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| What a Crazy amount of Parts and Boat Preparation at the beginning of the season |
Those that know me know that I am the ultimate
do-it-yourself person. I truly believe that there is not a single thing that I
cannot fix. I have rebuilt my Mercedes, completely restored our sailboat
Scarlet, replaced the ball-joints on our F250, rebuilt Rhett’s engine twice, as
well as laid floor, built bathrooms, electrical systems … you name it I can do
it.
That said, I do have a fairly low threshold for some types
of work and I have developed a very low threshold of tolerance for equipment
that is not reliable.
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| Glad I didn't need to lug this tonne of chain to the boat! |
This year the two big things we replaced on the boat were the
batteries (they were 4 years old and not charging fast anymore), and our anchor
chain that had become very rusty and littered the deck with rust every time we
retrieved it.
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| Nearly there, on the travelift at Cleopatra |
The best thing about buying stuff at Cleopatra – let me
assure that it is not the price, is that they deliver it to you at the boat.
Each of Tara’s batteries weigh about 100#. The guys from Cleopatra showed up
with a forklift that was tall enough to lift the batteries to the side of the
boat. This saved us a huge amount of pain and suffering .. easily worth the
60-100Euros I could have saved by lugging the batteries from a store … across
the street into the dinghy … into the dinghy … out of the dinghy onto the back
of the boat … and then removing the old ones.
Here is a list of things that I will and will not do on the
boat:
Will Do
|
Won’t Do
|
Anything on the engine
|
Polish the hull (takes 3 days with poor results) and is
poisonous to breathe
|
Anything electrical
|
Paint the bottom (Poison)
|
Anything fiberglass
|
Fix anything to do with a Toilet – we just replace this
stuff (Poison)
|
Varnish or woodwork
|
Fix anything with Gas (Ka-Boom). This is new
|
Canvas or Sails – (Poor results)
|
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| So Great when you're finally in the water |
