Kaimusailing

I was determined to take it easy for a few days and I went ashore to the boatyard. I went over to Colonel Bill's boat to ask to borrow the Miata and go shopping. We ended up talking about his electric toilet and how to install it. I went to the woodshop where I could go online with the laptop and look up his model toilet, a Raritan Crown Head. When I returned I found out that the Colonel does not do stuff on computers and even his phone is a basic cell phone, no internet access.
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The Colonel's neighbor, Denis, the truckdriver from Canada, was working on his outboard motor, a freebie that someone gave him because it didn't run. He had the carburettor apart and was cleaning it. I showed him where the idle jet was and he blew it out with aerosol carburettor cleaner. When he put it all back together and tried to start it, it didn't run at all. He said it ran the night before but needed the choke on, thus the carburettor work.
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Denis suggested we get lunch and he paid for our burgers and soft drinks at the local Wendy's. We discussed his non-running outboard motor and I thought he should look at the spark plug to see if it was wet with fuel, flooded, or dark with carbon, which might happen running with the choke on.
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We got back and he needed to remove the fuel tank to get at the spark plug. Gas began pouring out of one of the fuel line fittings, it had split. He set it aside and removed the spark plug. It was clean and indicated there was nothing wrong with the engine. I guessed that the split fuel line may have been allowing air to be sucked into the carburettor and no fuel, thus it would not run.
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We went out again to the car parts stores looking for a piece of fuel line to replace the split fitting. At the second store we found parts that would work, also a spark plug wrench. Denis resumed working on his engine and I returned to Kaimu.
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I worked on the main outhaul and clew attachment to the boom. There had once been a shackle holding the ring of the clew to the outhaul fitting on the boom. It had come loose or broken when I gybed the main to get the boat hove to. Now it was a task to try to get the clew of the main near enough to the outhaul to reshackle it. When that job was done I went to one of the port shrouds to reattach its turnbuckle which had unscrewed during the storm. I set up a 4:1 purchase on the shroud and adjacent chainplate and drew them together and screwed the turnbuckle together again.
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I was still sore and fatigued from two days of strenuous sailing and did my work slowly and did not try to move any heavy objects. I rested up and got a good night's sleep.
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The next day I was taking it slow and felt much better. I had slept over 12 hours and felt well enough to try some more work. The next task was the dreaded run up the mast with the electric bosun's chair to see if I could unjam the genoa halyard block. Set up of the chair and harness and safety line took a while and then I began to ride up in the chair. It goes slowly but it doesn't take much effort, the winch does all the work.
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When I got up to the level of the head of the genoa, now about 2/3's the way up the headstay, I tried to pull myself over to the headstay with a boathook but couldn't manage it. I did get a good look at the halyard block and saw it was jammed on the sail side of the block. I returned to the deck and went forward to the sail and tugged on it, trying to pull the jam out of the block. It didn't work, but after another attempt giving it a real strong yank it came free and the sail came down easily. Problem solved.
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I decided to call it a day at about 3 PM. I made pasta with red sauce for breakfast.
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The next day I did more puttering around and started furling the mainsail which was a real mess. I found I had lost a batten. The zipper on the stack pack is broken so I used spring clamps to close the pack.
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I stowed more gear but there is a great deal more to do. I tested the autopilot and it is not working properly at all. I went ashore with 3 gas cans and a shopping list.
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I brought back 2 cases of water and the 3 five gallon gas cans full of non-ethanol fuel. It was a job to lug them down the ladder to the floating dock and row them out to Kaimu, heave them aboard and stow them.
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I had turned off the inverter before I left to go to shore because I thought it looked like cloudy weather and the inverter would drain the batteries by the time I got back. Instead it was hot and sunny and the fridge and cell phone were off power without the inverter, so the fridge was room temperature inside and the phone was practically dead. The batteries however did not receive the charge one would expect, without the inverter robbing energy, they were something like 12.6. I couldn't turn on the inverter now as the solar panels were only putting out about 3 amps, the sun was low in the West.
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I took a break and read more about "Gabito" Marquez and finally got up to his publishing of News of a Kidnapping when he was about my age, around 69 or 70. He wrote the book on request of a pair of kidnapping victims who survived the drug war and the complex chaos that existed in Colombia during the Escobar years. It was considered that Marquez was old and out of touch with the modern mess that Colombia was in, but the book proved to be a very sharp picture of modern Colombia. It also showed he understood the complex and old money world of Bogota when he was considered a Caribbean Coast kind of guy. He understood Cartagena and the coast, but now he also showed he understood all of Colombia. Then I got a warning that my Kindle was low on battery. End of book break.
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I tested the windlass because I couldn't remember if it failed before or after I replaced the engine starting battery which powers it. It turned out that it didn't budge even though I could hear the contactor solenoid clicking. A further test would be to use jumper cables directly to the motor's contacts. I've actually spent more time repairing the windlass than actually using it. Hoisting
the 20 kilo Danforth by hand is possible, but I get lots of pains as a result.
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While I was ashore a fellow who I will not name came and offered me help due to him noticing my sail in the water earlier in the day. We had a discussion in which I explained what was going on with the catamaran and he went off on another tangent. He said we had a traitor die, John McCain, who was responsible for the tragic fire on the USS Forestall in 1967 in Vietnam waters. He also said McCain collaborated with the enemy while he was incarcerated for 5 1/2 years in North Vietnam.
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John McCain came from a military family, his father and grandfather were admirals, and he followed in their footsteps. The story that he is responsible for the Forestall tragedy is false. Look it up. The fire on that ship was started by a rocket fired by a Phantom F4, not one of the Skyraiders which McCain was flying at that time. In fact, the rocket fired right through two Skyraiders dumping their fuel and igniting it. One of those planes held pilot John McCain who despite being injured, worked to get their explosive bombs overboard before they went off. Unfortunately a couple of bombs did explode and fiery jet fuel and munitions washed down below killing well over a hundred personnel. It took over 24 hours to douse the blaze. To put the blame of this tragedy on John McCain is an act of such utter slander, it can't be forgiven. This premise was put online on websites pro-Donald Trump. Further attacks at John McCain include allusions that he went over to the other side, was a traitor, and did whatever the North Vietnamese captors wanted. This is also not true. McCain was broken in his captivity and did reveal more than rank and serial number, but he reasoned he was giving up information that had no value to the enemy. When he named names, they were names of lineman of an NFL team.
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McCain was given the highest military medals and honors, not because he was the son of an admiral, but because he went through one of his country's toughest times, performing bravely and honorably. Now we see President Donald Rump not lowering his White House flags to honor a hero who gave his life totally for his country. John McCain, one of a line of noble lineage in our military, as compared to what?, an egomaniac narcissistic bleephole who doesn't give himself, his father, or his country any pride.
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I am writing these words now because, although I am not political, I am incensed at this callous behavior, which is in line with a lot of the other things the "Twittler" has done. Make America great again, you are not doing it, Donald Trump.
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The image was taken a few moments ago at about midnight here in the North River Marsh. I used the P, program, setting on the Canon D30, and had to push the saturation a bit and reduced the brightness using Image Manipulator in Navigatrix.