Mark is Back

Mark is back from his short trip up to Alaska.  He was in Ketchikan, Valdez, Cordova (twice) and Seward but never got off of the tug and barge after joining in Ketchikan.  It was a very busy and quick trip.  He was impressed with the power in this very old tug named the Clayton Arthur.  At a 126 feet it was the biggest he had ever worked on.  

He returned on Tuesday afternoon on the Edmonds to Kingston ferry and Pauline drove down to Kingston to pick him up.  On the way back to the boat we picked up the forestay from the rigger.

He was getting reading to go up the mast when he realized the clevis pin was too short.  A quick trip back to the rigger to get a longer one.  Once that was up, we tried to install the bottom end onto the new Cranse Iron but it didn’t fit.  The rigger had replaced the bottom end of the turnbuckle and it had a slightly larger width on the tang.  As the old turnbuckle bottom had some corrosion around the pin the rigger felt it was better to modify the new rather than put back the old.  So off they went to do that.  At any rate we were beginning to worry this project was jinxed and we were worried that there were still two major things that could go wrong.  One, the stay didn’t fit and two, that the new fittings would have taken up too much wire and we would need to modify our roller furler.  However, we are happy to report that both fears were not needed and the forestay and furler are installed.  Today we will attack replacing the voltage regulator that blew up on us before Port Protection and took out some of the engine’s electronics.  If that all goes well,  wrap the new exhaust mixer riser with cladding tomorrow.

One other thing that has been going on in the background is, we have met up with Lang and Douglas, sailors from Singapore that we met in Singapore.  They had their boat shipped over here from Japan.  They have been showing us some of the local attractions in between all of our projects.  Also in an unexpected opportunity, she let us know she has a printer that can print boat decals. So we settled on a font and got some printed up.  Mark is chomping at the bit to strip and revarnish the two foreward nameplates and tidy up the port of call one.  Not sure if that will happen while we are still in Port Townsend but will be done pretty soon and we will post pics.  Thanks Lang!!!