Things are moving along, not as quickly as I would like but moving none the less. We have a new windlass, or should I say A NEW WINDLASS. This particular piece of equipment sits at the front of you boat and hauls up the anchor. Our old one still worked but it was getting warn and Barry would have to slave away resetting the chain in the windlass about every 5 meters. It was a real pain. The new one has an up and a down function on it so when we are setting anchor we can wheel out the anchor instead of just letting it go and then taking your life in your hands as we slowed the chain down. This should add immeasurably to our comfort when at anchor.


If you examine the above photo most of you should be able to spot something that is not quite right. There is no boom on the boat. The rigger showed up last week and said yes we needed to change the forestay because it has a kink and the problems we were having with our reefing system could only be solved if we removed the boom and he took it to the shop. So off it came. Poor old Cat's-Paw IV looks pretty sad without her boom. Barry has been madly trying to get the furler apart so the rigger can tell what forestay connection is like. I winced every time he hammered at the thing to try and get it off, he came in the boat declaring that it was fused and he couldn't get it off. GOOD THING, the rigger showed up this morning and said that it was welded and it wasn't meant to be taken apart, whew, another disaster avoided. The boss rigger showed up today and heavens to betsy he knew our good friends the Cloughleys and one of their friends that I had met in Nova Scotia when I was there many years ago. Anyway he took a look at our forestay and said the thought it was undersized for the size of our boat. Well no big deal you think, just buy bigger wire. Well, you're wrong, it is a b o a t (bring on another thousand), if we get bigger wire (which we should) we have to get a bigger furler because the one we have won't fit bigger wire. Sometimes I think we are just hemorrhaging money, but the positive way to look at it is that the boat will be in better shape than when we left Canada and should be in good shape for awhile.
On the positive side, as well, we have our fancy new wireless wind instruments, installed and working. The ham radio seems to be receiving very well, I had some good luck and managed to install all the software to run it and the radio e-mail on the computer and it seems to work. We haven't actually talked to anyone yet so I am not convinced it is working 100% but we can hear, so we must have done something right. Barry is working on the wind generator and the boom came back today and we managed to put it back on with only slight detours. The reefing system has been simplified and should work very well. We should be able to leave some time next week. It is getting cooler, we turned on the furnace yesterday and most of the other boats have departed. It is very hard to see your chums leave when you know that the weather is good and it is time to go. Oh well, our turn will come pretty soon.