Thanks Seth. You don't know how each very small comment can have an impact. Somewhere you mentioned...originally came out with a tiller. My Italian PO only could tell me " Oh yes, Rob! there is an emergency steering tiller!' which was this massive, still in canvas 6ft tiller! I spent some nights wondering how the heck they used it? Do I need to dismantle the Steering Stand? Your simple statment clarified everything..
Apparently they moved the Main Traveler back against the Steering Stand and then filled the gap with a big piece of teflon. I am matching up equavient screw holes and realize this is true and that no effort has been made to cosmetically hide this indiscretion although they did fill with epoxy and such and the decks seem solid. Being a bilge rat and a 12 yo trapped in a 70 yo body...I looked down into the abyss of the cockpit settee hatch and wisely took my cell phone with me. But all was good...just this week I realized one reason is that the nefarious "someone" cutoff about a three inch section of the edge to enlarge the entry and then attempted I believe in an honest quest to make the lid "watertight". Once in my element, I noticed the horrible cockpit drainage hoses which for some reason cross port to stbd and visa...so if heeling the low side drains uphill? and also leaves a Pee trap slug in the hose? There is plenty of antiquated equipment that only EBAY recognizes, dead and cutoff stuff...going to dead and cutoff areas. My first focus is on the Head and renewing 40 year hoses that have a crystalized sheen to them.
Mechanically there are some questionable stuff. I think they added a pretty good charger below but then they moved the engine heat exchanger and just threw it over to outboard and ran tons of hoses. It feels like I am dealing with 40 years of overthinking and "good ideas" under the influence of traditional rations.
As far as the deck goes, I am stripping everything off the boat that deflects from me from getting the boat out. The spinniker pole hasn't gone yet but will soon be once I find an innocent teenager willing to help a feeble elderly. But mostly what keeps me confused to where I am scratching a head that due to hair loss doesn't need head scratching....these pestky baby backs, baby forestays? not to mention like 11 winches. What Pothead thought this stuff up?....oh yeah, might be you. So I have a baby forestay which seems to line up with all this hardware below deck at about six inches forward of the mast, but on deck it is blanked off. The baby backstays? They lead aft but where? Do I have hardware on the inner rails?
Right now I am focused on all the systems. All the woodwork under is in pretty good shape. I am sure I will have to address the soft headliner issue and would like to know the current popular upgrade.
My wife and I are currently having a renaming argument. We can't leave it as it is because our PO just used his last name and I told him I didn't want his newly discovered squeezes showing up topless when he is just a few boats down. Personally I have an issue with changing names without due respect and tradition. The wife says there is no way she wants it named after a John Wayne movie...I proposed "Rooster" but thought maybe "ICHIBAN" or "UNO" might be incorporated to honor the hull number.
Anyway, we just had a great downpour so I am looking forward to hunting down those leaks.
regards
Rob
