Wild Horses is Floating Once Again

​Yes!  Wild Horses is in the water.  Our launch yesterday (May 11) went very well.  The crew at Loyalist Cove Marina are experts so it was stress-free watching Wild Horses get lifted out of her cradle by the travel lift, then carefully driven to the launching well and set in the water.

Stress-free is something we needed in spades as our lead up to launching was quite the roller coaster.  Here are the Coles notes:
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What went well

• Re-wiring of our batteries and clean up of some original, but weird, connections
• Re-tapping of a wiggly cleat on our arch
• Waxing, cleaning and applying a fresh coat of bottom paint
• Our new VHF was expertly installed
• The dinghy and dinghy motor were in fine shape
• The boat survived the winter well – there was minimal water intrusion, most of our electrical systems worked, most of our gear worked and most of our rig looked perfect (see “what didn’t go well” below).

Our port back cabin (aka "Ocean's cabin"). With the cabin boards removed, the diesel tank (big black box) and some of the boat battery wiring is exposed.

Victoria applying Micron-CSC anti-fouling to the bottom of Wild Horses. This is the last coat we will apply before the boat hits salt water and starts to fight off some serious marine growth.

Our expert marine technician, Kevin, takes a good look at the DC wiring in the nav station of Wild Horses.

Mike doing some last bit of installation of our dinghy motor. You can also see Ocean overseeing the operation. What you can't hear is the loud "roo-roo-roo" as she encourages him to work faster. She loves the dinghy!

It is the “see below” bits that raised our heart rates and frustration.  So let’s get into it.
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What didn’t go so well

• Our rudder developed a few cracks over the winter.  We ground out the cracks and found they were just at the surface.  Whew!  The rudder steers our boat so it has to be reliable.  Losing it while doing a major crossing or in a strong current would be disastrous.  Rudder test successful, tragedy averted.
• Both of our scupper drain hoses were leaking.  This meant water was getting into the boat at the failure point and running along the inside ridges into our back cabins.  Mike put on his plumbing hat and replaced the hoses.  Problem solved.
• Navigation instruments didn’t work when we fired them up.  One of the Loyalist Cove Marina electrical guys found a loose connection.  Problem solved.
• Water system didn’t prime.  Thankfully it was just a broken water pump.  Mike put on his plumbing hat, once again and replaced the pump.  Problem solved.
• Our AC “reverse polarity” light suddenly came on.  This was new to us but apparently happens all the time if there is fault in the shore power.  For us, it was a bad electrical cord we were using to power the boat.  Replaced it with a proper power cord and the problem disappeared.
• Bird’s nest in the boom.  Aargh!  This was a 5-minute extraction exercise that turned into losing a full day of work, and meant a trip to both the marine store and the hardware store for hard-to find parts.  Our steps to bird nest extraction?  Step 1 – remove boom from the boat and shake out the nest.  Step 2 – go to specialty hardware store to find the unique Allen key screw that fell off the boom during shaking and the unique ball bearings that fell out of the equipment once the Allen key was lost.  Step 3 – spend an hour carefully inserting the ball bearings into its tiny casing and 30 seconds minute re-attaching the screw.  Bird’s nest = 1, Wild Horses = 0.
  
• A few issues were found with our engine check including the alternator belt rubbing on a bolt, blown fuses.  Thank you, Loyalist Cove!

Our beautiful rudder!

The new scupper hose.

A lit reverse polarity light. New to us!

The tiny ball bearings and the gear they needed to be carefully inserted into. Yikes!

Sigh.  Thankfully issues came up mostly one at a time.  In other words, we would solve one issue before the next popped up.  This is much easier to manage so it mostly kept questions like “why is this fun?”, or thoughts of selling the boat, at bay.  Mostly 😉.
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Now Wild Horses is docked at our temporary slip at Loyalist Cove Marina.  We will spend the next few days getting her ship shape on the interior, stocking up the fridge and freezer and readying her for the short trip to Trident Yacht Club.  Our plan is to arrive at our club on Friday afternoon.
The boating season has begun for us and, this time, it will see us going south to the Caribbean!