Instead of rushing off today, we decided to stay another day here at Summerfield, getting the boat ready for an early departure tomorrow. Now it looks like it’ll be more than a day, though.
We spent all day today cleaning up the boat, lashing down various things on deck, and stowing everything that’s been lying around in the salon. All in all it was very satisfying, seeing the boat looking more like a boat and less like a construction site.
As the day came to a close, Valerie decided to do a routine check of the rigging. Lo and behold, she found cracks in the staysail and headstay deck fittings, so we decided we’d better get them fixed before heading out to the big blue ocean. Fortunately, the staysail fitting was pretty easy to fix: our buddy Larry ground out the cracks and, finding the core of the fitting to be in good condition, built up some welding where the cracks had been.
The headstay fitting is not going to be so easy, though. It’s set into the deck underneath the two bow rollers where the anchors are housed, so to fix it we’ll have to remove at least one of the bow rollers. Since the weather’s not looking too hospitable for a Gulf Stream crossing, we decided to stay here at Summerfield and make sure the headstay fitting is fixed properly.
I swear we’ll get out of here eventually!