Chapter 44: Road Trip!

We had a little time off Meraviglia this week to travel to Atlanta. As many of you know, Nick LOVES soccer and has been enjoying playing with a variety of teams since he has been In Atlanta. Unfortunately, he tore his ACL which required surgical repair last Friday. An unexpected benefit of our extended timeline in Brunswick meant we could travel to Atlanta to be there for Nick’s surgery. While the surgery day was a lot longer than anticipated (7am to 3pm!), Nick did great and was able to be up and at his team’s soccer game 48 hours after surgery! He still has a lengthy road of physical therapy ahead but we are so thankful his surgery went well and we were able to be there.
It was great to have a little break from boat work but we are back at it this week before we head out to Annapolis for Cruisers University next week. We started the week with a review of the project list for Meraviglia. It has been a week for some smaller (but messy) projects. The bilge runs the length of the boat and is where any water collects and runs out of the boat. It has multiple pumps which are crucial to ensuring any water can get pumped out. The bilge tends to get dirty (especially with all the refit work we are doing) and requires routine cleaning (which, of course, had never been done) so that was a big project on Monday. That then led us to realize not all of our bilge pumps were working correctly and our whale gusher (think manual pump) was not working efficiently. So apart came the whale gusher and new parts installed which of course led us to realizing we needed some new hoses. Thank goodness for google and you tube- they are definitely helpful in learning how to troubleshoot some of these issues!
As Bob shared last week, we had a tear in our Mack Pack (mainsail cover) when it got caught on our solar frame while sailing. So this week Bob repaired that – thank goodness one of us can sew, especially since he completed this repair while sitting on the boom! We are very fortunate that one of our dock neighbors owns a great shop called @Off Season Canvas and helped us with our canvas needs. We also had to solve the issue with the boom coming down on the solar frame and bimini when the topping lift is released. It turns out that our mainsail was not going up to the top of the mast so we raised the attachment point of the foot of the mainsail which allowed the clearance needed. We also learned that the main sail is not appropriately sized but that will be an issue for the future!
We also selected and ordered some needed supplies this week. We ordered our jacklines and tethers. A jackline is webbing strung from a ship’s bow to stern to which a safety harness can be tethered, allowing a crewmember to move about the deck safely when there is risk of falling or being swept overboard. These are especially important in heavy weather but will also be used for night sailing. We also ordered bluetooth headsets or as some fondly call “marriage savers”! When docking or anchoring, we will use these to communicate with one another with one person at the helm and one person up on the bow of the boat. You can use hand signals(or yelling 🙂) but with such great technology available – headsets seem much more practical!

We did extend our reservation at the marina this week as I learned last week that I need to have surgery on my hand for carpal tunnel. So now we are 3 out of 4 Stephens needing surgery in the last 3 months- please be careful Katharine!!! Once I meet with the hand surgeon and have a surgery date we will have a better idea of how this will impact our ability to leave Brunswick. Fingers crossed for a quick surgery date and speedy recovery! Gotta love boat work!!