Pierless Adventures - April 5 - All Keyed Up

We had a busy day with significant progress.  The day started with raising the genoa (our large jib).  We needed it up for me to determine where the new fairlead would go.  We tested the furler, and it worked this time, so we rolled up the sail and I prepared to go aloft.  Dave and Scott cranked me up the mast.  My first stop was the steaming light.  I fixed it by putting the bulb in the correct way (duh...).  

I was then cranked up to the tangs for the running backstays.  I had the stays (rope in this case) and had guessed on the size of fastener I would need.  I guessed wrong, so sent the tag line down to the deck and Scott sent up the correct size in a bag.  This picture is not quite how my boat is set up, but does show where running backstays are located:

With the running backstays done, up the mast to the top to work on the jib halyard.  This required a bit of work to sort out the problem and figure out the best solution.  I worked out a plan and will head back up tomorrow with a drill and rivet gun to finish the modification.  That should complete all of the mast work for the trip!

In matters less elevated, Scott and Dave finished the head plumbing today, they oiled the cabin teak, I wired up a new switch for the macerator pump (you don't want to know), and it was laundry day!  The nice thing about laundry day is you get to go back to the boatyard and visit Chester and Simba.  Simba wasn't around, but Chester enjoyed a good head scratch.

From Scott:

I no sooner warned Dave about the Toe-Breaking Thingamajig than he went off and broke his toe on it.  We have his toe taped up and tape on the Thingamajig too.  I pointed out the Head-Denting Apparatus so we'll see how he approaches that.  I found a highly rated restaurant nearby so we took a 15-minute walk yesterday to treat Dave to dinner.  The restaurant, Roys, had excellent food. Dave had shrimp, I had beef fajitas, and Brian had veggie alfredo.  The bill for all three of us was $50.

Brian bought a wireless keyboard to make this task simpler.  Unfortunately, it's in Dutch or Spanish, I can't tell, and none of the symbols on the keyboard bear the remotest semblance to where they are actually located on the keyboard.  If you want a question mark and hit that key, you get a _.  If you need to make a parenthetical comment, those keys will give you * and (.  And then there's all the odd letters that don't even have a name in Spanish like the lower case a with an arrow in its head.  I think this keyboard is metric.  I don't trust anything metric and this keyboard in particular and if I find out who invented it, I'll put my size 52 up his backside.