Our insurance requires a survey every five years. We contacted John L. Schnoering. Traditional Yacht Surveyors, in Deltaville, and got a detailed list of what's right and what's wrong with Red Ranger.

The "red flag" item on Red Ranger? What's the single most dangerous thing that must be fixed? We'll get to that.

John noted the "bang rail problem."

In the middle of this picture you can almost see a string on the left-hand boat. A string that ties a flap of steel to the shrouds. An awkward piece of string. A piece of string that hints at bigger damage and bugger problems in boat handling.

I (still!) need to take a picture that shows how elegantly the carpenters repaired that damage and reinstalled that flap of steel.

Notice, also, that the fenders on the right-hand boat are sparkly white? We've fixed that problem, too. More of our fenders are now sparkly white.

This weekend, we bent on the mizzen sail. Not a big thing, but important at the start of the season. CA's still not up to any heavy lifting, so the Yankee and Stays'l haven't been bent on yet.

On the end of Red Ranger, in addition to the mizzen, you can see three yellow jerry-jugs. We carry a total of five 6-gallon jugs of spare diesel. 30 gallons should get us about 150 nm. It's our emergency bail-out fuel.

I never took a picture of the gray pad that we had them sitting on.

For a while, they sat directly on deck. But the rocking of the boat meant that the jugs were slowly wearing away the gelcoat. CA found this thick closed-cell pad material somewhere and we sliced it up to make elegant pads for the jugs. The pad traps dirt, but you can shake it out and it's dry.

I decided to replace it with sparkly white "Dri-Dek" panels. It looks so much nicer. The pad was free. The Dri-Dek is not quite so free. But it now looks nicer. And it should not trap as much dirt and pollen as the pads did.

Oh. The red flag safety issue? Flares. Technically, Visual Distress Signals. Your basic flares are only good for about 42 months (3 ½ years.) You must have flares on board which are less than three years old. A quick trip to West Marine and the serious red-flag issue is closed.

Flares. ✅ Done. Rail. ✅ Done.

Next up: two drain hoses that are nearing the end of their lives. One electrical wiring short-cut that needs to be corrected.

The main and mizzen sails need to be looked at with an eye toward repair or replace. We're going to wait until November for that. We can strike the sails and leave them at Latell Sails for the winter.

And. I really want an asymmetric spinnaker. But that's an upgrade, above and beyond the minimum required for safe operation and maintenance of value.