Sunday, April 29, 2007

March 28 Blaze email update

Hello all:

The website for the boat is under development. Heres an update.
If you want to email the boat directly try
blazesail@gmail.com

they check it about once a day.
The satellite email address will be different. We will give that out after the website is up.

Devon and Mark are living in the Pierce Street rental house in Port Townsend, Washington, while working daily about 10-12 hours. The boat is still in the yard and lotsa work is being done . They start about 8:30am and usually quit about 7:30pm. In the north, it does stay lighter later. It is pretty much an eat, work, eat, sleep environment. There is a really good brewery within walking distance of the boat....and that helps a little.....but they close at 6;00 pm. So we gotta buy the beers at lunch and save em till the end of day.!

Debbie and I have just returned from 10 days of boat work and we head back in 2 weeks for another 10 days. We want to be out of Washington by May 10, 2007 or we have to pay a giant tax bill.... I mean HUGE.

The big projects are underway. The tabbing of the frame to the hull is 50% done. We ran outta cold weather epoxy...and it has to be trucked in from Minnesotta!. The battery area has been rebuilt and rewired. The lazarette has been leak proofed (about 75%) as we pulled stanchions and stern rails and rebedded em all. The Hydrovane steering system gets rigged next week.

The generator is in place. Had to have custom exhaust manifold made up. It should be finished by week end.

The bilges are much cleaner now. The entire boat has been sanitized with a hospital quality mold dis-infectant. Most lockers now have new paint. The head rebuilds are coming along slowly. LOL nobody wants that job.

The RIB inflatable boat arrived and it looks really cool. To bad it cant see the water for another month. A new drum of 3/8 chain and new anchor are on the way. Debbie is at the Las Vegas airport customs right now picking up the watermaker (from Trinidad) and reshipping to Pt Townsend.

As you recall, the rig is out of the boat. Riggers have ordered aluminum for spreaders and new standing rigging and turnbuckles all around (gulp!).

We have pulled all chainplates from the boat and tested them. We are replacing the aft lowers as they are cracked slightly.

We dropped the rudder last week and examined the shaft and bearings. thanks godness all was OK. Im gettin tired of surprises.

Devon and Mark attended another USCG first aid CPR class again yesterday. It was geared toward offshore and passsagemaking....and they really learned a lot.

The boat computer is up and running and fully integrated with the sat phone and weather downloads.

I just wanna get the friggin boat back in the water.

Britt

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