SEW AND SEW

A friend of mine in New Mexico refers to homely women as "girls who make their own clothes."

I wonder how that applies to sailors who sew their own canvas?

We bought a Sailrite LSZ-1 at the boat show. It's a monstrously heavy, marine grade sewing machine that can sew an apron or a mainsail.

So now what do we do with our time? Watch sewing videos. We've fallen deep into the nerd well and can't get out.

ISABELLA'S PROGRESS

Turns out Isabella's dent was not such a big deal. There was no delamination, which means the fiberglass hasn't been damaged. The surveyor tested it with a water meter and found it to be dry. Excellent!

Downeasts 32s (at least the 79s) have a swath of hull on the starboard side with no bulkheading. Imagine an umbrella missing one of its spines. Of course, the fiberglass is strong on its own, especially on Downeasts where the fiberglass is several inches thick, but really, I'd rather shore it up every few feet. The hull is, after all, what keeps you afloat.

That photo shows the cutout under the bench seat. The slanting part is the inside of the hull and the three cross pieces are the shoring that was added.

This area had two coolers that didn't offer much storage space, so in addition to improving the hull integrity, we added more storage. That's what I call better than new.

They've already painted the fiberglass work and will put in two new hatches to cover it. The bottom will get painted; the topsides (the part between the water and the rail) will be waxed. She'll be bright and shiny, ready to come home next week.

Or go somewhere else? We haven't decided yet....

STARING @ ESTERO

A new boat from Island Packet! So what if it costs 3 times what we can spend, that didn't keep us from window shopping.

The new Estero is a departure for Island Packet in many ways. At 36' feet it's dwarfed by their previous boat, the 460 (46'), which won Cruising World's Boat of the Year last year. The Estero is a sloop rig unlike most of IP's boats, which are cutters. The cabin layout is a huge departure from typical IP interiors. They went to the Gozzard-like layout with a settee in the V and the stateroom aft.

In my little opinion, here are the pros and cons:
PROS:
--It's got almost NO TEAK on the outside -- including the eyebrow. (Have they been reading my blog?)
--The finally quit using those light fixtues I hate!
--They made it look sleek and elegant on deck without teak.
--It's self-tending (sloop instead of cutter, with self-tending jib).
--A nice little swim platform off the stern.

CONS:
--It's got an unattractive snub nose and sheer line. In the first photo, the first two boats are Esteros. Look at its bow compared to the others on down the line. It just looks clunky in the water, especially in underway photos.
--The cabin layout is awkward and feels cramped.
--The galley and head are straight across from each other.
--I've always disliked drop-leaf tables that won't fold completely away. It has one smack in the middle of the V.
--The galley takes up too much central space and has almost no counter space.

My rating on a five-star scale: 2 stars. But what do I know? The Estero's nominated for Cruising World's Boat of the Year.

There are photos and layout drawings on their website. Judge for yourself.

HEAD-TO-HEAD COMBAT

The competitive spirit at the sailboat show bordered on brutal. It was nasty head-to-head combat, a veritable pissing match.

But this was not for Boat of the Year, it was for composting heads. Really.

Composting heads are brilliant. They are self-contained toilets that take otherwise icky contents and magically convert it to dirt -- almost odor free. You just dump the dirt, no search for pumpout stations, no messy connectors, no holding tank.

But the two producers of these composting heads were at the boat show and engaged in a stinky, junior-high style competition over who has the better product. One, who claims to be the original, has an entire sheet outlining the unpleasantness, including statements like, "they just can't have the breadth of understanding that I have" (about poop) and "I have made countless changes that really aren't noticeable to people." SOLD!

Ours has a remote fan!
Ours has an internal fan!
Ours has no dangerous separate seat!
Theirs has no separate seat!
Our seat is bigger!
Our seat is fine, but we made a bigger one just in case!

It's enough to make your head spin.

MISSED OPPORTUNITY

The sign read, "Marriage Savers!"

One of the vendors at the Annapolis Sailboat show was selling headphones designed for onboard communication. So, for instance, when your spouse is at the bow dropping the anchor and you are at the wheel, the headphones amplify what your spouse is screaming -- straight into your ear.

This is not a product I need.

The product I need is more of a United Nations variety where some calm, sane intercessor translates what my spouse is saying into soothing and sensible language I understand.

Here's how it would work:

Husband at the bow: What the $&*@) are you $*%*ing doing?!?! You're coming in too #*&$#( hot!!

Wife hears: Sweetie, you need to slow down a little.

Wife says: The #&#ing engine &$#$& up. You better (&#(*@ get your &$#ing *&#$ in the water and $&(*#&) the &*(#$^ line you kicked in the water off the &*(#$&$ing propeller.

Husband hears: I believe the engine has seized up, honey. Would you mind diving on the propellor to see if there's a problem? Maybe something to do with that little line you knocked into the water? Or maybe it was me that kicked it in. Yes. It must have been me. Wait, I'll go in. I'm a better swimmer.

Husband says: Mmph, nnh your mother zhen phflt.

Wife hears: This could be the best week of my life. All this togetherness just gets better and better.

Wife says: Zhenf eoridr, over my dead phenfnen.

Husband hears: Sweet Pea, after I chip all the barnacles off the bottom and wax the hull, I'll fix you a rum drink and your favorite dinner. You just relax.

Just think how smoothly this conversation would have gone with the headphones.

Translation headphones. There's a product that would save a marriage.

A FABULOUS ENDING?

If this blog were a book I was reading, I would totally be checking to see if we're close to the end. Surely this is the climax just before everything finds a swift and satisfying conclusion.

I'd be looking at the photos in the middle of the book to see what kind of boat they bought. I'd read the author bio on the last page to see where they were when the book was published:

Plodding to Paradise is the author's first book. Her writing has been published in Fabulous Sailing Magazine, Another Fabulous Sailing Magazine and other sailing magazines. The author and her husband, Chip, live aboard their Fabulous 38' sailboat and, at the time of publication, were cruising the Fabulous Islands.

After assuring myself a fabulous ending awaits, I would settle back in to find out how much it cost to fix the dent in the hull, if the author decided to have surgery, who bought the wine shop and how freakin' long it took for them to get on the water.

Are you getting bored too?

WHAT DOES IT MEAN?!?!?

QUESTION #3: Tammy has pain in her stomach because she:

a. swallowed a giant squid
b. did a huge belly flop in shallow water
c. has scar tissue from a war wound
d. has been practicing sword swallowing to earn cruising pennies
e. all of the above

If you answered c., you are correct. Okay, war wound might be a bit of an overstatement, but I can't just hand feed you the answers.

We went to the surgeon this morning to get the results of last week's x-rays, the one where they made me swallow glass after glass of white poison. The good news is, my intestines are working fine, considering. The bad news is the considering. After my kidney was removed three years ago (another tale entirely), my body reacted by spinning out scar tissue, which basically velcroed part of my intestines to my abdominal wall. They discovered this during that laparoscopic surgery in March. Photos available on request.

The choices? Live with the pain and potential of an obstruction or have more surgery.

What does it mean, Isabella and I and our belly wounds this week? What does it mean?

When I met Chip 12 years ago, his mantra was "What does it mean?" It's a valid question and an admirable pursuit, trying to learn from life's path, identify ways to grow and become a better person along the way. I've tried to learn from his learning.

He rarely says "what does it mean" any more. Maybe because my mantra became, "Stop saying that already!"

UPDATE:
--The surveyor looked at Isabella's scar tissue this morning and said we have to either live with the pain (that being no chance of passing a survey if/when we sell her) or surgery. Right now they're removing the coolers under the settee to assess the damage and give us an estimate on repairs.
--We don't know what all of this means right now. We don't even know what we're going to do about us girls and our wounds. Sometimes meaning doesn't emerge until much water has passed under the hull. That will be another quiz for another day.