Another kind of love

It's Valentine's Day. I've lived with my husband half my life and I love him more. It is not a holiday for either of us, for he left the house this morning and I probably won't see him for a week or more. Our Richard & Arnold will be getting his attention this week. With weather above 40 degrees, the work of rolling resin can be done with less effort. Try lifting your arms up and down for hours at a time, running up and down ladders, working with a resin that will harden like a rock when it dries. The cloth will come soon.  The hull is well worth saving. Wooden boats can only last so long. There are borer worms that can eat through the hull, especially in warmer waters. Ducks can pull the caulking out of the seams when they are trying to get to the growth on the bottom, the barnacles and snails. Sometimes electrolysis can eat out the metal in  nails or screws causing a plank to come loose. We are saving our little ship, giving her our best efforts, a twenty first century make over. Dave and I share a special bond this Valentines Day, we love each other and our 80 year old boat. We'd like to see her with sails, we're thinking motor-sail. We hope she will be able to continue to fish until she's over 100.  Dave and I are hoping to live aboard this summer, planning a longer passage for next year, now that the Richard & Arnold is not a leaky old boat, just an old boat. We love her and you all, Happy Valentine's Day.

What's under the tent?

It was hard enough to build the frame, but then the shrink wrap, now it's respirators and hard work. Lucky for us we've had this experience before. It's a blessing that we found someone who know's his stuff this time, last time Dave did the work alone. For the first time in years Dave is not the captain. It must be his age mellowing him for I don't see any of the bristling to get the job done. He's fond of saying, "Pick up the pace or pick up your tools." The last time he worked with fiberglass was in his parent's yard on Beach Point in 1975. He decided the only way to save the 'Egg Harbor' was to cover the entire boat with a thick layer of glass. The hull was as strong as any little boat could get, but that was the problem, the boat was too little. Another that Dave covered in fiberglass clothe was the 'Wildflower'. We put it into a building that his uncle Frank Diogo had built in a field. While the building was being built we were building the boat. Uncle Frank let us keep it in his unfinished warehouse in the back, while he and a crew worked in the front to make shops. The 'Wildflower' a forty-two foot inshore fishing boat, sat on stanchions just like the 'Richard & Arnold' is now, only the R&A is twenty feet longer. Under the tent they are preparing to put layers of liquid of glass followed by sheets of clothe. Mother Nature is helping us with warmer than expected temperatures, I understand it is caused by solar flares, but for whatever reason we are grateful. The men in the tent look eerily-odd, otherworldly and alien dressed in white plastic suits, to keep their lungs protected they wear masks. The cocoon of white plastic surrounds their world and the work moves slowly forward. We are  looking forward to spring and a butterfly.  

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