Calstar: the shortest trip

Calstar comes out of the water today, or rather, will have done already this morning if all went to plan. I can't be there, but Dad should've been for the 0900 lift-out. I've not heard from him, so can only assume all is well.

Not being able to be there to move her around to the hoist today, we did so yesterday. The lifting crew had the day off for some reason, so they were happy for us to move her around to the hoist dock any time yesterday, and leave her there for them to lift this morning.

She's overdue a fresh coat of anti-foul and anodes. We also need to renew the bushes on the rudder. The previous bushes have completely worn away; another Westerly owner kindly provided technical drawings of the bushes, Dad has sourced the appropriate material and will turn a set up in his machine shop.

The rudder is a bit of a beast, being about twice my height, so we'll solicit professional help in dropping it out and putting it back in again.

We could potentially purchase a set of bushes. despite the age of the yacht there are folks that make them, but there's some wear on the gudgeons holding the rudder in place (are they still called gudgeons on a yacht? I've no idea; a gudgeon is also a very small river fish, so whilst the term works for a dinghy, it feels a little incredulous on a bigger boat) so by making up our own, Dad can get measure and compensate for the wear. And in any case, he likes making things.

Her lift back in is scheduled for 15th Jan.

Freefall: American Pie

I'm not sure if this will work, I'm going to try and embed a video that was shared by my Dad on Facebook. Assuming it does work, the footage is a little bit raw, so be judicious with your volume slider.

It's a the final song from our gig last Friday night. I apologise unreservedly to anybody with the slightest fondness for Don McLean; in my defence the crowd were quite wired by the end of the evening and it was hard not to be carried away by their enthusiasm. 

I also apologise for getting confused over the verses. I accidentally repeated the second verse in place of the fourth. I did think about carrying on to correct my mistake by singing the fourth afterwards, but figured the patience of the band wouldn't wear my stretching an already eight minute song out to nine or more.

As it is, they rarely let me play it anyway because of its length, and my refusal to cut it down. But it was my daughter's birthday, who was of course in the crowd because it's her pub, and it was her particular request, so this time I had them over a barrel. 

That's her in there of course, in the foreground, providing the accidental backing vocals for the first verse, happily oblivious to the fact her grandad is holding a camera.

Jack says . . .

. . . every office needs an office dog, even the home office variety.