Sailing Bug Alert

We actually had our first guests out sailing on SVCerridwen. We had the Cap’n’s  Dad and Nora come to town to visit, and they got here early so we took them for an afternoon sail. We sailed out to San Pablo Bay, and sailed wing~on~wing most of the way back. Dad was at the helm for the most part, and he loved it. You better watch out Nora, I think he got bit by the sailing bug while he was here. Yea Dad had a blast. We had a great visit. Dad brought his little girl Calli, she seemed to enjoy the sail too. Roxi and her sat together for awhile, they were cute. 

  While Dad was at the helm, I actually got to handle some sheets and canvas, which I usually have the helm, while the Cap’n works the winches. The sheets are the ropes that hold the tip of the sail, ran to winches, and canvas is the sail itself. Thanks Nora and Dad, we had a blast.

  We had a whole nother day, so the Cap’n put me to work on the bungs, after he finished putting the rest of the rail on the countertop. The Bungs are little pieces of wood cut to fit in screw holes, so the wood looks finished. And that is what you call a ‘bunghole’. It is not what I have always thought a bunghole was. hahaha. You find one that fits snug in the hole, rub varnish on it, and put it in the hole and give it a couple of bonks with the hammer, sand it down, wipe with varnish, *one of the reasons we chose the ‘rubbed effect’ is that it doesn’t show touchups*, then let it dry. You don’t realize how much you touch something until you varnish it. 

  We are loving being on the water again. We are having the time of our lives. So this is living the dream, not living paycheck to paycheck, been there, done that, I hope I never have to do it again.

 bunkmate

Cap'n be Nap'n

With all the hard work the Cap'n has been doing around here, and at his other job, he has been needing to take a quick cat nap here and there, it is somewhat mandatory that the Cap'n be Nap’n.

  We have been working hard to get to ‘Right Here, Right Now’ that sometimes we forget to slow down and enjoy the life we are living. So it is important to take our time and soak in the cruisers life.

  The Cap’n showed the crew how to ‘reef’. Hopefully we don’t have to ever reef the main in windy conditions. We sailed this past weekend with it reefed, just to see how well she sails with it, and it does take alot of the wind out of the sail. We ran the jib on the forward, the staysail mid ship, and the main. It was a blast. Cerridwen has 8 sails that we have to learn to run. I am excited to try a couple different sails, that I have never sailed with, especially the ‘parachute’. You use the parachute when you have the wind at your back, our parachute is rainbow colored, imagine that. And I had nothing to do with the color, we are just lucky like that. You will see pictures when we fly it.

  jib hanked on

Throwing Up Canvas

  We finally got out for the shake down cruise. That means you go out and throw up the canvas, and see what all falls around down below. It wasn’t too bad. We did a pretty good stash it job. Nothing broke, and very little hit the floor, but when the Cap’n opened the fridge he got attacked by a bunch of beer and cheese.

  The new roll cage got alot of use, with us moving around tacking and working the rigging, it was pretty nice to have the extra handles. I need to make a couple of panels for the top side of the frame, I feel that a couple of the screen panels will cut some of the blinding glare when looking up at the pilot bird to tell the wind direction.

  It was pretty calm for the most part, there wasn’t too many white caps, and you can read the wind on the water for gusts and stuff. That is one of my favorite things to do when the water is calm, watch the wind dance on the water.

  The trial run was pretty fun, we  brought up the Main Sail, and we had it reefed on the 2nd line to start out with, till we got up the jib sail and staysail. Reefing is an amount of the sail still not put up, where only most of the sail is up for when it is super windy. We took it to the 1st reef after a while of dialing in the sails, running lines, and getting the feel of her in the water sailing. The kiddz had a blast too, for the most part they just really hung out in the cockpit, Sailor likes to put his head out and just smell.They did alot of wandering around looking overboard too. I wonder what they will do the first time they see a dolphin. We went by a big green buoy that had a biggo seal on it and they just barked back and forth with each other.

  Our marina, Benicia Marina, is in Carquinez Straight, between Suisun Bay, with San Pablo Bay, on the other side of the bridge. Our first anchor out. Listening to the water splash against the hull, the tug on the anchor when you come to the end of the rode. *your rode is the line that tethers you and your anchor chain together*, along with the night watch. Our Cap’n has an app to watch our gps, to see if we are slipping anchor, from bed. 

 We anchored off of Dillon Pt. just shy of the bridge at the entrance of San Pablo Bay. Where there is a huge shallow area that has a drop off from 3 feet to 90+. And it is a pretty steep drop too. Alot of people fishing from the bank. We stayed the night there and sailed home Sunday. Our Cap’n is our hero when it comes to rowing to shore for potty breaks. plus he got the first picture ever, of SVCerridwen at anchor. With the potty boat in the foreground.

bunkmate

  

Nutshell

 So this Whole thing started at the starboard mainsail TRACK. Yep, That is the whole story wrapped up in a nutshell.

     1. There were a couple of really long bolts, that started leaking for some unknown reason. It could have been the bolts that they put in to hold the life line poles, that were crossed up with the super long bolts.

     2. Someone at some time put stupid caulking on it to 'stop' the bleeding. Although I don't know their situation, or why the chose silicone caulking.

     3.  The lowest spot of the 1o Foot Track *TFT* is right at the head sink. The TFT runs from the stove to the farthest head wall/aft cabin door wall. Along with the stantion plates that run along both sides as well. 

   Regardless of the culprit TFT, there had beed alot of water that seeped through the wood, and in some cases just ran down the hull to the bilge. But most of it seeped, and rotted alot of wood on the whole starboard side, slowly rotting away. Until someone comes along and says 'not on my boat' and rips the whole thing apart and puts in all new wood, screws, glue, fiberglass, epoxy, 52hundred, varnish, with hundreds of hours on the elbow grease guns, and busted knuckles to everyone that helped. We ripped her down to fiberglass, and built her right back up to be stronger than before On the inside fiberglass wall I wrote our last name and year we installed the frames and such, 2oI3 is when we did the galley and head.   With the head being the entry point for all the water, most of it rain, but some is salt water, damaged everything. But that was not too big of a project for our Cap'n or his crew.

   We took the whole starboard side of the boat, right down to the fiberglass, where you can see light coming through the fiberglass. All the way from the Cap's navigation station, through the stove, and the whole refrigerator, the sink, that is now a double sink, re~enforced the bulkhead, cleaned and freed the through holes, all the head floor he restored and rebuilt, and part of the aft cabin floor he had to take it apart piece by piece, and glued and sanded piece by piece, then 4 coats of varnish, looks like new. Down into the engine compartment, all the wood was rotted, the engine mounts have a wooded piece that has been replaced recently, the walls were crumbling apart when you touched them, the cap'n sealed the wall with epoxy stuff, re~wired the whole panels, re~routed some of the electric wires, more through holes down there, put up some sound proofing stuff, the bilge was full of old rotten wood, I spent along time on my belly vacuuming it and scraping it all out. We re~painted the inside of all the cabinets through out the boat. The countertop in the head was shot too, so we kept the actual doors and frames, but replaced all structured panels the whole way down the starboard side. All the cosmetic wood has been sanded down to the wood, 4 clear varnish, and 1 top coat of the rubbed effect varnish, all 6 doors, and every cabinet door included. No Cetol below, ever.

     bunkmate