Trans Superior

Friday and Saturday saw the race crew members up to Knife River getting WhimSea ready for splash. The goals were to; fair out the bottom paint, repair the leading edge of the rudder and wax the hull, with bonus points for getting the sails bent on. On Friday I got a bit of a late start arriving at the marina about 10:30. Matt was waiting for me and we got pretty much right down to work spending the day working on taping, sanding the old paint with Matt grinding the rudder and applying some glass to the leading edge. It was such a gorgeous day out that both he and I got sun burned.

Dave arrived about 4:30 and started doing the hard under hull sanding with Michael showing up shortly after Dave and working on the same thing. I worked primarily on the rudder yet, that bottom paint was stubborn. But we got the sanding all done and gave her an acetone rubdown before calling it a day. It was Dave's birthday, though I didn't find that out until Saturday. Happy Birthday Dave!!

Saturday morning opened cloudy, cold and rainy. Dave had stayed in the marina too and was up pretty early. It was disappointing to hear the rain on the cabin trunk but what can a person do? Dave and I gave the above the waterline hull a bath, getting rid of some of the dust that had accumulated on her sides. 10:00 saw more of the crew arrive to help out but it being rainy and cold it left us with not much to do. Seemed like a good idea to get the sails bent on and the crew took to those tasks with gusto. It's kinda nice to get to put get those tasks done since the sails really stay on the boat without having to be taken off ever during the season. After that, we all broke for lunch.

After lunch it was pretty apparent it was going to stay cloudy and cold though the drizzle stopped. We were able to do a quick wipe down of the bottom, and got that painted. We had some issues with the rudder getting cured yet, it was in the upper 30's out and cold still. With the bottom painting finished, we put up a tarp and used a portable heater to try and help things along with the curing. I only had one buffer but it seemed like a good idea to have folks trade off so that one person doesn't get too tired. We got most of the hull waxed except for where the tarp was, a good 85% of the hull. It was getting on in the day so we figured we'll hafta take care of the rudder later in the week, Matt volunteering to take care of it on Wednesday.

With the calling of the day we all went out for pizza to DoNorth Pizza as a thank you to the entire crew for all the hard work and effort and giving up a Saturday to get things squared away.

Posted by; Troy