit more within reach than a floating one. We can haul a trailer to water and drop in a canoe or collapsable/stowable to scratch that gotta float itch. Not so the other way round.
We reasoned if we had a more long term investment in and love of boating then it would have made more sense to stick with the water adventure. But the trailer idea latched on to our imagination and obviated the sailboat. We put Wicked Pissah up for sale (no pun intended).
I posted the vessel for sail to theclub and low and behold found a fellow who was interested, having learned sailing in a similar boat a dozen years ago. We went out to look her over (still under tarp and all). When the buyer dropped through the companionway he discovered himself on ice. ANOTHER LEAK? GOODNESS!! This time it was the cockpit drain that dropped into the living space and then took a 90 degree turn toward the transom. Due to its age and the water in the drain tube freezing etc it decided to spilt in several places and proceed to direct water, during thaws, into the aft berth and then filled the back half of the cabin sole at the galley. So much fun with water!
To make a long story short I picked up a replacement drain pipe from West Marine, installed it and went about removing the water and the start of mold therewith. Once I cleaned up the water I swabbed all the wooden bulkheads and other surfaces and to prevent any more mold growth I deposited multiple small buckets of calcium chloride about the cabin. Its quite an effective desiccant! From there we remained ship shape. Then put-in day arrived, purchase was contingent on a test sail of course. Needless to say that went according to plan and the new owner sailed her off. Good Bye Wicked Pissah!
Hello Airstream?
