Productive Day

New Stern Setup

LPG Cylinder Tucked in with Ladder

Position of Pachuca in middle of circle

My big concern when I woke up this morning was access to the internet.  I had managed to connect on my first attempt with the Toshiba Windows 7 laptop but after 90 minutes the connection dropped off and I could not establish connection all day yesterday.  I tried my Acer XP notebook and that worked fine.  This is all a repetition of my experience in MdP. 

However, there was still a problem in that the Acer battery lasts only about 30 minutes whereas the Toshiba battery lasts about 3 hours.  Yesterday I prepared my blog material on the boat ahead of time then went ashore and put it all out with the Acer while the battery lasted, but I needed much more internet time to do some important banking and start working through over 100 messages in my Gmail in-box. 

So this morning I marched into the office and presented my problem.  The lady suggested another service and that worked fine except that it required a password that she said she didn't have.  The one that I was supposed to use kept failing.  I suggested that she reset the router but didn't seem to know what I was talking about.  Then like magic it started to work and I got connection.  I pressed my advantage and asked if I could work in the office in one of client waiting chairs and was given the OK.  I had a great 3-hour session in which I broke the back of the work, but it required a lot of concentration because I was working with the machine on my lap, using the hair-trigger touch pad instead of the mouse, still dealing with glare, and with constant chatter around me.  I was kindly offered a cup of coffee but had to turn it down because my hands were full and I would have had to put the cup on the floor. 

I'll try to upload this blog tonight on the bench in front of the office.  In the morning I'll return to the office and continue work on the backlog.  Fortunately the weather is dry and mild.   Ultimately I'll have to find a reasonable venue for my internet work, preferably with a power point nearby.  I also have to explore Skype sessions.

It was 3 PM when I got up from my post-lunch nap and had a cup of tea in the cockpit, enjoying the serenity of the marina.  Then I started to work with very limited objectives in mind.  The objectives were against the background that the boat would not be used for approximately 5 months, 2 of which it would be left alone.  However, even though I was working slowly and methodically I got much more done than I had expected.

The first thing I did was to bring in the jack lines and the lifelines, to protect them from the weather and UV degradation.  That done I decided to tackle the job of making movement on and off the boat  easier and safer.  I had been having to clamber over rail to the port side of the boarding ladder because the outboard motor was hanging on the starboard side, but on the port side coaming sat the spare LPG cylinder, which presented an obstacle.  I removed the cylinder and found a wonderful place for it against the boarding ladder ahead of the binnacle.  I set it on a piece of wood above the cockpit floor so that a ring of rust will not appear on the teak flooring.

That worked out well so I decided to replace the flimsy stern lines with the proper mooring lines, but first I needed to do something about the Monitor water vane.  It was up out of the water at an angle but was very exposed to damage from the jetty if the boat ever fell back that far, and it had to come off.  I went through all of the perils of the job in my mind and they all had to do with dropping something in the water and losing it.  So I tied everything to a lanyard.  The screw driver that I might need to remove the ring from the main hinge pin of the water paddle was tied to a lanyard.  I had to remove the ring without the protection of a lanyard but got that done and carefully put the ring in the cockpit.  Then I had to pull the pin out with the other ring and in preparation I tied a lanyard to that ring so that I could not lose the pin to the depths then threw a line over the cross piece of the davits and tied it to the end of the paddle so that when I pulled the hinge pin the paddle would be supported.  Between that line and the line that was already tied to it to raise it out of the water there was no possibility of losing the paddle.  I pulled the pin and everything worked as planned, with the paddle nicely suspended and my being able to focus on putting he pin safely in the cockpit.  Soon I had the paddle in the cockpit and that task was completed.

I then addressed the task of the stern lines and quickly learned why the marina man had insisted on using the light lines.  The bollards on the jetty, though strong of concrete over a steel framework, do not have enough length on the “wings” of the bollard for properly tying heavy lines.  I solved that problem by using the loop at the end of the lines for fixing to the bollards and doing the actual cleating on the boat.

I still had daylight and energy left and fixed a boat fender over the lower bar of the Monitor frame so that there would be a cushion if the boat did back into the jetty.  Then I untied the stern ladder and folded it back to rest on the Monitor frame.  This allowed easier passage through the stern  rail and provided a very useful hand hold for clambering off and on the boat. 

In the end I had as clear access on and off the boat that I could see possible and the stern lines were short enough that I could step on and off the boat without having to draw the boat closer to the jetty.  I stood back, assessed the outcome, and was pleased with my work. 

The entire system relies on the strength of the mooring line off the bow andI have no choice but to rely on it.  In my favour are the fact that we are in extremely sheltered waters where even a 30 kt wind would not be able to build much of a surge.  The stern of the boat presents to the west.  Behind it are two jetties (floating of heavy reinforced concrete) and beyond that the shore is less than 200 meters away.

One of the enclosed photos shows the new stern access setup.  Note the folded back stern ladder as well as the fender for protection.  The mooring line off the bow has been set up such that no matter how hard I pull on a stern line the fender will not touch the jetty.  The other photo shows the boarding ladder with the gas cylinder snuggled against it, nicely off the cockpit floor.

I've added two screen shots showing Pachuca's position at the Bracui marina.  She is denoted by the boat symbol in the centre of the circle.