The admiral has decided that we need to move to a different blog provider. She has also sent me back to the bilge and the engine room where I belong and has taken over the blog( it was a bloodless coup) . If you are looking for us we can be found at http://www.mytb.org/s-v-tsamaya .

Janice retired on Friday, June 26, I had graduation on Saturday the 27th and after a few graduation parties on Saturday and Sunday (the duties of the principal) we got to the boat Sunday evening and started a week of vacation.
Without the transmission we were not going to go out sailing, but I have a long list of jobs that need to be done and this would give me time to focus on. Now that I had the chart plotter in place and powered we were able to turn it on and find out that we were not in fact in Sackets Harbor New York but were, according to the chart plotter, about 2500 nautical miles south of Ghana, West Africa. After about an hour of frustrating efforts with the manual the wise and wonderful Janice suggested I call tech support. I called and within 15 minutes I was back at Sackets Harbor with the chart plotter that was working perfectly. My hats off to two great guys at Furuno tech support. Chris on the East Coast and Larry on the West Coast did a great job of talking me through each of the problems, were patient and very knowledgeable. Furuno, your manuals may not be the best but your tech support is well worth the price of the equipment.
Next step was to hook up the wind instruments which required a trip up the mast. With the steps this is a relatively easy task, however significantly strenuous for an old guy. We ran the new wire and installed the wind instruments and in no time things worked like a charm. After that it was time to install the heading sensor that I got from Furuno. Unfortunately it was not NEMA 2000 and was going to require me to run another cable up the arch support on the helm and there was no room. So again I talked with Furuno and got a NEMA 2000 heading sensor from Maretron (also outstanding tech support from these people) which is NEMA 2000 compatible. It was a very easy installation and excellent compatibility with all my new Furuno instruments and the chart plotter. I'm really getting the hang of this NEMA 2000 stuff and I really like it. As a result of all this my boat is pointing in the right direction on the chart plotter and I now have extremely accurate heading information.
By Wednesday the new transmission arrived, unfortunately it had the wrong bell housing and by Friday the correct housing was in place and we have a brand-new transmission and clutch plate. Of course now I'm choking on the over $4000 bill but considering the fact that the transmission was $2700 I guess I can't complain too loudly. But hey, it's done and I probably will not have to worry about it for as long as I own the boat, so once again life is good.
Then of course Saturday, July 4, the weather was rainy, windy and cold but by Sunday, our last day of vacation, it was sunny, windy and cold so we went sailing. First time this season and it was wonderful. Wind blowing 18 to 22 kts and Tsamaya handled it beautifully. With Janice at the helm we had a great sail and a great day.
Back to work on Monday which was Janice's first real day of retirement. Of course I'm off at work sweating and toiling for the betterment of education and she's home with her feet up eating bonbons and watching her favorite soap opera. She is now standing over me threatening me with bodily harm if I leave that statement in. But that's the beauty this is my blog. To be truthful I don't even think she knows any soap operas and what are bonbons anyway?
Last weekend was rainy and miserable on Saturday so we went up to Cape Vincent, New York and spent the day at their French festival. Great fun, really nice people. We started with French pastries and an all-you-can-eat pancake breakfast at the Episcopal Church. We met a very nice Canadian couple, Linda and Jim who were sailing through with a group from their yacht club in Kingston, Ontario and had stopped for the day to enjoy the festival. There were several great bands from both Canada and the United States and it was a very nice day. Spent Sunday installing the new radar which required me to go up the mast and drill out the rivets from the old radar support and install the new support for the larger radar dome. Ran the cable connected it to the Ethernet hub and viola nothing happened. Once again the manual was of no help. So I will have to call the guys at Furuno because I'm certain that after about five minutes they'll figure it out and have me all straightened out. That's the plan for this coming weekend and if the weather is good or even mediocre we are going sailing and anchoring out all weekend!

Between the junior-senior prom, awards banquets and end of the year stuff we've only been spending weekends on the boat. What this means is the installation of the new chart plotter and instruments is taking forever. However this past Sunday we turned on the new chart plotter and voilà it works. (I amaze myself sometimes.)
That's the good news, the bad news is our transmission is shot and after two weeks I give up working on it and finally had the marina people take a look. They pulled it and send it off and now I'm waiting to hear back on how bad this is going to cost me.
Janice's last day of work is Friday, graduation is Saturday we have a few graduation parties to go to and by Sunday night we should be on the boat hopefully with the transmission in place (I'm not holding my breath for that one). If the boat is running we will sail up to Kingston and spend the week either east or west of Kingston depending on where the winds are. We haven't even had the boat out for a shakedown because the transmission problems started as soon as the boat was put in water. However it has given me time to take care of all the projects.
The new radio is hooked up and the remote on the helm is working. The stereo system is installed and working beautifully. The new instruments are connected except for the wind instrument and the radar. Chart plotter is installed in the new Nav-pod and is working.

This is my first blog entry. The weather report for this weekend is warm and sunny hopefully it will get up into the 80s. That sounds great but Sackets Harbor is on Lake Ontario and if the wind is coming out of the north it will be traveling over a very cold body of water so by the time it gets to us I don't anticipate needing shorts or short sleeve shirt for the weekend. But that's just fine with me I'll be on the boat and not at work.
Last week Janice and I took the week off and worked on the boat. It was glorious, cold but glorious. Janice got the new leather cover on the wheel, sounds like a simple job but believe me it took a long time and several needles before she was able to get the sewing job complete. I sanded the bottom, repaired a couple of bad spots and then painted it. All of this work is just to get us through this coming summer because the plan is to strip the bottom next year to get ready for the big trip South.
Where are also installing a lot of new electronics which means major work running wire and removing old unused systems. Luckily when the systems were put in 10 years ago they were well done and I'm finding it relatively easy to locate all the cable and replace it. I replaced the through hole for the speed, depth, and temperature transducer so she's ready to go in the water hopefully on May 1.
As with last year we broke our stanchion and severely bent a second one as a result of the cover collecting water and putting a great deal of strain on the stanchions. At least we're now finding out which ones are in good shape and which ones need to be we welded.
With Janice retiring June 30 are hoping to get a lot of use of the boat again this summer and put a lot of time into getting her ready for our grand trip in about a year.