Seasons Greetings

[c_witch]

HIee all,

I hope that all of you have had a Very Merry Christmas and will have a Very Happy and Safe New Year.

The end to 2011 for us proved very interesting. Firstly just before Thanksgiving our stove died and required replacement. Then on Rememberance Day we had a major rainstorm which washed out the bridge in our driveway. And then not to be left alone by fate so late in the year, I had a deer run out in front of me while driving to work in the early morning. The insurance company decided to write the car off rather then repair it . They say things come in 3's so hopefully we have met our quota for sometime to come.

Now with 6 inches of snow on the ground I find myself daydreaming of the coming days of spring when I hopefully can finish the last bits to be done on the boat and finally get her launched at her new home on the eastern shore of Nova Scotia. Now if we can only be so lucky as to get a slip rather then just a mooring .

c_witch

 

[Merlin Clark]

Hi Brina!
Sounds like the year ended with a bang! Here's to a much better 2012 and that you get your slip!
Take care and Happy Holidays.

 

[dscribner]

Brinna!

Man, that rots! Especially the car. Same thing happened here. We had to buy the car back for salvage rates. $137 US. So bought a $100 plastic bumper and a $20 tail light and put the extra $2600 in the bank. The golf ball sized dent we can live with. BUT . . . I had to fight the insurance company to keep it.

I hope New Years and the new year treats you better and look forward to some sailing yarns in the spring. I've had enough of the fixin' stories!

Fair Winds and Fairer Fates,

Don

 

[c_witch]

Buy back

Hiee,

Yeah we did the buy back option from our insurer for 120.00. We had to replace both headlight enclosures, the windshield and replace the front left strut assembly as well as the plastic cowling that fits at the bottom of the windshield and the wipers. The hood we managed to spring most of the bad dents out but it still is not a pretty sight and the left front fender has a hole in it and 2 inch crack I think from the antler poking it.
It went in for inspection yesterday but needs some other things such as sidelights,license light minor exhaust and brake work as well as a new front right tire, something to do with the belt having shifted so its no longer round??
Anyhow we should have it re-registered buy the end of next week. I sure hope so as I've been driving my work van back and forth to work and it is a total gas pig. IE using nearly 3 times the gas the car normally does .
Hoping that everyone has a Happy and Safe New Years .

Brina

 

[Ray Bowles]

It's a rough way to start the new year when the money you managed to hang on to through the holidays has to be spent on legit events rather than the boat. My wife really shocked me when she called me into the office and said that West Marine had the end of year sale and asked "shouldn't you buy your boat items now and save?"
As a proper deck scrubber I jumped to attention and maxed out on my list.
Normally we have around 3 feet of snow at this time of year but this year there is none! Tomorrow it will get up to 45 degrees so we are going out for our first sail of the year. What a present.
May you all have a wonderful new year without anymore calamities.
Ray

 

[c_witch]

New Year

Thanx Ray,

May you have some happy sailing although it sounds as though it may be chilly.

Today I picked up a belated present from Xmas for myself lol. I now have a router and sometime in the new year here will be fashioning the stainless tube bender and having a go at making my cockpit railings.

I'm still considering the minimum radius that I might be able to bend manually but am thinking in the range of 4 to 6 inch. Once I have it fashioned and have done some bending then I will post some photo's of the work in progress.

Happy sailing all,

c_witch

PS we've only had 2 snowfalls here both of which disappeared within a week. Just some flurries today. I truly wish I had a heated garage and I could be working on the boat.

 

[dscribner]

Brina,

I haven't done this but I hear that this is how it is sometimes done. Take it with a grain of salt. If you fill the tube with sand before you bend it, the crimping on the inside radius will be minimized. In a previous life, I designed a modular rail system for a bleacher company that I was working for. We used 1" square tubing and and a flexible mandrill on a shaft to do the same thing. It would be inserted to the bend area then withdrawn after the process completed. The project saved the company $378,000 per year. My new boss let me go 2 years later and said it was a lousy product. He was let go 1 year after that. HHhmmmm . . .