Work on the boat has been non-stop and finally the end is in sight. Only a few problem left to fix before we’re ready to sail. Looks like that will be in a couple days. We are still making all kinds of amateur mistakes, and it’s clear we’re in the steep part of the learning curve. In typical rookie style, we jammed the pulley at the top of the mast while trying to rig the spinnaker halyard (the string that holds up one of the big white flags at the top of the flag pole), which took about three hours to fix at the top of the mast. We broke the AC power system, then we broke one of the toilets. We still bump our heads into the canopy frame over the cockpit. We don’t know how to start the generator.
As we learn, and fix, and learn more, the challenges now are becoming more administrative. We don’t yet have the registration papers from the registry authority in UK. We may need to register the boat in Isle of Man. The Sat Com device is lost in Athens right now, but the shipping agent says not to worry. Neither of these will stop us from sailing this week, but they will stop us from going too far from Marmaris for another couple weeks.
Despite challenges, the progress has been huge. Almost all boat systems are now functioning (the ones that didn’t go into the dumpster anyway), and we have a path to fixing the remaining ones. We know the boat very well now and can probably fix most problems that are likely to arise. Hopefully for the next update I’ll have pics of the boat under sail.