I finally FINALLY have a new new keyboard for my crappylappy (thanks Mom!), with the letter UUUUUUUU!! as well as the various other buttons lacking on the CL. It’s a Targus rollable rubber membrane ‘board; still getting used to the key action, but dang it seems otherwise boat-perfect.
On the boat itself lately, well, hmmm. So crazy busy with client boats right now (worked through last weekend, and will through this one too) that I’ve had precious little time for Centaurea. At least all the hours piling up will help with the expenses!
Prior to this last crazy week, I’ve gotten past/over/through/beyond a handful of key obtacles on the boat. Chiefly, not only is the engine in, but the new shaft, flange, and coupling are installed, aligned, and secured. Also, the much-modified new-old-new boomkin is once again back on the boat, this time sporting a Sturdy Mount for the Aries. Go Aries! Now the only things that stand between me and floating are: paint (again again! AGAIN! When will it end!?), ie., the bootstripe, a section of topsides at the stb bow, and then the primer(s) and anti-fouling on the bottom. Oh, and the other obstacle; my psychoholic boss, whose erratic and sparking craziness always threatens to throw last-minute tangles into the mix.
The rigging has been going together really well. I have now just the upper shrouds and backstay to build. The uppers are straight-forward, but I’m having yet further internal debates over the arrangement of the backstay. I’d like to have an adjustable backstay rig, but the two usual turnbuckle-replacement options are too expensive, and a split backstay adjuster is a bit of a step backwards. The other option is a (rather too complicated an not exactly cheap either, although cheaper) cascaded direct purchase… I fear that the rig will be installed with a limp and hanging over-length backstay, with me still undecided.
The other major bits to do now are: install the last of the exhaust plumbing, including a water-injection fitting, find and install a new engine heat exchanger (ouch), and install the engine controls and cables. Still many other smaller bits to take care of, but the engine bits and rigging will make me pretty autonomous, even if not ready for offshore workouts.
A couple of good friends here have just bought their own First Real Boat, which they are likewise readying for an imminent launch. The pace and excitement of their preparations largely mirrors my own, excepting that they are working over a proven boat to simply float around the local waters, whereas I am prepping a long-since-decommissioned craft for a month of North Atlantic spring! Ah well, no frets, no fears; even the usually naysaying wags gruffly oblige that Centaurea is far more than up to the task.
February 28, 2008
gadgets and progress
February 22, 2008
what my senses find and report to my mind is the grossest freedom of the press
Earlier that day, that sore-shoulder day, while we sat together under the umbrella, through rain and sun showers, you with your breakfast and I with my expectations, that day I looked right at you, right at you, and had my longings batted away.
We were discussing music, or more correctly, you were waxing with passion, and all of a sudden, I just saw, just saw, and you were so beautiful, swimming in life and love and energy, careless and thoughtless of any other moment except that very one, and I sighed inwardly, rested chin on hand, and let my own awe wash over me.
I must have had some beautific look upon my face, but you, so blessedly mindless and free of me, saw only another weird look, and laughingly accused me of not taking your words seriously. I probably wasn’t taking your words, in any fashion at all. I was somewhere else; right there, free of thought. Just so happy to find myself in the circle of your own joyful moment.
These days, I’m still not so certain that Love isn’t a myth spread by the greeting card industry. Maybe I’ve just lost hold of it, or have never really grasped it all. Or maybe, just maybe, Love flits right past my nose, is wafted on the air, is etherial, ether itself, an essence that fills me without my ever knowing.
And on that morning, you never saw it either. Oh, you saw something, read or mis-read it according to whatever synaethestic custom found you in that moment, but with a simple single laugh and wrinkle of brow, blew the ether away from me, and returned us to our entry into the sore-shouldered day.
January 31, 2008
plonk & meh
Last Saturday morning, I rounded up some helpers, and put the engine in the boat. I was running the crane, unable to really see what was going on, but everything came together well enough, with only minor cockpit damage.
Saturday afternoon, I hitched a ride over to Norman Island to spend the rest of the weekend with friends on their boat. It was a nice time, with much-needed socializing, and a great hike along the ridge of the island. All the while, however, I was consumed with guilt over not being back at the yard, either working on my boat, or working for money. Besides the deep and dreadful amount of cynicism I’m exuding lately, now on top of it comes this wacky belated guilty work-ethic.
So… there I am, surrounded by some of the best friends I’ve met here, and loathing it, loathing myself, completely unable to really relax. I’m poor company when I’m this pensive, I know…
At any rate, Monday morning saw me headed back into the harbour, and by that evening I’d scored a victory in Round One of The Battle with my Engine Mounts.
Anyways, the engine is in, and bit by bit (read: stolen moment by stolen moment in between “real” work) I’m getting the engine coarsely aligned. Of course, along with any sense of progress must come an equal and opposite disaster; this IS the islands, after all: my engine heat exchanger has been discovered to be blown out, necessitating an expensive replacement (50% of what I paid for the whole engine in the first place)…
Overall, I feel like I’m making real significant daily forward progress… but at what cost to my soul?
December 4, 2007
Suzuki sailboat
I installed my new mainsheet traveler today. It came from the same sorce as that awesome pair of crazy-cheap winches; superseded J-120 raceboat eqipment. It’s almost comicly large, sper heavy kit, bt it looks great in the cockpit! Abot the only thing worse than no traveler at all is a crappy failing ndersized traveler, and this one is none of that. It’s a Harken “Big Boat” unit, sized for “50′ to 70′ boats”; definitely overkill.
I need to make up some end-controls yet, as it came without. In lieu of on-track controls, I’m going with off-track ones to get maximum travel. This meant I needed some sort of end-stop to keep the car from sliding right to the end of the track and spitting bearings everywhere. It took me a bit of head-scratching to come up with something…
In the end, I went with a pair of Suzuki Samurai front leaf-spring bushings, mounted with 3/8″ bolts through stainless compression posts. Chris and Cory would be proud…
