Lake Granby
30 July 2010 | Still in Aurora, CO.
Cloudy and maybe rain.
Our trip to Lake Granby was great. Sloop to Nuts was waiting for us with a badly torn tarp. It was in bad shape when I was there back in late May and was worse now. Off it came quickly and got folded and stuffed in the local dumpster.
Once we unlocked the companionway door, she looked just great inside. A bit dusty, but still the same pretty boat we have loved for the last 23 years. We'd brought every key we could to unlock the lock on our outboard motor. We'd left a set of the keys with the marina two years ago so they could hopefully sell it. For the first year, they forgot that they were supposed to sell it so she just sat. Last year, we found out that they had lost the keys and had to cut the lock off the door to get in. When they lost the keys, they lost the only copy of the key for the outboard that we knew we had. Let me tell you, the lock we had on it was HUGE. I'd tired to get it off a year ago and bring it home for storage rather than leave it there. I'd brought a set of bolt cutters from Home Depots tool rental. It made a small dent on the lock but wouldn't cut through it. It made channels in the blades on the bolt cutters. Basically, it ruined the bolt cutters. We got lucky and we found the one last key we had for the lock and it came off easily. Sure an glad we found it as using a hack saw would have taken quite a while. Off came the motor and into the trunk it went.
Next came the rudder. The bottom paint on it was long since gone and lots of small cracks had developed in the mahogany. The varnish on the top half of the rudder needs a good sanding and renewing.
Out came the two batteries we use for power. One read 1.6 volts and the second read 2.5 volts. A bit low for a 12 volt battery. I made a diagram as to what wires went to what posts and out they came. We lowered them over the side with dock lines through the handles. Into the trunk they went.
That was all we were bringing home so after inspecting the rest of the boat, we locked her up and headed our for the 2.5 hour drive home.
When we got home, I plugged in the battery charger and hooked it up to one of the battery to see if we could revive it. The gauge on the battery didn't move yet you could hear the charger trying to force the charge back into it. By the next morning, the battery read 13.1 volts. The second battery did the same but the gauge ramped up after a few hours on the battery. It appears to be at a full charge as of this morning. We'll see if the charge lasts.
I'll be sanding down the rudder to start it's repairs this morning and so it goes.
Still no trim from Lowe's.