Willie's Tug and a Shear Pin -- 8/22/2014

Rule No. 1 - One should not teach one's spouse to drive a boat, or a car, or to cook, or to clean house.

Rule No. 2 - One's spouse should not be on the boat while she is learning to single hand.

With that in mind, I ask my friend, Capt. Patrick to give me a few pointers on safety and emergency handling of the boat.  He is happy to do that and today is a good day, as the wind is 10 to 15.  

So he comes over to Willie's Tug and we have Ground School, or maybe that should be Tied up  to the Dock School....

Then he takes the helm and backs the boat out of her slip.  The bow thruster doesn't sound very good and I recall having heard it misbehave as we came into our slip yesterday.  Oh, well, we have some boating to do now, so off we go.

After a few hours of playing in the channel outside the Sailing Club, Patrick tells me the bow thruster is definitely broken so we will save the docking techniques for tomorrow after we fix the thruster.  He takes the helm again and brings us back to our slip without the aid of the thruster.

Herb brings Jake back to the boat and he and Patrick spend quite a bit of time accessing the thruster and removing the broken shear pin.

To get to it, the forward cushion which is part of the mattress in the master berth is removed to reveal a hole with stuff down below.  Down, down!  One cannot just sit at a table to do the repairs.  Oh, and a carefully made bed has to be unmade and pushed aside.  Pillows, blanket, everything is piled on top the dinette table.  But that doesn't worry me, I just hope they can fix the thruster.

Success!  They get the broken pin out and install the new one.

Shear Pin Broken into Three Pieces

After I remake the bed and everything is ship shape again, Herb and I cruise over to the fuel dock to top off our tank before we head out to Anacortes in a day or so.  We are surprised to see Janeane, Lyman and their friend Vicki in the dinghy heading for Ganges dingy dock, because we didn't expect them to arrive on Zuma until later in the evening.  We are so excited they are here early enough to  join us for dinner.

Plans are made for Happy Hour and dinner on the newly repaired Willie's Tug. What a party!

Patrick, Gail, Janeane, Willie, Vicki and Lyman

If you don't hear from me after today, you know my camera has been taken away.

"Those who change shear pins together....

                                   ...just get more experience in the fix-it department!"

Thank you Herb and Patrick for repairing my boat!