Ready to launch! (Belatedly posted)

It's already more than a month since my last post, so let me catch you up on things. As I mentioned in the last blog, we decided to delay our southbound departure to accommodate installation of an enclosure for our helm.  We had a new hard top installed back in June, but had been unable to find someone to make a new enclosure.  We had jury-rigged the old enclosure for the trip up but its windshield was wavy and scratched when we bought the boat, and with the weather turning cold, wanted to be able to keep the enclosure in place without compromising visibility.

The last couple of weeks at Deltaville were a bit tortuous, mostly because we were anxious to get back on the water.  Sitting in a boatyard on the ground is not idyllic, and the weather was much colder than we had expected.  We had several nights with lows in the upper 20's and even had ice INSIDE the boat one morning! We had electricity while on the hard but not enough to run the heating system, and we couldn't run the generator since it uses sea water for cooling. 

Most of the time, the weather was beautiful though and we felt that the new enclosure would be well worth the wait.

Fall colors at Deltaville Boatyard

We did take a few days off for Thanksgiving to visit Jessie and Will...but getting there turned out to be harder than I expected.  Deltaville is a very small town (e.g. no motels, Uber, etc) and the nearest rental car place was 30 minutes away. They offered pickup service on Monday-Friday, and I carefully confirmed that the service would be available on the Friday after Thanksgiving.

I was picked up at the Marina as promised on Tuesday morning, but when I arrived at the car rental place I was greeted by a sign that read "Dear Loyal Customers, we are unable to offer pickup/drop-off service on the Friday after Thanksgiving due to staff shortages".  I was able to make arrangements for the return, but was shocked that I had to. 

Thanksgiving itself was wonderful and we enjoyed the traditional feast with Jessie, Will and a few of their Tallahassee friends who have recently relocated to Baltimore.

                   
            
                                                   Thanksgiving with Jessie, Will and friends

After Thanksgiving there were a few finishing touches that we needed to complete, one of which was lifting Starry Night so that Steve could apply the anti-fouling coating on the parts of the keel where the boat was being supported.  I'm including this detail because I was absolutely amazed at how this was accomplished. 

Starry Night weighs 14 tons (unloaded) and we expect it weighs 17 tons right now. Steve bought a 20 ton jack, which fits in a box that is a cube of about 8 inches on a side. We lifted the boat just enough to slide the blocks underneath the keel to a new position, one side at a time. We couldn't have done this with a monohull, but the process worked well with our cat!

20 ton Jack

Blocking Underneath the
Starboard Hull

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I've included a few more pictures of our finished work...mostly for my sake, when I'm wondering what we did for all that time we spend in Deltaville!

Completely Overhauled Sail Drive

New Helia (the model of our boat)
 logo in the Starry night color scheme

Starry Night in the Sling

We splashed on December 5th and spent the next few days, while the enclosure was being installed, doing route and logistics planning for the trip back to Florida.  We were very pleased with the finished product and have been thankful to have it every day :-)

Original bimini top and enclosure

 

                                                            New hardtop and enclosure

Since my post has ended up twice as long as I expected, as usual, I'll close this chapter now and post the southward journey separately.

Stay tuned!