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I'm in North Carolina working on the boat now. Things are progressing nicely, and while I still have a lot of work ahead of me, I anticipate having the boat fully ready to transport to San Francisco, and start training for the Singlehanded Transpac by January. The boat is absolutely awesome and I can't wait to sail it. I've already completely stripped the boat of all gear, baked the inside with a heater/ dehumidifier, pulled the rudder, taken the mast off, and begun stripping all of the deck fittings that were leaking. Definitely have my work cut out for me. I'm really happy to be here working on the boat right now, and I am learning a lot.
Getting to North Carolina I took an Amtrak train from Virginia Beach to North Carolina. My old college friend that I was staying with in Virginia Beach dropped me off at the station and then I took off. Everything was going according to plan until about 40 minutes north of Charlotte. 3 blocks before reaching one of the stops along the Amtrak line, all of the signals on the tracks in a 100+ mile radius just shut off. No one could leave the train, and the train wasn't allowed to go forward and reach the station. So I called Don (boat owner/ guy i'm slaying with/ works with Hope for the Warriors) and told him about the train. Instead of making his way to Charlotte, he drove to the station that our train was stopped in front of. After an hour and a half of sitting on the tracks, I somehow convinced the lady to let me off of the train and walk down the tracks until I met Don. I was trying to sweet talk the Assistant Conductor (an old lady) into letting me off, but she was concerned about the liability of someone walking down the tracks in the dark. She was like "but if something happens to you, we're all going to be in big trouble". I was like "mam, i've seen a dozen combat engagements, been hit with a rocket, rescued at sea, ridden a bike around the world, hit by a car and survived several motorcycle accidents. I think I can make it." She just kind of looked at me and then opened the door. "Thanks for riding Amtrak. And good luck." The boat on Day 1 of work So i'm walking down the tracks on a cold, dark North Carolina night, talking on my cell phone to Don, while he's honking his horn and flashing his lights so that I could try to find what street he was at. A couple in a Suburban picked me up and started driving me to the train station, when we ran into Don. I didn't realize getting off a train and linking up with Don would be such an ordeal... I'm staying with Don and his wife right now at their very nice house in Mooresville, N.C. It's the city that pretty much all of the NASCAR teams are located in, which is pretty cool. The boat This thing is bad ass. Seriously. 1999 Jutson 30 built in Australia. I know I described it in the last blog, but that was before I had seen it. The keel is more of a bulb keel than I thought, and the rudder is huge, which I like. The boat is sleeker and even more modern in design than I originally thought. And it's all water line. Something like 31 feet overall with more than 28 feet of waterline. Awesome. The cockpit is huge and spacious with everything led to the cockpit except for the spin pole topping lift, which is at the mast. Being set up for shorthanded ocean racing, it also has cockpit foot rests for the helmsman, on both sides of the cockpit. One of my favorite pieces of gear on the boat is the autopilot. NKE autopilot with all instruments, remote control and below-decks hydraulic ram, mounted to the rudder post. The water ballast is disabled. Not only does the boat have GPS for speed over ground, but there is also a boat speed sensor on the bottom, so I can accurately figure out how much current there is. That will help in San Francisco for sure, where they have super strong currents. (up to 5+ knots during flood tide). Don has a lot of nice sails on the boat, although there is some stuff he wants to replace. The main sail has 3 reefs, all led back to the cockpit, there are running backstays, and the main sail sheeting system is rigged like the German Admiralty Cup boats. I've never used a system like that before, and it seems kind of overly complicated, but Don seems to think it's awesome, so i'm sure it will make more sense once the rig is up and I can actually use it. All in all, I really really like the boat and I absolutely can't wait to sail it. With all of the boat work i'm doing, I will be intimately familiar with the boat and all of it's systems before I ever sail it, which i'm pretty happy about. I'm in the process of reading all of the owner's manuals right now. (For things like the autopilot, which is absolutely disgustingly cool.) 
The rudder after being pulled on Day 1. We're replacing the lower rudder bearing with one custom made from a solid chunk of aluminum. We are also going to reinforce, re-seal and re-paint the rudder as well as thoroughly inspecting the rudder post. Broken rudder posts suck:( Boat work I've been working on the boat for 3 days now. Pretty pleased with the progress that i've made so far. Day #1 and I immediately jumped into stripping the boat of all of it's gear. All sails, safety gear, tools, spare parts, navigation equipment, etc etc etc. The boat is stored at Don's business and in the shop, he set up a loft up above, where I am to store all of the gear. So I spent all day putting stuff in the cockpit, taking it down a ladder, walking it into the shop, taking it up another ladder and then organizing it onto the shelves. Fun stuff. We also got 4 people to take the mast off of the deck. That thing is heavy!!! I mean it's good that the rig and it's rigging is heavy, but damn. We plan to die-pen the rigging and the rig to check it for super small cracks and to ensure it's in good condition for an open ocean race. 
Warrior's Wish with the bow sprit intact... Once I had most of the gear stored, I went to work on removing the rudder. Not super difficult, but not super easy either. I removed the tiller and then went to removing all of the bolts that hold the autopilot to the rudder post. That was pretty difficult. Because the rudder and post are so long, Don said we had to move the boat back (it's on a trailer) to the edge of a hill, so that there would be enough ground clearance to pull the rudder out. So we did, and were still about 2 feet short on clearance to remove the rudder, so I ended up digging a 2-foot deep hole, while Don dropped the rudder into the hole. So now it was time to move the trailer back forward. Easier than it sounded, as the edge of the hill was super soft and muddy, as it had been raining for 3 days straight. We tried everything, but Don's F-250 is only 2 wheel drive with a non-locking rear differential, and all it was doing was spinning the right rear tire on the wet ground. Day #1 and i've managed to get 2/3 of the gear off, remove the rudder and get the boat stuck on the edge of a hill.... Awesome. Back to the house and Don's old GMC Jimmy (it's 4 wheel drive) managed to do what his new, diesel V8 Ford couldn't do; pull the boat out without any difficult at all. Don's a Ford man, but I was raised as a Chevy man. We saw which vehicle won on Wednesday.... That night, we pulled out the lower rudder bearing, which Don wants to replace. It is pretty corroded. It's a Harken rudder bearing, and unfortunately it's no longer made. Don works with some of the NASCAR shops, so he's calling in a favor and having Roush/ Yates Racing machine us an exact copy of the Harken unit out of a solid block of aluminum, and then we're having it anodized. Yes, the Jutson will have a custom machined lower rudder bearing built by a NASCAR shop. hahaha 
Warrior's Wish with the bowsprit laying in a muddy field... Day 2 and I continued getting all of the gear out of the boat, cleaning it out, vacuuming up any water, and putting a heater and dehumidifier on the inside. The inside is baking as we speak.  Super sweet gear loft in Don's shop. Check out that awesome full-carbon spin pole. Me like. Day 3, and I set to begin removing all of the deck fittings where water was entering the boat. The bow pulpit and front 4 lifeline stanchions had to come off. So did the pad eye for the head stay, the shackle where the tack of the head sail hooks onto, the front toe rails, and the bow sprit. Removal of the bow sprit will be permanent. We have decided that I will fly the symmetrical kites off of the traditional spin pole, instead of flying Assymetrical sails off of the sprit. This should make the boat more competitive, as returning it to stock should help out our rating. The SHTP race board hit the boat particularly hard when it had a sprit and a-sails, and we feel it was not competitive at a rating of 66. The spin pole is 15 feet of pure carbon fiber sexiness, by the way. It weighs NOTHING. 
Sexy cockpit. NKE instruments, all Harken winches, spinlock clutches. NICE.... It's been 3 days and i'm already doing boat work i've never done before. Don is an experienced ocean racer and used to build race boats for a living, so he really knows what he's doing, and i'm learning a lot from him. I think it's safe to say that my boat for next year's Transpac will be much better prepared than my old boat that I tried to sail to Hawaii last year. I'm learning a lot about proper boat preparation, and I like it... 
All deck fittings and lifelines removed for work and repairs... Going to the boat in about an hour to start grinding out some stuff on the stringers (inside of the boat above the keel), to make some small repairs, and also going to start drilling out some of the wet core near each hole where the bow was leaking, so that we can fill it with epoxy, re-drill holes for fittings, and re-bed everything on the front of the boat. Should be pretty water tight when we're done. Very happy to be in North Carolina and actively preparing for next year's race!
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November 22, 2009
66.91.230.197
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