The Unveiling

6/6/12: This is the first day it hasn't rained since we got here.  Despite the rain, Conrad has been charging around: seeing the boatyard folks, talking to the sailmaker, visiting the local yacht club, checking out chandleries, going to the local Home Depot, Lowe's and Ace Hardware.  He's found out about a bi-weekly newspaper that advertises used tools and other items he might need, and makes phone calls.  And he brought me home a lobster roll for lunch!  I love lobster but have never had a lobster roll - yummy, lobster salad on a soft roll.  We've spotted a guy who sells fresh fish and lobster out of his van on the side of the highway,.  He's there every day, parked in what looks like an emergency stop lane, but I guess it's OK for him to do that here.  We need to see if Phyllis has a big pot to boil lobster in before we buy any.  Life is so tough here in Maine....


The Flussmaus Unveiled

Today the boat yard removes the cover from our boat and I get to see what she looks like unveiled.  The boat is white fiberglass and I will be painting the hull blue with a black stripe between the white and the blue.  We climb up a 12-foot ladder Conrad bought to get aboard - it will be a lot easier once she's in the water, Conrad assures me.

Conrad in our stateroom.  Head (bathroom) unseen to left; forward stateroom behind him.

The inside of the boat is filled with light, unusual for a sailboat (in my limited experience), but the Flussmaus has an upper cabin with windows all around it, and a skylight.  All that light filters into our "stateroom" (seems like an odd thing to call a tiny room that is all bed) that is a step down from the upper cabin.  The triangular-shaped, forward stateroom (bed) in the bow of the boat, which you can see behind Conrad in the photo, has a skylight.  The cabins are small, but, hey, we lived in a campervan in Australia for four and a half months.  This is way bigger!  The cushions and curtains are still in decent shape and are a jaunty multi-colored stripe that you can see behind Conrad in the photo.

There's not much woodwork on the exterior of the boat: the "bump bar" that runs around the outside needs sanding and varnishing, as does the bench-seating in the cockpit, but that's all.  The interior is another matter.  The woodwork in the galley all needs to be sanded, and then painted or varnished; the rest of the interior wood isn't too bad, although we should redo it eventually. 

 

Me Sitting at the Table; Galley to Immediate Right, Steering Station in Right Foreground

Will I ever be able to do this?

The hull painting and the woodwork will be my tasks, while Conrad works on the engine and modifies it from raw water (salt water) cooling to closed water (fresh water) cooling so he can install a system to heat water and heat the cabins.  But, first we have to send samples of the engine oil and the transmission oil out for analysis.  They test to see if any heavy metals are in the oils, and if so, what kind/s.  Conrad will be able to tell what's wrong and where the problem is by which metals are present in the samples - none, we hope.  He's ordered a compost toilet, which looks way easier for us landlubbers to use than a marine toilet, and is adding an additional water tank where the holding tank for the marine toilet currently is.

He needs to hook up the radar and see if it works.  He's bought an auxiliary antenna and plans to buy a dedicated GPS system, since our laptop has not been reliable enough to use for that purpose.  (Even I can understand that it wouldn't be great to have to shut down and reboot the computer in the middle of heavy seas or a storm!).  He is also going to rig the boat for single handling, which means he can sail it by himself if need-be.