Kaimusailing

A tropical depression was forecast to come in from the gulf, cross northern Florida, and hit us with high winds and torrential rains. Work ceased and we battened down the hatches. Some rain did fall intermittently and I read a couple books on the kindle. One was “iWoz”, Stephen Wozniak’s story of starting Apple Computer with Steven Jobs. He wanted to set the record straight that he designed the Apple II personal computer on paper and then built the prototype himself. That is a remarkable feat. He also hand built the first floppy disc drive interface. for the Apple. He also programmed it as well as the first BASIC operating system for Apple.
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Our own computer phenomenon arrived in the rain and when I went on the bike down to the boatyard office to pick it up, it was closed due to inclement weather. I biked back and read some more.
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The next morning it was obvious we had received quite a bit of rain, but the storm had split in two with a major part of it skirting us and heading North, while the rest of it headed East, so we had just a bit of high winds, not a huge tropical storm. The parts computer delivered the day before was at the office and I could open the box, ascertain that it was operating properly, load the previous unit, that had never worked right, into the same box, and shipped it off, back to the vendor. If you search for Panasonic CF-52 on eBay, you will find them available at eshoppingplace, or something like that. They are located in Lorton, Virginia. The parts computer is cosmetically in excellent condition and only needs the disc drive and disc drive caddy to be put into operating condition. My old chassis says it has over 35,000 operating hours in BIOS, but the new one has about 2500. I will buy another from them, the price is right.
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Webb Chiles has continued his circumnavigation and is crossing the north, tropical, coasts of Australia. His information is at inthepresentsea on blogspot.com.
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On the Wharram builders and friends website a Raka 36 restoration project has become available, for free. While there are many free boats that are worth less than zero, this one looks like a good candidate, a fun boat for a fraction of the usual build effort. The Raka design was not the most popular due to its inbetween size, kind of small for voyaging, and a bit large for daysailing/weekending. It is a racing design, however, so performance will be right up there.
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The Brits next door have achieved a very high gloss on their Fountaine-Pajot catamaran, but it bit them back due to the rainfall and wet surfaces. They have not yet done the non-skid and as a result there was a nasty fall down the port sugar scoop, bouncing off things. The glossy paint did not get marred.
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The #2 beam troughs were wire brushed, sanded, and painted with leftover rust paint after the beam brackets were finished with two coats. This is an old oil based paint that I’ve been told is good for wooden surfaces. The beam brackets and rubber spacers were reassembled, but not bolted down, and the beam #2 assembly, which only consists now of about 4 planks of wood, was forced into position. There are more planks already beveled for installation, but they have to dry out a bit due to all the rain.