To see as much of the world as we can,
Using the smallest carbon footprint we can,
Spending the least amount of money we can,
Making as many friends we can.

Team Red Cruising

Bedding

The Whitby sleeps 6 (sometimes 7, depending on your saloon.) It seems like a lot of owners live in the aft cabin, and use the saloon and V-berth for guests.

The aft cabin is designed to have two widely-separated bunks.

A lot of couples sleep athwartship. One person is aft — wedged under the deck — and the other person forward. It can be awkward.

We're opting for sleeping on the isolated sides of the berth. This means CA is building mattress pads for each side.

Sewing Machines
CA's two sewing machines

And the means all the sewing machines are in use. A little tiny thing that barely weighs five pounds and does one kind of stitch. And the SailRite LZ-1 which weighs a ton (45 pounds) and can sew through layers of epoxy-impregnated Dacron.

Since we moved aboard (almost ten years ago) we've always had some kind of bedding in the back. Even when we moved ashore five years ago, we spend weekends on the boat, and left the bedding all setup.

When we moved to Nevada, we stood all the cushions and mattresses on their sides. There was bedding in the aft cabin. And all the fenders. And coils of dock line.

CA in the aft berth
CA in the Empty aft berth

Since CA was building mattress pads, all the bedding was stripped out of the aft cabin. This was odd look, for us, to see nothing there but the cushions.

It was weirdly empty.

I think the last time it was empty was December of 2009.

In this picture, the space behind CA is the shadowy under-deck area where I used to sleep. It's low. And dark.

I did approximately nothing this weekend. I'm — nominally — working on replacing a mast step. Which means unscrewing six Phillips-head screws. It's a brutal slog with penetrating oil, rubber-bands over the top of the Phillips screwdriver, pounding in a square drive bit. Eventually, I have to resort to the Vise-Grip® curved jaw pliers. I'm reluctant, but everything else has failed. I've resorted to shopping rather than panic about the machine screw stuck in the mast.

When I finally get the screws out, the replacement step is aluminum. The mast is aluminum. It seems like four big Avdel AACQ-08-08 Q Rivets would be the right thing to hold the step on. This means buying an F drill bit. What size is F? How the F do I know? It's the size for these rivets. The TiN finish is recommended for a drill bit to cut metal.

(I'd prefer the weatherproof Gesipa RV6601-8-8 rivets, but I'm having trouble buying less than 1,000 of them. I suppose I could buy them and then sell the excess 990 on eBay.)