Gun it, Myrt!

I had done all I could do. Escape Velocity was perfectly lined up with a custom made trailer designed to pull catamarans out of the bay just like a sixteen foot runabout would be pulled out of a river or a lake. I guess that’s what triggered a childhood memory because as soon as the tractor started to strain pulling EV up the ramp I could clearly hear my dad yell,”Gun it, Myrt!” Myrtle was my mother and it was her job to drive our car with the boat trailer and, with any luck at all, our boat up out of the water while we where occupied pushing and pulling to keep it centered on the trailer. Our car was some model of Rambler and notoriously underpowered so once you got all this mass moving you did not want to stop.

“Gun it, Myrt!” I think she was worried about running over one of us.

It was great to see friends who had gathered to watch the haul-out but soon EV was blocked and sitting high and dry and we were alone with difficult projects to complete.

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Life on the hard on a boat is no fun. While the boat is no longer moving I’m still in tune with the rhythm of the sea so moving about the boat for me is a series of lurches, usually into something painful.

Escape Velocity Is equipped with sail drives that look like the bottom half of an outboard motor. Keeping the the saltwater out and the oil in is the full time job of two little rubberish sort of donuts called lower shaft seals and because we didn’t know when they were last changed we decided to change them. Now, I don’t know how to do this and I’d like to take this opportunity to say to YouTubers that I don’t want to hear your favorite music tracks. Just leave the camera’s audio in. You might say something useful.

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So, as I say, I don’t know how to do this and Volvo has not deemed it necessary to show their disappointed customers how. It seems the best one can hope for is one of those exploded views, you know, with all the bits and lines going every which way. Just as I was about to throw in the towel due to the shiny-pants folding propellor which was turning out to be problematic, can-do friends Kris and Dean showed up and after a short consult parts flew. They were on their way to a birthday party, now quite dirty, but unfortunately after a circumnavigation EV’s bearings and seals didn’t look anything like those YouTube videos. Maybe I was distracted by the music.

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Well, the frustration level on Escape Velocity has peaked at eleven and not much has changed except for the boatyard classic plastic bags taped over the sail drives, the toilets are still 200 feet away and the only people working like dogs on their boat are Marce and me.

It may take awhile.

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2 Responses to Gun it, Myrt!

  1. Ed Kelly

    Jack & Marce,
    Glad you got to Trini and all hauled with out incident. We never went there as in 2009 when we were in Grenada, the UK & US governments warned off many cruisers by pointing out the huge crime problem that had developed there making it the murder capitol of the Caribbean, even beating out Jamaica! There used to be kidnappers targeting tourists as well, but don’t know their current situation. We turned right to go to Venezuela offshore islands instead. Wish we could help with sail drives, but no knowledge there. Stay safe. Ed & Sue …off boat daily cruising London’s Pubs!

    • Funny that the situation is reversed now. Trinidad safe, Venezuela not safe. I absolutely love the people here. And there’s a radio station that broadcasts BBC World Service 24 hours a day. Finally I have some news!

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