Today Nellie splashed! We've been in Belleville working on her since a week ago Monday. Living on the hard is, well, hard: no running water; no toilet and; you have to scale a ladder to get on and off.
There are lots of wild animals up here in the high latitudes. I feared for my life when this wolf grabbed my foot.
Getting a boat ready to splash involves myraid activities. However, one job not normally associated with splashing is rebuilding the rudder, its post, its bearings and, its packing gland. Certainly this job wasn't on our agenda two days ago when we were initially scheduled to splash. What changed this was a prelaunch rudder operations check. Instead of gliding smoothly from side-to-side, the rudder squealed and complained. Bicki and I looked at each other with knowing glances. We were both thinking, "We'd rather be on the beach wishing we were cruising, than out cruising and wishing we were on the beach."
We'd never rebuilt the steering system before but figured a good place to start was by removing the rudder. This was followed by a whole bunch of steps and culminated with the rudder reinstallation. After splashing today it was a relief that no water leaked aboard via the rudder post and that Nellie's steering worked--at least for the 300 yards to get to the slip.
Nellie's finally afloat in 2018; and, with running water and a flushing toilet. Can life get any better ;-) No miles today but 6,438 miles since leaving Naples, Florida in 2016. DBH