Bettie's ready to get wet

She is renamed

We are as ready as we are going to be. On our next trip down, Bettie P should be in the water. The past few weeks have been very busy so I haven't had as much time as I would like to post on this blog. I have been busy with work. This last week we started the 101 sailing classes, which will be done this week, and start the 103 classes next week. Dave raced his Cobra last weekend. We have been busy with the boat too.

In the last few weeks we installed the new larger fuel tank now with a fuel gauge. We installed a 2000 watt power inverter/charger, because having coffee fast in the morning is very important. We did a bunch of rewiring of the boat but have some to go yet. We are adding both 110 and 12 volt outlets throughout the boat. We started to set up the 2 GPS locations on the boat. Most of the wood work is done. We filled and tested the water system. We have sealed most of the leaks we know about on the upper deck, and have one or two more to fix. The motor was started and ran for 10 to 15 minutes. We tested some of the electrical systems and found some stuff we want to change over the summer. Dave removed all the old graphics and installed all the new ones. Yesterday the marina lifted the mast up on top of the boat, so today I removed all of the packing materials and pre-rigged the mast with some of the instrumentation, and as much of the standing rigging as I could.

The marina has one last coat of paint to apply before putting her in the water and set the mast for us, which will happen within the next week or so.

Because of classes and other things going on, neither Dave nor I will make it back to the boat until a week from Friday. That weekend Lori, her daughter Jane, and I will be camping about a mile from the boat so we're hoping to spend some sailing time over the 3-day weekend. The week after that we will be finishing up the 103 class on Dave's boat.

The 101 class was interesting, we had about a minute and a half of instruction before boarding the boat and setting the sails. The boat that we used at the class was much smaller than Dave's, but the fundamentals are still the same. After a few hours out on the water I am more excited than ever to get out on the water and sail Dave's boat and prepare for the long trip this Fall.

we moved the mast on top of the boat and pre-rigged it so they can set it when it goes in the water