We are planning to sail to the South Pacific in March or April and there are a number of boat projects that are needed to make that happen. First, we needed a haul-out to repaint the bottom and do some work on the engine saildrives.
The big travel lift plucked Calista from the water and gently set her down in the yard, among many other boats. The haul-out projects went well and we went back in the water a day early! 🙂
During the haul-out, I stayed at the La Cruz Inn. It worked out very well, being in a great location near the marina and ship yard and having everything I needed.
With Calista back in the water and me on board again, I did some testing of the batteries and found that two of the four LiFePO batteries had died! They cost over $3k each, but luckily they are under warranty. I am still working out the details but it looks like transport and customs will cost us over $1k shipping the dead ones back to Relion, the manufacturer, and another $1k shipping the new batteries to the boat. Ouch! for both the cost and the hassels.
Other projects include buying four new solar panels, getting cracks in the gel coat fixed, and improving the way the sheet (line controlling a sail) is handled for our downwind sails (Code0 and asym spinnaker).
While working on these, I took some time out to crew on Swiftsure, a 63 ft monohull, in the Banderas Bay Blast race.
This is a large and fast boat, well setup for racing. It was the first time I have used ‘grinders’ on a boat, after seeing them in all the big boat race videos. You can see one here, left of center, the white pedestal with the grinding handles. Yes, it really is as exhausting as it looks in the race videos! But we had a lot of fun, did OK in the race, and raised a lot of money for the local elementary school in La Cruz!
Then Dec16, back to the airport and San Diego for Christmas and New Years!