Norfolk, VA
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.
Over Thanksgiving we landed a great resource: boxes of Rhodesian teak that CA's grandfather, CA, bought sometime before she was born. Yes. We now have the family heirloom 50-year-old teak from a country formerly known as "Rhodesia". And yes, CAB has the same initials as her grandfather, CAB.
I used …
We never used the Crosby refrigerator on Red Ranger. Why? We never seemed to need it.
The Crosby was a classic piece of ultra-heavy-duty gear. Red Ranger has an 8 cu. ft. fridge enclosure and an immense 6 cu. ft. freezer section. (Compare with this; what would you do with …
We're slowly replacing the old incandescent lighting with more efficient LED lighting. Two dead fluorescent fixtures were replaced with Aqua Signal "Maputo" lights. They look like fluorescent fixtures, but they're really just long strings of LED's.
The nearly useless light over the galley sink will be replaced with a light …
Back in October ("Plastics vs. Brightwork") I started removing the toe-stubbing teak from around the aft deck lockers. Hurricane Irene indicated that it may be part of the leak into the aft cabin. After busting up the wood, we had to fill all 56 screw holes with epoxy.
Then wait …
One of the great gifts from our kids was good reading material for the boat. The Oxford Press Very Short Introduction books are a delight. Well written. Small format. Another great gift was a West Marine gift card, good for lots of boat goodies. (There were more... magazines, coffee, tea …
Above: teak from the starboard ("hazmat") deck locker next to the port ("propane") locker. The blue tape hides 28 screw holes. Which is better? The no-teak look? The teak frame?
Back in March (Befores and Afters) we pulled a plug of soft adhesive out of a significant hole in the …
That's Aluminum Chloride (AlCl3) from our water tank. In addition, there was sand. We had noticed the particulate in our drinking water, so we knew the tank needed to be cleaned.
The good news is that we have to gloriously large inspection ports , making cleaning possible. The ancient gaskets had …
It's that time of year. Folks are getting ready to head south. Last year at this time, we were Done Fooling Around, and had started planning to take Red Ranger to the Whitby-Brewer Rendezvous. Ultimately, that didn't work out (Sweaty Palms -- Best Laid Plans, and Gang aft agley.) We were …
Cindy Ann (Red Ranger), Jen (Red Ranger), Sue (Liquid Therapy), Steve (Red Ranger), Stanley (Green Eyes) and George (Grace). Yes, it was rainy. We're all boaters, we all have pretty good foulies. In a variety of colors, it appears.
The crabs were delightful. There were lessons learned on the sudden …
As a Birthday celebration, we went to Chef Todd's with Lloyd, Barbara (SolMates) and Dave (Fawkes). Chocolate Torte Cake! Dinner with friends. Joy.
Now for the concerns. On Friday, the house battery voltage was 10V. 10V is—effectively—stone dead. A level of discharge from which batteries rarely recover.
On …
Labor Day means—what?—end of summer? Party? Labor? We did some labor. But that's not what's important.
On the party front, Red Ranger's crew is still in recovery mode. Saturday night it was beer, wine and snackies on Fawkes. Sunday afternoon it was Bloody Mary's at The White …
Early last summer it become clear to us that clear hatches and no breeze in Jackson Creek made Red Ranger into a fiberglass oven. We're not replacing the clear hatches with smoked polycarbonate any time soon. What to do?
We want a lot of airflow; this means we have to …
How broken is "broken"?
Clearly, if it doesn't work, that's one thing. But what if it's hardly ever used or you can live without it? What it you have a work-around? What if it's largely cosmetic? What if it's just a lack of confidence?
A very, very important thing on …
It's embarrassing but true: Red Ranger's electrical system has been an opaque mystery. Yes, I have done electrical work (i.e. add battery fuses and rearrange the grounding) but there's a difference between a pile of parts and an integrated whole. I was mired in "crap-load of components" mode …
Minor: Replaced the old Merriman blocks on the mizzen with nice, new Garhauer blocks. They have so little friction that I think I need to add some friction via a ratchet block or cam cleats.
Major: A bunch of Whitby folks had a clinic in diesel engine maintenance. Akula III …
Just put in a nice, new Dometic/Mach 500GPH pump.
Here's the rusty old pump. This was removed back on Valentine's Day. We haven't really needed the air conditioner yet.
No reason to replace anything that doesn't need replacing. Now that summer's almost here, it finally needs replacing.
Unlike the …
Our first Mother's Day treat was a big breakfast in the picnic porch with the crew of Fawkes and Sea Turtle. Pancakes. Waffles. Syrup. Strawberries. Coffee. And some post-breakfast yarning about boats, sailing and life afloat. Important lesson: it's okay to motor-tack your big old ketch in light airs. Also …
As they say, "any friend will help you move, a true friend will help you move a body." After the tornado ripped through Deltaville, we know who our true friends are. We learned how well-built our boat is. And we learned some new skills.
Winds were powerful. Red Ranger was …
An important annual ritual is rig inspection. There are a number of good sailboat rig inspection checklists. We had two purposes this year. First, the normal "ounce of prevention", but an important second was finding the source of bits of plastic that had rained down on the deck.
Every sailor …
Cindy Ann is putting coat hooks in a number of the hanging lockers. And she's also putting them under the companionway ladders. You can't have too many hooks. Red Ranger has a great foul-weather gear locker just under the companion-way steps. But without hooks, you have to figure out how …