The Commodore Says "Anything worth doing is worth overdoing." Actually, she never said that. However, it still seems to be true.

This weekend, we did a bunch of small repairs using only tools and parts that were already on the boat. We've turned some kind of corner where we can do some stuff without any bonus trips to West Marine or Hurd's Ace Hardware store.

More importantly, we enjoyed some party time with Sapphire, Euphoria, Serenade and Green Eyes. And we crashed the Beneteau Rendezvous to dance and sign along with Jumbo Lump Daddy and the Backfin Boys. Annapolis Yacht Sales South throws a heckuva party. And they're polite about letting the riff-raff in—as long as we bring our own beer—which we did.

We tried not to overdo it. But we were still going strong after the band started to pack up.

"Everybody Drive Safely," the guitar player said, as part of the standard band farewell.

"It's more of a ‘walk safely and don't fall in the creek,'" the riff-raff corrected.

Repairs

One of the screw-on covers for the shore power connectors fell off. A little work with the pop-rivet tool squared that away. It took longer to figure out where I hid the pop rivets than it did to make the repair. What did we overdo? Maybe we've overdone the organization (and stowage) of the endless varieties of fasters that hold a boat together.

One of the drawers fell apart. It's the kind of thing that can be repaired with ordinary wood glue. Or with Gorilla Glue and four wood-screws just to be sure. That's overdoing it.

We missed a hellacious rain-storm during the week. Grayson (of Puff) said the rain was "like BB's". He had stuff leak that had never leaked before.

We had two leaks. Something in the forward head had dripped down the bulkhead wall. This is going to be a long-standing mystery leak because it clearly stems from the new stays'l tracks, but there's no obvious culprit; no weeping screw on the starboard side ("Custom Tailoring 3—We Have A Weeper".)

A leak in the aft head had dripped right into the TP storage. That water appeared to come straight through one of the chainplate openings in the deck. And that chainplate opening had previously been repaired with what appears to be silicone bathtub caulk. The former caulk was dry, dusty and shrunken.

Both leaks were addressed with the BoatLife Life Caulk polysulfide already on board. Lavish amounts of caulk. Squired in with a caulk gun. Hopefully, we've overdone it and the problems are solved. But we won't know until another hellacious downpour.

Holding Tank Vent

Indefatigable had suffered a stinky failure in their holding tank vent area. If you overfill your tank, then you wind up with "holding tank contents" (i.e., poop) pushed down the vent line. This can dry out and plug the line. Or corrode your vent fitting on the transom. Or both.

What you might observe is difficulty pumping out. And (possibly) cracking your tank from the suction of the pump-out machine. Or, you might have the powerful funk of holding tank (i.e., poop) lingering in your aft berth.

During pumpouts, when I would remove the pump fitting from our tank outlet, I could hear air rushing back into the tank. Like the tank was breathing in. Not a good thing to hear. We don't pump out often, so it had been a "fix later, let's go sailing" sort of thing.

Until Indefatigable's story of vent line woes. And a weekend without any major projects.

We took our vent hose apart, picked out the caked-on, dried "holding tank contents" (i.e., poop) and used the dinghy pump to push air back through into the holding tank.

It seems to be clear. But we haven't used it since last August, so there's no easy way to test without spending a week or so living aboard while pottering around the Chesapeake.

One good week calls for another. Since anything worth doing is worth overdoing, we really need to spend a month or so on testing out the holding tank.

Sigh.