Aside from my previous post on my trip to Blakely Island with Lisa, there've been many weeks left out of my updates. Rest assured, there's more to catch up on and I may yet pummel you with additional details. Right now I'm down in Ashland for a couple of days visiting with my youngest one last time before I hit the high seas. She graduated from Southern Oregon University this past term, so there's a bit of that celebration, too.



If I were really going to catch you up on activities I'd have to remember what I've already told you about. That's too hard. I will offer the summary statement that I've disproven the prediction I made in my Alphas and Omegas post that I'd probably made my last exit from Lake Union. This is a happy circumstance that was generated by an unhappy one. First for happy: spending time in one of my favorite places with some of my favorite people. The unhappy circumstance is that I'm having to make a fairly significant repair to my rig. Here's the back story.













Boat projects are still ongoing, with new ones turning up even more frequently than the old ones get crossed off, but Mabrouka has still gotten out for her paces a couple of times in the past four weeks. July 3rd and 4th saw Ed Davis (one of my Ho Ho crew) and I sailing to Poulsbo with Tyee Yacht Club to join Poulsbo Yacht Club for barbecue and Independence Day fireworks on Liberty Bay, then back to Eagle Harbor for Tyee's own celebration bearing witness to Bainbridge Island's 4th of July display. I punctuated an extended post-holiday stay anchored in Eagle Harbor with two trips across to Shilshole to get the new mainsail fitted and to attend Coho Ho Ho meetings.

The second trip was a shakedown sail to Port Ludlow this past Thursday and Friday with Ed Davis and Jim Herman, another Ho Ho crew member. Although Ed had had the time to become familiar with Mabrouka on the 4th of July trip, this was Jim's first time on the boat. We got some good sailing in on Thursday, dropping anchor in my favorite back cove in the early evening. After sundowners, dinner, and a barrage of dirty jokes, we settled in for some reading and rope splicing. How manly of us. There may have even been some belching and farting.

Our Friday morning start was stifled when I ran out of propane in the process of heating water for the morning coffee, tea, and hot chocolate. I hopped right in the dinghy and putted to the nearby Port Ludlow Marina with the propane tanks, though, so we were back in operation before long and Ed scrambled up a hearty breakfast that fueled us for a few hours of poking at the boat.

The major effort of the day was to investigate things up the masts where I'd identified a couple of loose screws that needed to be checked and tightened. Ed, being the lightest of us, was the loose screw that Jim and I hauled up in the bosun's chair. As he diligently kept us apprised of the screws he checked ("One, two, ...thirty-seven, thirty-eight, ...fifty-one...") we cranked Ed up the mast a foot or two at a time ("Okay, up a foot, ...whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!)" or eased him down ("No, wait. The safety line is stuck on a screw!").

As much work as that was for us, it was Ed that I felt sorry for. He's a wiry old guy and his scrawny little butt didn't carry much padding aloft, so that wood and canvas seat got pretty uncomfortable for him after a while. With the mizzen mast done with no notable issues, we took pause for lunch and a midday break. Back to work afterwards, it was halfway up the main mast that Ed advised us that his 79th birthday was coming up in a couple of weeks, and he hoped to be going up masts well into his eighties. I guess my birthday present to him was the padding I'd added to the bosun's chair seat just before banishing him aloft again.

Okay, so the upshot of this was that Ed's trip up the main mast found a loose screw that wouldn't be tightened. In this case, applying the screw driver only resulted in continuous screwing. The wood at the heel of the starboard spreader was harboring some dry rot. (The spreaders are the stick-a-ma-bobs that project at right angles out from the mast and stiffen it against compression load from the shrouds. Uh, the shrouds ... those are the up-and-down cable-y kinda thingies that hold the mast upright. Dry rot, ...well, if you don't know what dry rot is you're missing the point, anyway.) Ed kept apologizing as he probed the wood and little blobs of spongy brown stuff fell to the deck and I kept complaining that he was making me sad. Still, he kept on poking his finger into the soft spot, repeatedly sharing the results as I stood on the deck below attempting to stiffen my lip with every pronouncement.

As is commonly said with such news as this on a boat, we all nodded sagely, agreeing with our vast seagoing wisdom that it was better for us to find this now than have the spreader announce it independently with crunching noises while crumpling under the strain of a raging gale. Still, I only admitted that in a certain crumpling tone of my own. Nevertheless, we trusted the weakened rig enough to have a really great sail back toward Seattle. The new genoa performed fantastically under a broadening reach as we rolled by Foul Weather Bluff and past Point No Point. After dropping Ed off where we'd picked him up in Kingston, Jim and I motored in the dark across to Shilshole where I got a transient slip for Friday night.

The next day Jim and his friend, LB, helped me motor through the locks to the Tyee YC dock on Lake Union. I'd intended to camp out there for a few days while making repairs, but at Karyn-with-a-Y's behest, I shifted Mabrouka over to tie up at Kathy's houseboat instead. (Thank you SO much, Kathy. It is much MUCH more pleasant at your place.) So, I'd been welcomed back to my old neighborhood by generous neighbors and the nostalgic horns of the Fremont Bridge, two things I thought I might never experience again.

I'd taken the spreader down on Saturday afternoon, so Mabrouka looked a little forlorn with a few dangly bits hanging from the starboard side of the mast. Jim's a boatwright and has access to a shop, so he and I had planned on going to Crosscut Lumber on Monday to get some spruce, then to his shop to make new spreaders. Lisa joined us a little after 9 AM, so we were off to a fairly early start. Working with wood is almost always a fulfilling experience, so the occasion for this repair wasn't all bad. The three of us had a good time sawing and planing and shaving and sanding. By mid-afternoon we had a new starboard spreader shaped and sealed, plus a rougher blank ready for the future replacement of the port spreader just for good measure.

The next day Lisa and I set off for a couple of days at Blake Island while Jim sealed up the spreaders with some epoxy and a coat of paint. The trip was a slight disappointment for Lisa, since she'd asked to go on an actual sail before I set off for the wide ocean. With only one spreader in place, we were only able to motor. Leaving our adventures at Blake Island for a separate post, I returned her to dry land on Wednesday afternoon, then met the sail makers at Shilshole Bay Marina to (finally) take delivery of the new main and the new sail covers.