Daily Archives: January 19, 2013

Order, order in the field!

We humans crave order. Eons of our history were spent trying to prove that the earth was the center of the universe and that God wouldn’t allow an imperfect orbit of a planet. Ok, much of that time was spent trying to figure out what that rock in the mud was for, when we now know that you put it in a box and sell it as a pet.

A mooring field is normally an orderly thing with carefully worked out geometry giving each yacht it’s own space but cramming as many paying customers as possible into a given area. Many times I have come out on deck and said,” We are going to swing over and hit that boat.” Haven’t yet.

It’s well known that catamarans, monohulls, and motor yachts all swing to different drummers when anchored, but it’s total chaos when the tide changes and the wind can’t swing with the change.

20130119-083934.jpgIt seems to upset Izzy even more than us.

20130119-084437.jpg Some cats just swing that way.

We’re happily back on our mooring after being battered by 30kt winds that bounced us into the dock at the repair shop all night. The repair seems to have gone well and our shabby cockpit table has been replaced with a brand new white starboard table top. The new cockpit cushions are another story. I’m reminded of the old adage concerning dentures. You have to have them fitted right in the office. Mail order just doesn’t cut it. Scheduling conflicts during the holidays caused us to move on while our cushions were being made. We drove up to St. Augustine in a rental to pick up all the stuff but discovered that you really do have to fit them in the office. Two cushions had to go back to St. Augustine, not too bad, but still a pain. They’re not back yet.

While in St. Augustine Marce found a consignment center that had canvas in the same color, Tuscan Orange, that we are using on EV. This however requires a large working area.

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We found such an area but a French Canadian woman decided to take up residence and Skype nonstop for hours on her computer so we repaired to the clubhouse patio where we got lots of free advice from fellow yachtsmen. How Marce turns this into a sail cover is beyond me.

With all of Escape Velocity’s improvements we invited fellow Manta owners Lisa & Marty for sundowners on the Lido Deck. They did the same thing we all do when visiting a fellow Manta. Check out how you have her set up. Every time you go on one you pickup great ideas. A good time was had by all. And that’s life on the water.

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Things are looking up

I feel much better today. We had the guys come in this morning and explain how they did the repair. While it wasn’t exactly how we would have done it, or how we expected it to be done, they convinced us that what they did was kosher to restore the strength of the original beam and would keep us worry free for the duration of our journey.

While we were still at the marina Jack got the guy to make us a new cockpit table. The old one was laminated plywood that probably used to have a teak edge on it but that was long gone. The new one is from a material called King Starboard, a durable plastic material that we have beside our built in barbecue and should last a long time and be easy to clean.

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The new cockpit cushions look great, shown here with a couple of the indoor throw pillows because I haven’t had a chance to source the material for the outdoor ones yet. As I said before, redecorating will be an evolution rather than revolution.

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We know this is a departure from the usual boat decor, which generally favors variations on the blue and white theme with occasional hunter green or white canvas. Looking around the anchorage here nearly every boat has blue canvas. I like that ours is the only one with yellow, but Jack and I aren’t in love with yellow. Plus, we don’t think everything has to match so we’re going to mix it up a bit.

In any case, these cockpit cushions are the first step towards Schulzifying Escape Velocity. Jack says they remind him of the classic Danish Modern style of the 50s, which seems to go with our 50s diner turquoise laminate countertops. I guess you gotta run with what you have.

Now that we’re past this messy fiberglass repair we’re just waiting for our mainsail to be done so we can make the next jump south, probably to Ft. Lauderdale or Miami for our final push on upgrades and personal business before we say goodbye to the US for a while. One foot in front of the other.

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