Kaimusailing

The intrigue in the boatyard continues, at one time I suggested that it be filmed as a reality TV show. Now someone has suggested a title, Clayton Place, Clayton being the young son of the boatyard’s owner. Clayton’s mother has returned and has to go into rehab.
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Kaimu has been declared ready for sea duty, yet the boatyard seems to be tied up with other projects. “Give us a couple days notice” does not mean what it implies.
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So I had a day to futz around with stuff, Toss more junk into the dumpster. My friend Capn Neil came by and it was my fault of not texting him that the launch has been delayed. We took a quick look at the boatyard, he is contemplating hauling his catamaran out for maintenance, and then went to St. Marys waterfront where we had a late lunch and I had some Sam Smith’s beer (ale) from England. A Britisher had recommended it. It was good.
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Later we walked out on the pavilion that overlooks the harbor and discussed the events of last Autumn when the hurricane and maybe an associated tornado took out most of the downtown waterfront.
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The next day it was launchie launchie in earnest, Boats in the way had to be moved. The Navy tug was blocked up out of the way. The power yacht in the slings of the travel lift was moved out of the way and put on a cradle. Two boats in cradles in front of Kaimu were moved to the side. Vehicles that had parked in the way had to be moved. Finally an alley way was set up and Kaimu moved down to the water. The empty travel lift had to be parked off to the side and the crane had to be parked midway between the travel lift pad and the travel lift well. I ran time lapse videos of some of the activity. Fork lifts brought padded lifting straps and the crane was manned and extended up to its full length. The lifting hook came down and heavy D-rings and shackles hooked together the lifting straps while the cradle mover that had brought Kaimu all the way down to the water deposited her on blocks, moved out of the way, and the yard personnel could roll the straps across underneath the hulls, going topside to shackle it all together, somehow getting me involved and holding one of the straps as the crane took up the slack.
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I hadn’t had breakfast, just coffee, and late morning I had a small, very small, tuna sandwich that was about half the size of a normal sandwich, so I was feeling peckish as they say, but I did what they asked me to do, but sat here and there to recuperate, then would take a picture or two with a camera whose battery was down near zero. Fortunately I think I got most of the good shots, but I can’t download them from the camera until I find a charged battery, or charge its battery. If I find the battery charger, it will be with a charged battery, the other battery.
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The yard tug was tied up in the spot that Kaimu had to be launched in, as well as a misplaced dinghy. They were moved. After I triced up the swimming ladder and went to climb down the extension ladder the yard had used on the starboard side, the extension ladder had been taken away, oops, it came back and I climbed down and dutifully put it away again.
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I had tied on a line on the starboard bow as a tag line to allow them to keep the boat straight as it went up, over the travel lift shed and a small tree there, around and down lower and lower into the space between the travel lift well and the floating dock just to the South of it. I had paced off the space between the well and the dock and it was about 27 feet and Kaimu is 22 feet 3 inches wide. Just fit.
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Now I was running on empty. Put a line on the bow, put a line on the stern, bring a pallet of fuel and tool boxes down to the boat, bring them aboard. Pour the fuel into the main tank, but it won’t work, the angle of the fuel fill prevents the EPA authorized fuel nozzle on the Jerry can from dispensing fuel without also drenching the poor captain, who is allergic to gasoline, in fuel. Fuel has to be decanted into a 2 gallon jug that works very well. The spigot on the 2 gallon jug does not fit the larger jugs.
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There were a couple of very helpful souls who when they show up you feel guilty accepting their help, but whenever you help someone else, it is good for both the recipient and the good samaritan. Colonel Bill offered the Miata to make a provision run, and Bill Mills the pipefitter offered to take me to get more fuel after I filled the main tank. He also had a siphon pump that was broken, which we found out, and after some time the tank was filled and the big jugs were empty, time to go out for fuel.
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At the I-95 exit for Kings Bay is a Flash Foods, (no it is not Flash Floods), that has non-ethanol gas at their pumps and it is only $.25 more than regular gas. We went there.
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I bought Bill and me my lunch and his dinner at Wendy’s, but their men’s room was out of soap and we needed to wash the gasoline off our hands.
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Back at the yard the new fuel wasn’t put in the main tank which was full, just a couple of gallons went into the day tank. The engine started up right away and it idled fine. I backed Kaimu into the outgoing tidal current and the engine stopped. We went sideways for a while. I could start the engine and it seemed like it wanted to run full speed or at idle, the mid-range jets seemed to be at fault, but we managed to keep from crashing into mud bogs, boats tied up to docks, and eventually did a large turning radius U-turn into the outgoing current and worked our way up river to Trillium, the C&C 24 I sold to Doc of Doc’s Chop Shop. Trillium had 4 anchors out and had held fast through 2 hurricanes, so I tied up to it. After rowing back to the boatyard, I brought back the backup navigation laptop I had been using in the woodshop because it had the 2 watt amplified wifi antenna and I hadn’t had any wifi connection out in the river. It worked when I set it up out in the river.
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The image is of the launch just before Kaimu is set down in the water.