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So one 'Vigor's Denaming Ceremony' (from 48 North) and a bottle of Bollinger champagne I bought in Austria on my high schools Jazz choir's trip to Europe later our boat has no name.  I hope Neptune enjoyed the champagne.  I wouldn't have believed after more than a decade waiting for the right occasion for this bottle that I wouldn't have tasted a drop of it.  But that's how it works with Neptune - you don't mess with tradition - or tradition messes with you.

A bit of catch up... I stopped by the boat yesterday and prepped it for Pat's work on Monday.  removed the port bank of batteries, and the exhaust connection between the engine and muffler.  Did a couple of other small projects, but had to leave because I was getting way too frustrated with the beating that we were taking from the traffic at their wakes.

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Got through much of the list of goals.  Paul did great work on the bottom.  Got it stripped quickly, repaired and painted.  Having spent time in the tent right after they sanded down the bottom - it was a hellish blue sand storm in a greenhouse on a 90' summer day - it had to be well over 100' inside the tent even hotter for the guy stripping the bottom who was wearing a Tyvek suit, full respirator, etc.

Paul when the extra mile to put a barrier coat on the keel and rudder, and took plenty of time to get the keel nice and fair.  Perhaps not grand prix race fair, but nice and smooth, and looking good.

While the boat was out, Pat of Pat's Marine Engines stopped by and save us some money by repacking the shaft seal and instead of having us install a new dripless seal.  He also save me some hassle by giving me some sage advice on the installation of the new MaxProp.  Seemed that my first attempt left a bit too much shaft on the shaft causing some issues with the proper feathering.  A little more time with a hack saw solved that.

Due to reasons I won't go into here I am now a pro at installing MaxProps.  Installed this one at least three times while it was out.  Didn't take too long the last time.

So with the first seven of the ten goals done the boat went back in the water with a last minute flurry of work to get the pad areas painted.

Here's the bad news ... so the boat gets in the water, we (Sarah and I, and Teresa) fire up the engine and get ready to depart.  Engine dies.  Not good.  But we restart the engine, and it runs weirdly for a bit and dies.  A bad omen, but for some reason it runs well enough that I decided to go ahead and leave.  Perhaps not the best decision since about 30 seconds after backing out of the haul out area the engine died again.  Begin the fun of problem solving.

Within a few minutes we had the main up and Sarah and Teresa were sailing us back in forth in the canal buying time for me try to get the engine running.  But alas no luck.  So we had to get into a dock - so we called Canal and asked them for a place to stay for the weekend and a bit of help in docking, and Steve obliged.  I dropped the main (hooray for Lazy Jacks!) and partially unfurled the jib to have less power/less speed.  Overall the docking under sail went well - I'd give a 8.5 throwing out the scores from the Kiwi's and Aussies.

Pat helped us in a pinch by showing up and sorting out the engine - figuring out that the fuel system wasn't the issue - it was a plugged exhaust.  So we're dead in the water.  So much for the weekend - the boat has to go to Pat on Monday.  Just more time away from the new boat, and more money

I'll leave on a good note - I found moorage in Edmonds!!  A great guy from Craigslist contacted me via my moorage request with a sublet offer.  Affordable and I can nearly roll out of bed into the boat.  In addition, while signing up for moorage I talked to Susan at the Port of Edmonds who suggested that we join the waiting list for our size slip since by a strange coincidence was empty making us the next up on the list.  We'll keep our fingers crossed.

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We arrived right on time and the boat was out of the water in the capable hands of Paul Ziegler in short order.

Goals for the haul out:

1. Repair keel bulb damage.
2. Repair leading edge of keel/hull joint.
3. Strip and repaint bottom
4. New zincs
5. New shaft seal
6. New feathering prop to replace fixed triple that came with boat.
7. Cleanup adhesive residue from name and hailing port. 
8. Polish, Wax Boat
9. Perform 'Vigor's Denaming Ceremony'
10. Install new name.

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The dogs did better than I expected, especially Bella.  Boca was his neurotic self, but was able to get on/off the boat and in and out of the cabin with ease.  Bella was the same, but will need some help getting out of the cabin.

While Sarah read, I worked on removing the old name from the boat, and must have guilted Sarah a bit since she pulled off the hailing port from the stern.

The lake was busy plenty of recreational traffic, sea planes and every a regional Melges 24 regatta - fun to watch in between jobs.

Ciao for now!

Bella in the Pilot Berth - Sea Dog In Training

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Started off by stocking the boat with water and snacks, and a bit more gear to keep things comfortable and ready for day cruises.  Soon we hit the water with the newly cleaned 115% jib on deck (I'd taken it home cleaned it and removed the old UV cover).  Hoisting it was a bit tougher than I expected - more friction than a Tuff Luff for sure.  After we got it up and trimmed we took off!  Making almost 6 knots under 115% alone.  Damn this was faster than I expected - I little too fast for relaxing cruise on the lake.  We kept tacking every few minutes with Sarah at the helm and I was getting sweaty.  So we furled the jib and switched to the main - it was easy to hoist - hooray for batt-cars!  The boat did well under main alone with 3-4 knots upwind and mid 5's downwind.  Loved feeling her accelerate in the downwind puffs along the west shore of the lake.  After the main went up, Sarah handed the helm to me and I did Duck Dodge laps while she wrote in her journal ... we both were loving it!  This is why we bought the boat.

Today's sail reinforced a feeling I had - the boat is certainly set up more for cruising that I'd hoped.  Going to have to do some work to get her ready for even club racing ... add cunningham, new main halyard, new swivel for mainsheet, etc... just money and time nothing too major.  That said, some of the electronics aboard are cool ... the chart plotter/radar setup is sweet.  Was fun to watch our track wind around the lake.

Was kind of funny hearing Sarah get used to the boat.  Seemed like every time she'd go below I'd hear her cuss at least once at some part of the boat that jumped out in front of head.  First the dodger, then the galley, then something else... The joys of getting used to a new boat.

Lastly, we both agreed that Lake Union is probably not going to work as a permanent home for Andiamo.  The boat's just too fast to be comfortable with a lazy sail on such a small and busy lake.

It was great sail!  Looking forward to our next.

Ciao Bella! (Sorry about the lack pics, we'll get better about that!)

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So I moved onto cleaning.  With a new cleaning kit assembled from Walmart, I cleaned the top decks and galley and gave the boat a healthier look.  I also met Caroline from Swiftsure and her two sons who were working on detailing the Sea Ray beside me.  They kindly helped me move from our cozy spandex slip 52 into an oversized smock of a slip more fit for a tent shop.  Everything went smoothly and now we are in a slip that will work much better for getting in and out at will.

I got the stereo speakers in the cabin working ... hooray for the fader control and looked over the manuals and other information on all the fun toys on the boat.  And last but not least I took time to write the log on the boat - lets hope this becomes a habit.

Ciao Bella from the soon to be Andiamo!

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