SPLASH!

Hello all you land lovers,

We are in the water and living on the boat since last Friday. Or should I say we are living on half of a boat. We have no mast and no rigging. After inspecting the rigging we found several working rust spots that dictated replacing the rigging in about a year or so. We decided to do it at the start of our trip rather than in the middle. The good news is that the new rigging arrived at the boat yard yesterday and we should be put back together tomorrow, Thursday, July 1.

The other news is that we are having some canvas work down on the Bimini top so that we have screens and plastic roll up windows. As Joy says, we are building a porch on our floating house. This will give us more room when the weather is bad, the bugs are flying, and also keep us a little cooler in the hot weather.

Included are some pictures of High Spirits in the water and a future marine mechanic. Our regular mechanic is coming today for an educational experience for the both of us. Tuition at Rick's School of Marine Repairs is not cheap but hopefully will be useful in the future when we break down some place in the middle of nowhere.

I have discovered the art of sleeping on the boat. For me, it is waking up when the sun comes up which here in Cleveland Ohio is around 6 am. It is almost like getting up to go to work. On the other hand, my sailing partner, can sleep in the daylight, and gets up about an hour later. It is a very relaxing sleep as the boat moves gently in the night and the night breezes have been great.

Well that is it for now. We have a ton of jobs to get done in the next 3 days.

Joe

READY TO GO!

Hello Everyone,

As you can see by the picture, we are READY TO GO!. We finished the boat today, June 24, and the yard checked out the engine and the electronics are finished.
We will splash tomorrow. However we must tell you we are launching half a boat, the bottom half.

We decided to replace all the rigging, the wires that hold the mast in place. There was some corrosion at the bottoms of the wires, and we decided it was best to replace it all in Cleveland, rather than next year in Florida. So, we are launching a large house boat tomorrow. Joy had to have the boat in the water for our Hot Dog
party on Sunday, June 27.

The rigging should be here before the July 4th holiday weekend, and we hope to leave for the Lake Erie Island either July 5th or 6th. We will be there for a week, and then back to Cleveland to restock and then head up to Buffalo for the Erie Canal passage.

Thanks for following us on our adventure.

Joe

Spaghetti or Wiring?

Hello Everyone

As you can see from the picture, we have wiring hanging down all over the inside
of High Spirits. The service crew is finally working on our electronics and hopefully will be finished in a couple of days. We are shooting for a splash day of Wednesday or Thursday.

Our next project that we can work in is designing and building mast stands for the Erie Canal transit. We want them to be above the Bimini top so we have some shade while crossing New York.

We had a wonderful sail today with Peter and Sally. They were our landlords in Tremont. We rented two places from them over a six week period. Great Restaurants and great places to walk to work off all the food.

More later

Joe

PAINTING IS COMPLETE

Hello Everybody

Well the painting is finished and so we took a couple of days off for family activities including a premature bon voyage party given by my sisters. As it now turns out, the boat yard is talking about middle of June for a splash date.

Things always take longer than you think they should. Jack has the boat next to ours and he is undergoing a complete new engine installation and completely worked over engine room including wiring and hoses. The yard says they have to finish Jack's first before ours. His bill must be bigger!

We took some days off after the party to go to DC to visit Jen, Mark, Erin and Adam for two days with a trip up to visit our son's new house in Baltimore. Josh's last day in Minot is Friday, June 4. Rachel is already there working on the interior before the furniture arrives.

Back to boating news. We have the following jobs to complete; new battery storage rack, install new larger batteris, install navigation and radar equipment, and service the main sail roller furler system. All to be finished in 2 weeks.

More later

Joe