Bethimbled and screwed

I was polishing the plastic windows on our cockpit enclosure when the window gave way with a rrrrrrrrrip. Damn! The enclosure is essential to safety and crew comfort. It protects us from wind and rain and makes the cockpit an additional living space which we appreciate in a 40-foot boat. But our enclosure is original to the boat, meaning it’s 14 years old and definitely in need of replacing. It’s a big ticket item and we were hoping to wait as long as possible to order a new one because we’re prioritizing the mechanical and electronic repairs.

So ok, my schedule for the day just got rejiggered and I set about sewing the window back on again. Luckily the holes didn’t rip, just the thread, but pushing a needle though about seven layers of heavy vinyl took all my strength and about 3-1/2 hours.

Later Jack decided to make a dinghy run to unload trash, fill up our diesel jerry cans and our water jugs. We lowered the dinghy, loaded it up, Jack started the motor and it immediately died. He tried again. And again. And thus began an hour and a half of raising the dinghy, troubleshooting the motor, lowering the dinghy, trying it again, raising, lowering, raising, lowering. All the while Jack kept muttering “I’m not a mechanic. I’m not a mechanic.”

“You have to become one,” I said, which didn’t go over well, as you can imagine. Eventually he inspected the fuel line end to end and found a loose clamp. With that tightened up the motor started right up but by that time the rain was moving in and we unloaded the dinghy again, pulled it up and stowed the jerry cans.

The trash we left in the dinghy.