scary season...............from P

For the first time on this adventure, I am afraid. We have postponed our departure - now it is Monday, Nov. 3rd. I am afraid because each time we have discussed a date or set a date something comes up that pushes it out further. I fear that we are risking our weather window and we may never get underway. Initially we were only to be home for two weeks. That was before we cracked the rudder. Boat repairs, follow up repairs, and all the attendant logistics took a total of four weeks. We decided on November 1 as our firm date, but for several reasons (all good reasons) we have now decided to be home over the weekend and leave Monday morning. Then today we received excellent news regarding K's dad - his recently diagnosed cancer is only in one spot and appears to be very treatable! But surgery of some type will be required. We are now waiting to learn the scheduled date. Of course we will need to stay close by during that timeframe. Our trip schedule is certainly a distant second on the priority list behind helping parents who need us. If surgery is within the next two weeks, we stay. If it is later, we go - with plans to fly back for whatever time we are needed.

I have just now received a call from our mechanic - another unavoidable delay installing a new shaft seal. Bless him - he has been working all afternoon and evening trying to get it finished today; but now because of unexpected challenges (none of them major, but all of them burning up time) and because there are people other than me who need a boat mechanic, we will not be able to begin packing and provisioning Senara until Thursday afternoon. That is assuming no more challenges. We have become adept at packing and provisioning (P&P) - in fact we can get it done, including the shopping, in two days if necessary. So maybe if we spend Thursday afternoon doing the final cleanup, then P&P Friday and Saturday, then cut the grass, clean house, and do a final grocery run on Sunday - we could still possibly get underway by Monday morning. Tight. But if we are going, we need to get started southbound very soon before winter catches up.

Events over the next two days will determine whether we stay or go, or possibly get delayed again. So for two more days I will remain scared. Just in time for Halloween.

boarded! .............................. from P

They looked like little kids dressed up as Coast Guard for Halloween. Except they had real guns. There were four of them tooling around in a big orange inflatable Zodiac. Behind them was a huge white Coast Guard Cutter ship, and up in the sky was a white and red chopper hovering! We were under sail, coming around the Monitor-Merrimac Bridge Tunnel, bringing Senara home from the boat yard. I thought to myself - anyone driving across the bridge viewing this scene must think that we are kingpin drug runners. This operation is probably costing taxpayers ten or twenty grand. That made me smile. All just for us! A 60 foot cutter ship, a helicopter, a 4-man boarding crew, wow! The kids dressed in orange came alongside us and announced that they were going to board us. OK - but we are under sail on a broad reach.....not much room to maneuver.......what do you want me to do?! "Sir, maintain your course and speed" they announced. With that, they pushed the rub rail of their Zodiac up against our newly polished hull and two of the kids hopped over the lifelines and onto our boat. The kid in charge asked if I had any weapons aboard, then commenced checking our ID and doing a "routine safety inspection." When they saw K and I smiling while proudly showing them around the boat they relaxed. They really were just kids. One of them had just graduated from the Coast Guard Academy last year. Turns out K had taught one of his classmates in high school. He grew up in eastern Long Island and sailed extensively as a youngster and his mom and dad currently sail on a Hunter 40. They could have easily been one of the many cruising couples we waved to while sailing the Long Island Sound last month. I pulled out our camera, hollered "smile" and snapped a few pictures. Nice kids. Eventually, after looking over our documents, life jackets, fire extinguishers, septic discharge system, flares, and tooting our air horn, they pronounced us safe. Whew! We all shook hands, thanked each other, and said our goodbyes as they jumped back into the Zodiac. K and I just looked at each other with wide smiles as we watched some of America's best (along with the rest of the platoon and air support) head out to find another sailor who might have expired flares.

The other two are already aboard

Steady on the helm ....... there is a white ship with a machine gun following. Cool!

better than new..................from P

My hands told the story. Over the past week I have had to soak them twice in a hot Epson Salts solution with hopes that I could open and close my fingers with less pain the next morning. They looked horrible. I wore latex gloves most of the time, but the fingers still somehow ended up with a semi-permanent blackish stain speckled with stuck drops of hard epoxy with a few dark purple lines betraying open flaps of skin here and there. But the ten hour days in the boatyard plus the cash paid to Capt Fred for his expertise were all worth it. Senara's rudder is better than new! In addition to fixing the rudder, I sanded her bottom (insert joke here) and applied two new coats of ablative bottom paint, plus waxed & buffed the hull while I had the chance. So back in the water she went yesterday! For the record I took pics of the rudder job as it progressed. I think my camera has urethane foam stuck to the button now.

After cutting open the rudder (see previous blog post) we created a "form" from plexiglass and cardboard so we could funnel the liquid down into the rudder and watch it as it reacts and becomes a hard-as-concrete foam compound. The foam expands to 15 times its liquid volume within 40 seconds of mixing it together. You better be ready to pour when you mix it.

A better view of the cardboard "funnel" we built to make the first pour. Capt Fred is in the background.

When you pour these two chemicals together they "take off" into a four-pound per cubic foot dense closed-cell foam that is akin to floating concrete. We had to throw away the bucket shown here. A comedy of errors resulted in a weird looking huge block of foam surrounded by what used to be a blue bucket.

Missing Picture Coming Soon: the hard foam in the rudder with the forms removed.

After Capt Fred shaped the hardened foam with a grinder, we tapered off the edges of the side panel and dry-fitted it back into place, in preparation for setting it into epoxy and fiberglass.

We then wetted the entire backside of the panel with epoxy, stuck it on, and applied two layers of fiberglass & epoxy around the joint.

After curing, it was my job to grind it all down and "fair it out" with a grinder and sander. Nasty job. But it is now smooth and rock solid. Ready for a couple of coats of barrier-coat.

After two coats of barrier-coat, I applied three coats of ablative bottom paint, re-painted the boot-stripe, and voila!

Finally we splash !!!

high, dry, and under repair....from P

I always feel bad for Senara when she is up on the blocks. Kind of like visiting a loved one in the hospital. After our dispute with the sand bar at Ocean City, Senara required some serious invasive surgery in the rudder area (ouch!). The big decision was whether to remove the rudder and possibly replace it, or repair it in place. Removal would involve even deeper surgery including unbolting a steel flange from the keel area astern. The bolts have been sealed against the seawater since 1980 and are still not leaking. The opinions of knowledgeable people ran the gamut from "I would just epoxy the cracks and keep going" to "I would pull out the rudder, remove the flange and all the fittings and rebuild it all." As a big believer in the law of unintended consequences, my opinion did not include a desire to start cracking off 28 year old bolts in the hull that are currently showing no signs of leaking or instability. It looks like Tartan did a pretty good job back there when they built her. So we are repairing the rudder while it hangs in its place. No need to fix what ain't broke.

Capt'n Fred is handling the epoxy & fiberglass work (he also made an appearance very early in this blog site - February/March time frame). We decided to cut a large panel out of the starboard side of the rudder, scoop out the original foam core, repair and reinforce the fiberglass shell from the inside using epoxy, re-core the void using modern closed cell foam, replace the panel, epoxy the gaps, and fair it out. We got lucky. The rudder post is attached to the inside of the rudder by two large stainless steel tangs fiberglassed to the port side. We made our cut on the starboard side. We won the 50/50. So far, so good. The old foam core was saturated with seawater and was supporting a small colony of mussels and barnacles. No telling how many years the rudder had been leaking. We are making an extra effort to glass up all possible weak spots, cracks, and potential leaks. It is a long surgical process and we are not yet ready to pour the foam. But at this point I am feeling very good about the prognosis.

After making the cut and scooping out the old wet foam (left)

after applying the first layer of fiberglass and epoxy to shore up the attachment areas