How Not to Spend the 4th of July

July 4th -- Independence Day

I guess my idea of Independence Day and Meryl’s was totally different. She envisioned a lazy day on the beach followed by a BBQ and fireworks. Unfortunately we were very short on time for our upcoming haul out, so I opted to change the engine oil and filters. Then I figured as long as the engine compartment doors were off and the engine space open, I might as well change the grossly dirty oil pad under the engine and clean the engine with Gunk Off.  Now anyone who has used Gunk Off on their car engine knows it stinks like hell. I forget about this as I sprayed it all over the hot engine.  The good news is we have a nice clean engine now. I even found some chafed wires and other small things to repair that would have eventually lead to disaster.  The bad thing is we almost got divorced.

With the high heat and humidity in Trinidad staying inside the boat is no picnic, and outside is only marginally better. As I ran the engine (generating heat down below) to burn off the Gunk smell Meryl just sat and fumed (no pun there) at me.  So much for the 4th of July in a foreign country.

Walter and Albert examine the used Code Zero gennaker to see if it will fit on Flying Cloud.

Albert checks the masthead fitting for the Code Zero.

The next few days were spent cleaning and preparing the boat for the two-month layover.  Our friend Albert came over with a beautiful Code Zero gennaker (a light weight downwind sail) that he no longer needed to see if it would fit on our boat. It was a little long but we can get a sail maker to cut it down and the price was certainly right. Since most of our sailing from this point onward will be downwind to broad reaches, we need to rig the boat to sail more effectively off the wind.  The new gennaker will wing out to one side with the sheet leading through a block on the end of the boom (which will be pushed out abeam of the boat). On the other side we will be rigging a whisker pole, a huge aluminum pole similar to a spinnaker pole, so we can “wing out” the genoa on the other side. We’ll look a little like a shrimp boat but it should sail much better downwind.

We also got varnish coats three and four (of eight total) on the cap rails and collected more extraneous items to go back to Seattle.  I intensely hate the hassle involved in hauling out and don’t want to spend one minute longer then necessary in the heat of Trinidad, but it’s a necessary evil for any boat in the tropics where bottoms need to be painted about once every year.

We are also going to have the boat surveyed again to see if we can increase the valuation for insurance purposes. We got such a good deal on the boat originally that the insurance is based on that price, much lower than the current resale value. While taking a look at the hull, the surveyor noticed the cutlass bearing (a bearing through which the propeller shaft passes), was loose and needed to be replaced. Good timing since we’ll be hauled out anyway.

You can almost see the humidity hanging in the air at Chaguaramas Bay.

As you might image, we tend to collapse into bed at night during these long days getting everything ready for the haul out. The nice thing is we’re tied to a dock right in front of the yard with electricity and water, meaning we can run our interior AC unit and keep the boat less hot (not cool) than usual.