We have been watching Florence as she dawdled her way into and along the Carolinas and marvelling at the fact that people refuse to evacuate when told to do so and then scream for help when they get trapped in their flooded and damaged homes. Sure they all have an excuse or sometimes more than one: they won't abandon their pets (begs the question, why don't they evacuate their pets too? We have heard that most of the shelters won't accept pets, and neither will a lot of the hotel chains so I guess that excuse is understandable if they don't have family to go and stay with), they need to look after their property (also begs the question, just what we're they going to do when the winds blows the roof off or the water starts to rise in the basement, shout and scream at it? Since most of the people we saw interviewed were senior citizens, even if they wanted to do something their options would be limited), they're worried about thieves (again, as seniors, what exactly were they going to do if a gang broke into their place to rob it?), or they can't afford it (oddly this is the only excuse that I can understand). At any rate, if I was down there, facing it, I might feel differently but still, every person I watched being interviewed stated that they were ready for whatever came and that they wouldn't need any help. Yet, someone is calling the first responders for help. On a more personal note, it appears that once the storm comes ashore it is forecast to turn right and move NNE towards New England and the Maritime Provinces, scheduled to arrive midweek but hopefully by then it will have become mostly a rain event. The weather witches are calling for 25mm of rain over two days and 65 km of wind off the coast. In fact, I hate to say it, but the longer it stays perched over the Carolinas we are hoping it will beat itself to death, or at least to a highly weakened state before it heads inland and towards us. Selfish, I know but can't help it.

I started on the beast work to rebuild the mizzen mast step. The mast itself and cabin ceiling are supported by scissor jacks, inside and out, the idea being that they will support the mast while I am cutting away the deck on which the mast pulpit sits. The pulpit is deck stepped so when I am cutting away the fibreglass sandwiched wood underneath, something has to hold the mast while I construct the replacement.

Thursday PM I used my rotary bit saw to cut away the inside layer of fibreglass and when I did so I got a very pleasant surprise. I had suspected that the wood core had significantly deteriorated but when the fibreglass was removed and I could inspect the wood I found that not to be the case. The wood still has reasonable integrity, only the few spots around those spots where I had drilled through to run electronic cables. Still, I decided to replace about half of it with the hinged metal support that I have designed. I had to chisel away wood to be able to do this. The biggest challenge I had was to get the metal support to fit the six bolts that fasten the pulpit to the deck that come through the cabin ceiling. I guess when I drilled the holes to accept the bolts I didn't do an accurate enough job so I had to do a lot of adjust, fit, and adjust again to finally get the thing seated. It was extremely frustrating, I must have made the trip from the boat to my workshop at home and back at least eight times, all for adjustments of millimetres. Just goes to show that if I had done it right in the first place I wouldn't have had the problems. Anyway, by mid afternoon on Friday the wood was cut away and the brace was fit in place. Whew!

On Saturday, in the midst of other community events, Barb helped me bolt the hinged support shelf to the aft cabin bulkhead. Once this was done I was able to put the athwartships support board in place and remove the exterior scissor jacks and supports. This board is a solid piece of 2x4 black locust, really strong, straight grained and dense wood. I have to wait until Monday to finish the install as I don't know the length of the bolts I will need when the stores open. Once this is done, which I have to do before post tropical storm Florence arrives midweek, all I'll have left to do is a carpentry job to rebuild the closet that I had to tear apart to access the pulpit step. I am going to modify it to hold the Admiral's industrial sewing machine and shelves for some of what she calls her "notions" (thread, spare parts, some cloth, etc.).

More to follow.