TICK Tock

Time is running very short now and I am seriously under the gun to finish up.  The boat will be trucked up to Winnipesaukee on either the 29th or the 30th and I need to be done. To make matters more difficult, this past Friday I stared feeling crappy.  Not just average crappy, but really crappy. I took my temperature when I got home and it was 101.  Too make a long story short, the fever continued until Sunday and I felt progressively worse every day.  We were eating lunch and my sun noticed a "bullseye" rash on my shoulder where I had a tick bite a few weeks earlier. Crap, Lyme Disease.  I went down to urgent care and the doctor pretty much confirmed Lyme Disease.  All the symptoms and the bullseye rash make it pretty clear cut.  A big, long dose of anitbiotics and I should be feeling better soon.  Yesterday, I was a mess, but I felt quite a bit better today.

Finally, a long planned family reunion is starting tomorrow and will continue until Sunday so my time will be severely limited.  So the clock is seriously ticking and time is not on my side. The good news is that I did manage to get a lot of things wrapped up since the last time I wrote even though I had to take it slow because I was feeling pretty poor.


I finished up 6 coats of varnish on the winch blocks and decided I'd better get them on.  More varnish would have to wait.  I had previously tapped the winch bolt holes in the blocks so it was just a matter of placing them where I wanted them and drilling the deck with a long bit.  That whole section of the deck is solid glass (I planned ahead), so there was no need to over-drill to protect the core.  Then I laid down a thick bead of mahogany colored Sikaflex 291 around the bolt holes, and along the edge where the blocks meet the coaming.  As it turned out it was a bit too thick and I'm not really happy with the way it came out, but I'll have to live with it for the time being.  Eventually, I'll get in there with a razor and trim the big blobs away.

I also got the cockpit Kiwigrip'd.  Same story as the previous four or five times I've done various sections.  I spent the vast majority of time taping and sanding the edges, followed by a vacuum and a wipe down with acetone before cracking open the can.  I had just enough.  I had ordered another quart just in case, and I needed every drop.  I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out although my taping was a little bit sloppy in spots.  I am blaming the Lyme disease.