It’s the time of the year when the weather changes, the lawn and yard start to come alive…and boats need work, too! We, no I, admit they we have take on too many projects at once.
Matt’s Eagle Project
Matt has been a Life Scout for a couple of years, and his interest in Scouts has slowed down naturally as he has aged. His friend, Keval, recently completed his Eagle project, and this has influenced Matt to also take that next step in his Scouting career. Matt has been working with the Mountain Lakes Woodlands Committee members since November 2020 to scope the project which is a trailblazing of an existing and underutilized trail off of Boulevard.
This has been quite an experience for Matt not only related to how to lead a project but also in the ways to influence multiple and complex stakeholders. His project got attention as he presented it at the Woodlands Committee meeting in March and got surprised in a public lack of support for the scope. This situation was brought forward to the Borough Council Meeting (unbeknownced to him) on March 22. Through extra hard effort, he modified his scope and received beneificiary approval. His project is going to be presented for approval at our Borough Council Meeting on April 12.
New Flooring
We put down 3-1/4″ quarter-sawn white oak on an angle with a thick border containing a 1″ strip of Peruvian walnut. It went right over top of the original checkerboard and hand-laid 1” wide chestnut floor. We have to move furniture out and back. We have to disconnect radiators, raise the pipes and then reset the radiators (100+ year old house). And we didn’t even put in the floor ourselves.
Michael is Going to College this Fall
Michael made a decision to go to the University of Utah for college. He fasted and prayed to make a decision since he had narrowed his decision down to Purdue and University of Utah; we as a family did this also with him. He came out of his room on a Saturday afternoon before the fast and told us he decided to go to University of Utah. We were really happy for him, because we think the location and school are a good fit for him. He really likes hiking, mountains, desert/terrain — and he will be in heaven there. They also have a Overwatch team which would love to have him on the team. Amazingly, after he fasted and prayed about this decision, the next day he saw an email from the school stating that they had unexpectedly granted him a merit scholarship.
Sunfish Sailboat
This is a 1983 AMF Sunfish sailboat that washed up on a neighbors beach and he gave it to us for free. It was soaked due to many small cracks and holes in the hull and topsides as well as an incomplete fiberglass patch applied to the hull years ago. The coaming was cracked in half. The edge was partially gone and damaged. This required some fiberglass work, a lot of epoxy and fairing, and then a bottom and top coat from my (now) favorite paint company, George Kirby Jr. Paint Company. This is Medium Blue topsides with Maynard Bray Off White hull, cabin, coaming and stripes. Finished this month.
Catalina 34 has sold
We reached an agreement to sell this boat, and so we had to get all of the projects done and ready for survey and sea trial. This included sanding and then putting on two coats of bottom paint (Pettit Hydrocoat Blue), installing the headsail on the furler, installing the new mainsail cover and mailsail, starting up the engine (first time no issues), flushing and filling the water tanks, replacing the steaming and deck light fixture and bulbs, and general cleaning.
Hallberg-Rassy situation
The Hallberg-Rassy 46 needs a plan for purchase and then executed from 4 hrs away influencing already double booked people to help out. So there is a lot of coordination amongst everyone involved. There ar many unknowns related to: Mechanical survey of the engine and generator, move of the boat to the haulout marina, haulout timing, bottom paint, re-launch, sea trial, and then post sea trial dock/mooring/anchor location. Our mechanical surveyor got COVID just before they were to do their work on this boat; he ended up in the hospital that weekend!
There are so many other things going on with all but one of the cars gets some sort of work on them, the snow has melted so we’re cleaning up the yard, Audrey is busy with violin and friends, and Aaron is involved in Scouts.
The Loxodograph 