Last night was my last night on Inspiration until next spring.  There was a North wind and the temperature was 35 degrees F.  In the morning the frost on the boat was very heavy.  I awoke about 6:40 AM, ate breakfast and put everything on the dock that I wanted to take home this trip.  The truck & trailer with my new 16.5 kayak was stored in the heated building so it was nice to put the things away in the vehicle.

The Saqugatuck Marine people arrived at o730 and we started.  By 1100 hrs it was out and ready for power washing.  I use VC17 so the washing was a snap and the moved it into the heated storage building to a temporary position.

As they were removing the dolly’s and putting the corner boxes there was a very loud bang and one of the wood supports for my cradle broke.  Luckily there was a box under both corners and no trauma resulted.  However, where do you find a 2″x6″x14′ solid oak board to replace the broken one?  I called around and located a rough cut 2x12x14′ board we can rip into two pieces.  Now I have to get up early and run to Charlotte, MI buy the lumber and then deliver it to the marina.  I figure this is cheaper than the solution that they would come up with.  The board is $62 ripped so the price is not too bad per board ft (about $0.50 per bd ft).  The high $ item will be gasoline running around and labor to install the board as it is inside one of their facilities and employees have to do the work at $75 per hour.

I’ll let you know tomorrow what transpires.  Oh yes,  I have to stop by the local hardware and get new bolts, nuts , washers and some 2′ all thread 1/2″ rod (in case we have to make a custom something).

Tomorrow I will travel to Saugatuck and over-night on Inspiration for the last time this season.  She is to be hauled first thing on Wednesday morning.  In between all this goings on I have to get the oil changed.  I’ll let the engine cool down for an hour or so before extracting the old oil.  Actually, I probably would not even need to change it as there is about 10 hours on the engine this season.  However, I will change it so it will be crystal clear for spring.

On the 19th we removed all the bedding and cleaned out the refridgerator.  Also, we dismounted the dingy and colapssed the davits.  The dingy is upsided down on the fore deck – we moved it with the topping lift halyard and switched over to the jib halyard as it moved from aft to forward – and all went nicely.  When we left the marina the car was totally full of “things”.

On the way back to Indiana we took a long detour to Grand Rapids to look at a kayak (a Perception Shadow).  It was a little tight for me with the size 11 shoes but SAM said it fit the size 9′s OK.  Anyway we put a down payment on it and I will return tomorrow to pick it up.  It is a pretty clean 16.5′ sea kayak.  We will see how SAM handles it as it is narrow and has a shallow V bottom – it will be tippy.  Several other pieces of gear will come with it but they are mostly worthless to us.

I came up to the boat on Wednesday and installed the Remote Panel for the PathMaker 200 combiner.  Now I will not have to manually switch from start battery to Both for charging.  When on Shore Power the combiner is activated so all 5 batteries are in parallel.  If the combined battery voltage drops below 13.1 VDC the combiner seperates ths start and house batteries.  When the boat engine starts the alternator will bring the batteries up past 13 .4 VDC and the combiner connets the house and start batteries.  If you are using a wind generator and/or solar panels and the battery voltage goes above 15.0 VDC the combiner also kicks out seperating the hosue and start batteries.  I bought it off of eBay for a very low price with Remote Indicator.

Today I awaited SAM’s arrival but vehicle trouble resulted in a wasted day.  Tomorrow we will take the sails down for the season.  We will probably come up on the weekends until haul out but will have to motor only.

We too a long beach walk with friends and then went to dinner.  Weather was perfect and seas almost perfectly flat but there was no wind .  Not one sailbat was out.