Yesterday I cleaned out the garage, otherwise known as the dock box, repository of power tools, cans of paint, Deks Olje, Acetone, an electrical extension cord, sandpaper, a never used electric heater, various cleaning supplies, etc.
I moved a little of this aboard and stowed it under the v-berth; some I gave away; some I threw away.
Then I moved the two clothes duffle bags—one with port clothes, one with passage clothes and foul weather gear—off the starboard pipe berth and moved my sleeping bag and pillow there, where I will sleep from now on. This is GANNET’s passage mode.
Finally I took everything loose and put it in the duffle bags I had shipped from Campmor with the freeze dry food, and placed them on the v-berth.
This is by no means a permanent arrangement. What I need at hand at sea varies significantly from what I need in port. I described CHIDIOCK TICHBORNE as a self-simplifying boat. Thanks in part to a knockdown about two weeks out, she had much less on her when she reached Nuku Hiva at the end of her first passage than she did when we left San Diego. And progressively less as we continued on. I am certain GANNET will be the same.
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I have not been cute for a long time. Not as those of you who have read THE OPEN BOAT know—and if you haven’t, it is inexplicable why someone with your intelligence and discernment has denied him or herself that pleasure—since I owned CHIDIOCK TICHBORNE. But I am again; at least by association. I was sitting in the Great Cabin Saturday morning when I heard a woman say, “What a cute little sailboat.” There can be no doubt to which fine vessel she was referring.
Cute at 72: a crowning, or clowning, achievement.
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After applying a coat of Deks Olje to GANNET’s interior wood—the only exterior wood is the tiller which already has well over a dozen coats—I mustered the courage to test the rebedded forward hatch for leaks. I hosed it down thoroughly, concentrating on the trailing edge. When I went down below: no drips.
