Work done this weekend

Heather and I did a bit of work on the boat this weekend. Make quite good progress and we felt that it would be good for Heather to work on the boat as it is in my opinion the best way to learn where things are at, how they work (hence where to look when they don't work)

Certainly been my experience with the Pacific Cup. I builds your confidence in handling breakages, etc...which are very likely in any given race.

In summary we:

• tried on (again) the emergency rudder then dismounted the mount (that was tough! one bolt was totally frozen in there - someone parked his truck and came down to the dock with a set of power tools to help us out. I don't even know his name, he just said that someone had said that we were struggling a bit with this so he decided to help us out. It took him about 30 seconds to get it done.)
• fixed chips on the gelcoat (including a newly made one as we dismount the above-described item
• tuned up the boat after her trip on the highway (included Heather going up the mast until the second spreader to fix something up there)
• charge up both batteries and monitor discharge throughout the day through various navigation displays
• added cup holders in the back (to reduce the 'water bottles rolling everywhere' syndrom)
• connected up wind instruments (now dangling from the mast) - nice job Heather!
• reconnected masthead VHF and tricolor (nice job Heather)
• tried the stove for our saturday night dinner
• set up boat for offshore sailing (mainly additional safety/emergency gear)
• assembled and tried out the new handheld VHFs
• practice on the GPS + charts for navigation (nice job Heather)
• did our 40 mile qualifying cruise double-handed for LongPac
• tested the new winch/fairlead angle. Not sure we got it quite right yet
• tested tjhe adjustable jib cars (pretty helpful toward the end of the day - wondering if it goes far enough forward for the #3. May have to add more track if it doesn't. was ok for our points of sale over the weekend
• cleaned up the boat after the visit of various boat menders + remove uneeded equipment for our qualifying sail: big solar panel, emergency rudder, dodger
• thought through and re-arranged a bit of the living arrangements
• tried interior lights + flashlights
• checked that battery switch + instrument panel connections work ok
• checked battery mounts
• test AAs and AAAs (some looked corroded) and kept only the working ones