The humans say you should have an annual physical. Well, for this year they started me off with what they told me is a quintennial look at my worm shoe and keel - for the first time since my launch in August 2004. And it turned out to be very thorough!
It all started on March 30th, just after my new shelter at long last went up next to the Newby Cottage at the museum site. (It needs more work, such as some walls and maybe some lighting, but it is a start.)
Don Keith, Frank Jaklic, Don Johnson, Kent Saunders, young Kent Saunders IV, Noel McKechie and John Ernst arrived early that morning. They backed me and my trailer into my new shelter, but for some reason parked me way over to one side. Hmmm.
Then the crew set to work removing my cover, masts, mast carrying racks, 2 sails with spars, 6 sweeps, 6 dock lines, rudder and tiller, anchor and rode, four barrels, 22 ballast bags, my floorboards and the twelve ever popular 80 lb lead pigs from my bilge. Whew, what a relief!
In the afternoon, with the addition of Bud Keith (Don K’s brother), they began yet another phase! They wanted to get me off of my trailer and on to blocks. I heard them say that they were actually going to pull my trailer out from under me – on dry land!
It was a process that John and Don J seemed to have some knowledge of but it seemed they trusted Don K to supervise! (But as I told Terry Facey for the ‘roasting’ they gave John at his ‘retirement’ party, I like to slip out of my trailer into something comfortable…. but it is usually into water!) This maneuver I had to see; but then what choice did I have.
Don K. and John both agreed that they needed to anchor me at the astern so that I wouldn’t move when the trailer was pulled out. Kent’s truck was put behind me and hooked to a bridle that was slung around my bow to my stern.
They then started this risky process of sliding the trailer out from under me, placing huge blocks of wood under me for support as I came off the trailer bunk boards.
This was an adventure in itself from my standpoint, but it all went off carefully, slowly and smoothly. I was relieved when they were finished. As svelt as I am, I weigh over 3500 pounds without my ballast and all the other sailing gear!
Here I am comfortably sitting on the blocks. But what is next? How will they get at all of my worm shoe and keel this way?
Little did I know that they were preparing an “examination” cradle for me – or at it turns out perhaps more like a “surgical” table!
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