s/v Lark: September 2014

The Perkins is adrift

The engine work almost didn't start today under threat of a torrential downpour, so I decided it was time to try out the suspected shade cloth over the companionway and would you believe, it worked out just right? Darrell the diesel guy boosted the old Perkins out in 4 and a half hours. Captain Roger will get to work on fiberglass tomorrow. In the meantime, I gave the old girl a good wire-brushing and Ospho bath.

9/30 school

Audrey's illustration of the eye of the storm. Lorelei made one too, but she cut it up before I could take it's picture.

9/29 school

Lorelei was writing her name :)...just missing a few letters.

9/28

We had another great lesson today with Captain Jack. The breeze was up and it looked like weather might be moving in so we decided to take the opportunity to stick close to the dock and do get some practice with boat handling in the breeze. We're starting to feel like we can actually take our own boat out now, given calm conditions, so me we'll try that one of these mornings.

That darn leak into our bunk was not fixed yet, so said an inch of water in the bucket under it, so I headed back over to Lark this afternoon with my tube of 5200 and an iron resolve. I'm pretty sure I found the culprit this time by mean of precision hose work, and that screw got the gooping of a lifetime. So hopefully that will do for that one. I do think the leak in the fo'c'sle is solved as that remained dry after a good dousing.

Drip drip

I've been doing a lot of leak repair. Two of the three main leaks are into bunks, which is simply intolerable. The third is the mast boot which is slightly less immediate of an issue.

I've been agonizing over whether I did the right thing when I spread 5200 over a long crack in the skin of the deck just after a downpour. I had been hoping to do it after a bit of a dry spell, but none had been forthcoming and in the meantime the darn thing gets another soaking 2 or 3 times every day. So I finally just did it.

Did I seal in a bunch of water which will now destroy the rest of the deck coring?

Maybe so, but I don't know that there was any better option available to me. Well, we'll see. Maybe it'll be a good DIY project to tear it up and replace the core in couple months if things get a little drier

9/25 school

Working on writing a letter with the ancient greek alphabet for her friend.

Lorelei's

Lorelei's

Audrey's

rainbow salads in honor of learning about rainbows

9/24 school

busy day at PETC coop classes and swim club! Audrey took Journey through Africa, The Rainforest, and Drawing and Painting. Lorelei took Music and Movement and Drawing and Painting.

1st Sail

We took Lark out for a sail yesterday! Yeah! It wasn't a long sail, but we took her out into the ICW, and put up both the mainsail and the jib! They both worked really well, and we got to say things like hard-a-lee, gybe-ho and ready about!

The point was to get everything up and moving to make sure it all works before we prioritize the engine work. It looks like the engine is on track for beginning repairs in one week.

I think it was great for me and Jacob to experience, no matter how brief! We are both feeling really excited to take the boat out again, and start taking her places.