The four day weekend came and went. Rained out Thursday. Friday I pulled the other two batteries to have them tested as they were not holding a charge. Had them tested. Two more bad batteries. All three were bought in Baltimore three years ago. I suspect they went bad while at the last marina. No place to plug in and it did freeze a couple times. Mary Lee now has new batteries...again. It was not my favorite chore switching them out.

I have to exhale to get my chest through the opening. It hurts to be in the cockpit locker as I have to assume the shape of a pretzel to reach the batteries. I also have to get into that shape and out of it while lifting batteries into and out of the "hole".

I complain, but it needed done. This was Friday. Could not finish until Saturday as we needed to find a new latch for the battery compartment and a couple tools I had left in the garage. We stayed in Myrtle beach again. We arrived Saturday with plans to get the last of the big projects finished. Alright. I will admit that I had not repitched the engine yet. I was feeling a growing concern that I should not ignore this job. I was right to be concerned. The pitch was not off much at all and likely would have been fine........If the nuts would still have been locked down on the fourth motor mount. The two locking nuts on top were missing. I had more. You cannot see that mount unless you are laying on top of the engine intending to work on it. They are all good now.

Look familiar? This is picture taken in Baltimore the first time I pitched the engine. I have to lay on the top of engine while up on my toes for 2 to 3 hours (depending on how easy the job goes)just to pitch the engine. Takes longer if there is anything else needing done while you are there. It sucks!!! All this because I had a bent prop that shook everything loose until it broke. The exhaust had broke the third day out of Baltimore. When I put together a new piece, I left it a turn loose (I used inch and a half pipe fittings to build it) to negate any stress until I was sure I had vibration gone.

Long story....but it left me with an exhaust leak. I fixed that Sunday. Final analysis of the big weekend???
  Working parties are over. I am pleased with how well my old neglected boat has come together. Very happy that my first Mate has been so understanding. Vivian has been a real trooper through all this. Half the summer is over before she will really get to go sailing.
   The marina Mary Lee has been at this month was good for the work we needed to do. Not much breeze and quiet. Not to mention the dark walks to take showers in the evenings and the sand and dirt that got drug back to the boat no matter how much you tried not to. The water smells so we have not filled the water tank. So next Saturday Mary Lee moves down town. Closer to stores. Closer to bay. Better facilities, etc. etc.

Last but not least.....well not last, except for this post. Needed a new horse shoe. I also got a new book on knots. I am enjoying the splicing of lines and the new group of knots I have been learning are excellent!

You know how much I like my books.
   Vivian did manage to get a sunburn while I pitched the engine. Poor First mate. She just doesn't believe the work is finally done on Mary Lee :-) We will check in to the new marina next Saturday morning and then do nothing but sail all weekend. I really am quite pleased with myself. I really have revived Mary Lee and myself. Sure....There are small things that will need done in time.
 
 Mary Lee is mechanically sound and as such, she is ready to be enjoyed. See you on the water :-)

Sunday afternoon has come at last and we just returned from a weekend aboard Mary Lee. Barely here a half hour and blogging. Why??? You guessed it. The sails have finally gone up. All the old crusty lines are replaced.

The leftovers of lines that could be well over a decade old. I did all the splicing and finally all the old lines are replaced.

You can see the difference in the lines on each mast. The mizzen mast was done first. The main mast still has crusty lines

It was a bit of a chore.

Soon even the main mast was wearing all new lines. I still had a bit of sorting to do but withing 20 minutes of this shot we were out putting up sails.
Vivian took the helm while I pulled the lines.

Then she graciously allowed me a shot at the helm.

Not sure which one of us is happiest. I am very pleased. It has been a long time coming.
 We were only out about an hour as it was obvious I needed some time adjusting/fine tuning the lines. Was okay...we were ecstatic to get them up on Saturday like we planned.

There was no wind Saturday night so we put the sails up and left them up all night. I was out there at 5:00 AM adjusting things. I think Vivian said she slept well until I started pulling on lines. :-) What can I say? It happens!

By 10:00 am I was finally finished with that chore. We had planned on taking her out again before leaving for Myrtle beach but there was no wind and rain was a coming. Vivian asked....Could I give her a bath? Oh Boy...What a fantastic and most admirable first mate. I played hookey for the first part of the bath but soon joined in to help finish.
 I have been getting compliments on Mary Lee as she has finally started to clean up and come together. She still has a bit to go, but not a lot. I am finally able to start using her as I planned so long ago.

So we packed up and as we crawled in the car the rain started. Perfect timing. Will be sailing on Thursday and Friday ,Saturday and Sunday.
I know you don't think Mary Lee was my only project this week. I have cabinets to build in Vivian's laundry.

I had to pull out the shelf I had started. There was a change of plans and a change in the way I wanted to assemble them.

This was the plan. Three separate doors for laundry baskets on the bottom shelf. Of course I left it open between the baskets. But the top three spaces needed to be separated. I decided to use the router table and create a channel for the partition to slide into. It worked out well.

Now it just needs paint and the doors. That will have to wait though. It is Thursday night. The plans are to drive down to the marina and spend the weekend on Mary Lee. So everything is jammed into the cupboards.

Just needs doors and paint.

Hope I can get it done before the materials arrive for the nester dinghy I have been wanting to build :-)

This is one nesting and one together. I suppose since Vivian wants to use the dinghy I will likely get away with at least starting it before the doors are on the cabinets ;-) But whatever the outcome. Gonna be doin' a lotta sailing on Mary Lee!!

This weekend was fairly busy aboard Mary Lee. I had the alternator checked this last week. Same as in Baltimore. Putting out 13.5 volts. So why do I not trust an alternator that does not seem to be charging low batteries while the engine is running? I just don't.
   I decided after switching some wires around and getting the engine temperature gauge working and still not having the gauge showing a charge of any kind that it was worth a trip to Autozone and see about a different alternator. $50 later and of course 3 extra trips to sort out the new alternator belt size and I have a very good charging alternator. I know the difference between the marine alternators and the automotive ones. At this moment I do not particularly care. For $50 I have a very good backup alternator if and when I switch back to the marine type.

Next was stringing the Mizzen halyard. I built a bosun(or boatswain for those who prefer the correct terminology) chair.

I even routed grooves in the seat to keep one from slipping out. Also added an adjustable line to fasten around ones self to keep one from falling out backwards.

Vivian was the one I was concerned about. I would have gone up if there had been someone around to hoist me. 45 feet up. She was a little nervous but said she would do it again if needed. What a trooper.

I spliced lines a good part of the week in the garage.

This was the beginning of the choker lines that needed replaced. The ones with the blocks(pulleys)

I made good progress for teaching myself out of a book with inadequate pictures.

Splice the two short ones. Then splice onto the long one that runs to the cockpit.

Then splice the end so it cannot come unraveled. There is about 8 inches of the line pulled back in on itself. Someone voiced a concern about it coming apart. As hard as it was to get these pulled through to completion, I doubt if it will ever come undone without a good sharp knife.

It turned out that one battery was shorted out. No picture of the deed....but that battery belongs to autozone now.
  We never got as far as we wanted on putting up all those new lines. I had intended to use one of the marina's ladders but by the time we got that far it was sunday morning and the owners were nowhere to be found. We did get one line changed.

About 20 minutes will see the other line on here. All lines on mizzen mast will then have been replaced during my ownership. I have a little splicing to do this week but it is minimal. I am guessing about 3 hours of getting things squared away next weekend and we will take her out and put the sails up. It has taken 3 years to get this far. I finally have her in the kind of shape I need her to be in so I can enjoy going out. HURRAY!!!

There are other things to do but those have more to do with arranging living space than reliability. I am very pleased with the progress Mary Lee and I have both made since I bought her and packed my old life away.
I have sweated buckets while working on her and put in some serious hours of suffering while trying to rebuild a bad back and atrophied muscles. I have earned the right to sail this boat. I know her intimately. There is not one system I have not taken apart and massaged into shape.

I looked at the mass of rotten lines I took off her this week and found myself thinking of the shape we were both in when I bought her. Pretty crazy to have bought her from this perspective but if I put myself back into the place I was in physically and mentally at the time..... I needed a good hard project to fight my way through. Lance(Lance and Mary from Amanzi) had told me that once I got her out sailing I would get all the exercise I needed. I believe he is right. Just what I have done motoring from place to place has forced me to jump around and pull lines. That and with all the time spent crawling around on her working and the exercise in the gyms and riding bike, I am now in good enough shape to explore the sailing aspect of boating.

If you have followed my progress, you know I have really went to extremes when they were called for. My last cold weather winter is now over.
That first summer comes to mind often. It took several days to drive the last 400 miles on my way to Baltimore. I was so exhausted and hurt that when I got to the marina I almost put Mary Lee up for sale. I just had no idea how hard the trial would be. I stayed on Mary Lee that night and phoned a few friends.

Barbara told me that of all the people she had ever known....I was always putting myself into a corner so I had no choice but to fight my way out. She expressed her confidence in my ability to make it happen.

 Cheryl told me that if I never saw it through I would always kick myself for it.

Roger and his son Greg were voices of reason. I understood that it was not a shameful thing to sell her if I found out it was beyond my ability to do what I had in mind.

I took a sleeping pill and slept on it. In the morning as I crawled out of bed I knew I would see it through. I met some great people that summer. It kind of bolstered my faith in people and what I had in mind. It was a blow to have the engine fail as I attempted to head south that fall. But every cloud has a silver lining. The winter I spent in Montana was so vital to my recovery. I really ground it out fighting to get back in shape while there. I could not have rebuilt the engine if I had not spent all those hours in the gym.

Remember this?

It was like opening up a can of worms. I found so many problems. The funniest thing to come of this was hearing the people around the marina saying they never expected to see me again. They not only saw me again...they saw me leave in Mary Lee a couple months later.

I next learned the vaunted dismal swamp was just a ditch along the freeway

We hit stuff on the bottom 4 times going through the ditch. Caught a beautiful sunset the first "nice" night anchored out.(We anchored out at Solomon Islands first but it was crummy weather)

We had just made it through albamarle sound when we stopped here.

So a myriad of experiences later I am just now on the verge of starting the sailing adventures. What is next? I would like to say I have it all planned, but as I have learned with boating in general and my boating in particular.....Plan loosely, 'cuz you never know for sure. I am going sailing every weekend until November 1st. Then I am off to Florida. I hear Marathon is nice in the winter! :-)

For the first time since buying Mary Lee I am finally starting to feel really good about how things are coming together. I am doing better all the time. Mary Lee is also doing better. I intended to do all the work myself from the beginning and with the exception of very few things, I have. She went in the water on Wednesday, July 2nd. A day early. Thursday, in the beginning of all the rain from Hurricane Arthur, I moved her to Osprey marina. I wanted her at the best place around just in case the wind got testy.

She looks a little shinier than her trip down last summer about this time. It took about an hour to get to Osprey marina from Hague. Rained all the way. Not bad. Believe it or not, the heavy rain started about 10 minutes after I got docked at Osprey.

We have a little bit of preparation to do for the trip to Georgetown, SC. in the morning.

It was a beautiful day for the trip to Georgetown. Very little boat traffic. We left Myrtle Beach at 8:30 am and were tied up at Johnson's Marina by 1:30 pm.

Vivian was being camera shy. Unfortunately, as far as picture taking goes, we had such a nice trip down that we virtually forgot about pictures until almost here. Vivian got a few.

                                                 The bridge just before Georgetown.

                                        A stump as we went up sampit river to the marina.

She did catch a couple nice sunsets from the stern of Mary Lee in her summer berth. I guess we will be seeing some nice sunsets at the end of every day spent onboard.
                                                 This.......

Turned into this!

That was the first night. Afterwords, we drove up and watched a quite good fireworks show.
Next day was work day. I had deck hardware to get mounted and a couple of the new lines to get put on. While I did this, Vivian worked in the cabin getting things squared away.

First new line is on.

Vivian tried to get a picture of the second line when it was on but the sun did not cooperate with the digital camera. Next lines to go up will be the choker and hanger lines on the wishbone booms. But that is next weekend. First we have a sunset to enjoy. Vivian took another great picture.

Went to bed kind of early. Still have some things to do before heading back to myrtle beach tomorrow. I am having a charging issue. Either the alternator I had redone in Baltimore is the suspect or the batteries. First thing first.
 I will remove alternator and have it tested this week in Myrtle beach. If it is okay. I will pull batteries that were also bought in Baltimore and take them in to have a load put on them and see what is happening. So this week is splicing lines and alternator.

 Next weekend is putting lines up and testing batteries. We are going sailing on the next weekend. I am getting anxious. Just need to take care of the last few things first. People have bragged that Winyah Bay is the prettiest bay on the east coast. We are very close to finding out. I feel an adventure coming on.

Mary Lee is floating again.....HURRAY!!!!

It has been a very busy schedule. I persevered. It took a bit of doing.
I got the new cutlass bearing installed. The flange I got was machined down to what I needed.

                                                             Ended up as this

                                                                   Then this

In the mean time. The old loose bottom paint ended up looking like this.

By using this.

Yup...generally used for scraping houses. It really is an agressive way to get loose paint off the bottom. Took me about 5 hours. Next day saw bottom paint going on.

Getting all over it. First coat one day. Second coat the next. I had a guy who had been painting 30 years tell me that if I wanted the best coverage I would want to brush it on instead of roll it. The idea is that the brush tends to get into the pits and crevices better. People also tend to try going further than they should with the roller and the coverage is thinner. It took me about 3 hours a coat with the brush and I am pleased with it. I will brush the next time also. But the fun didn't stop there. The stainless strap that holds the rudder on was corroded. I ordered a piece of stainless for that.

I needed a way to bend it. The piece I bought was an 1/8 inch thick. 2 inches wide and 18 inches long. If not careful it would just kink in the middle. I bought a fence pole. Clamped it in the center and bent it around with a rubber mallet. Worked perfectly

The new piece is on the left. I forgot to take a picture installed but the guys in the yard complimented me on how perfect a fit I had. I didn't need the compliments but it is nice when you step back to admire something that worked out well and the guys standing there are impressed. It fit better than the old piece. Okay...It was all done in the garage. It could just as easily not fit when I got it over to Mary Lee.
So that was yesterday. I knew Mary Lee would be going on the lift today for a tomorrow morning launch. I wanted to start the engine and make sure all was well before it went. I made it all happen and about noon they told me that as there was Hurricane Arthur blowing in I would need to go in today. All good. I want it on the floating docks at Osprey marina for that. If there was ever a hurricane hole, Osprey is it.

So on the lift she went. I scraped and painted the pad spots and bottom of the keel.

She looks good. I am pleased with a job well done. I have now fixed just about everything that concerned me.

And that spot is available for someone else to work on their boat.

I have some deck hardware to finish mounting and some new running rigging(ropes) to splice loops in the ends and change out the ones that are just too old. But Mary Lee is finally pulling together. She will spend her summer in Georgetown, SC. Vivian and I will be spending weekends sailing. I am taking her south on November 1st. I cannot wait. It has been a long hard struggle. Perseverance, perseverance, perseverance!!!