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Sunday July 28, 2019 subscribe |
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reading survival literature taught me liferafts and the like will develop food chains on their undersides--plant growth attracts herbivores which draw carnivores and so on up the line. it's how many ship- wrecked sailors survived, provided they lasted long enough for an ecosystem to develop. my san juan 24 wasn't exactly derelict when i bought it but it was close enough--eight years in lake washington without being hauled out for the usual hull maintenance. add three more since i got it and you can bet there's a lush greenscape underneath. so today's mission was to motor out and swim under it with torn black socks on our hands to scrub off the accumulation. the visibility was better than i ex- pected but the superfluity of motorboat wakes made it a little hairy as the keel and rudder have sharp tapering edges and the hull itself is enough to crack your skull as it lurches up and down. sarah, matt, and i accomplished the task without mishap. it's still a long way from perfect but GG was handling better already. we even hoisted the main for a spell but the wind was too weak. but it was worthwhile to find a couple more hardware tweaks that need to be made. a bottomless bucket of items to fix might make boat ownership less appealing to some but i guess that's just part of the trip. |
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