Puttering and Exploring


2009-12-13

I spent a couple hours at the dock getting to know Ripple, inventorying her lockers and checking out systems.  I think I found the problem with her electrical system (an ammeter, fried, with evidence of heat deformation on the back.  A loose lead from the shunt to the meter, as Dave Erskine suggested it might be.

I excavated the bitter end of both anchor rodes, and secured them.  Looked over the ballast in the bow, thinking about securing it as recommended in the survey.  The lazerette had a boarding ladder for recovering the deck after a fall overboard (another issue raised in the survey.   The forward-port jam cleat needs to be reset, a screw having stripped out).  The stantion life lines need to be resecured at each of their stern points, a nylon binding being more than half-way severed on each side.

As I was puttering, Bobby, a regular on the docks, showed me how to pivot the boat, end for end, in her berth, a simple manouever that will avert having to back in or out of the slip (duh).  Bobby's simple technique is going to get me on the water by myself a lot sooner!

The atmosphere in the boat was dry, and so also the bilges.

I stopped at the Fisheries Supply and purchased helmsman gloves, some shock cord, a new ammeter, new 12 gauge and hand held signal flares,  and nylon cord with which to repair the life lines.  Subsequently, I got a combination smoke alarm/carbon monoxide detector as well.

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