House Call

It’s blowin’.  Again.  And the forecast calls for it to blow a gale overnight when the front comes through with thunderstorms and the possibility, it’s said, of a tornado.  After the winter we all enjoyed, it’s been that kind of spring.  But as odd as it may seem, with what was seen aboard yesterday, the rain is well-timed.

Steadfast has been back in her slip for more than a week, so you’d think the focus would be getting her squared away to shove off.   Instead, shoreside obligations have taken precedence, the days getting ready to move out of the Richmond apartment by selling, consigning or shipping to storage everything there.  The S40 and Jetta were pretty much packed solid with stuff to be kept at the cottage.  Not a lot of stuff fit into that last category but enough to leave stacks of crates, boxes and bags in the guest room and make the sunroom unusable.

Bit by bit, that “stuff” has been sorted and stored appropriately in the attic or elsewhere.  The cottage gradually is becoming livable again.  So last week, on a day that–what do you know?–felt a lot like spring, it was down to the pier with vacuum and buckets and towels for the first step in getting the cabin ready, i.e., wiping down all the bulkheads, lockers and cabin sole.  You want to do that (right?) before you bring down the cushions and start filling lockers.  You want to get in all the corners (right?) and clean up the gradoo that just appears over the winter.  And, of course, that brownish-yellowish-sort-of-streak on the cabin sole that looks as if some water trickled out from someplace, maybe over there at the base of the mast.

Ahhhh-GHEEEEE!  The MAST!!  Oh, man, not a leak in the mast step.

Whatever caused the streak that stained the gelcoat in this corner, the streak wiped up and (so far) hasn’t returned.

Therein begins the string of thoughts of what-could-happen-nows (deck rot, mast coming down under sail and other such thrills) and what-may-not-happen, as in, our planned departure on / about 19 May.

No doubt sensing the angst then rampant here, Adam agreed to stop here on his way home from work, Friday evening no less, to take a look at it.  Adam’s the yard manager at Zimmerman Marine, the diagnostician, so to speak.  It’s good to know some “doctors” still make house calls.

After discussing at some length over a cold IPA all options, alternatives and permutations we could think of; then Sunday aiming the dock hose at the suspect area of the deck for 20 minutes; and talking it through on the phone Monday with Gerry Hutchins, the builder, at his office in Clearwater; it was decided…there’s a good chance the stain was from something the skipper spilled on one of his trips below over the winter.

There was a heckuva storm Friday night, a real downpour with gale-force winds, but no evidence of a leak Saturday morn.  And nothing since, despite the rain and drizzle that continue this week.  Another good soaking is forecast tonight and, as much as it’d be good to get going on the boat, Nature’s help in further testing is okay, too.

This one we want to be sure of.

Steadfast, out.