One Girls Ocean Challenge

February 16, 2011
It has been a busy week.  Just to bring everyone up to speed, we arrived at Shake A Leg in Miami very late on Sunday night after a lengthy two days drive.  Monday and Tuesday were then spent getting the boat ready to launch. Shake A Leg was hosting a whole bunch of Melges from a regatta and couldn’t launch us until Tuesday night! This meant that we were putting the mast up at the crane at low tide at midnight. The mini was truelly a giant amongst the Melges and the Etchells in Shake A Leg’s yard. We stood head and shoulders above everyone and took up tons of space, which also made launching pretty tricky. There was very little clearance on the crane to get the boat out of the trailer, and when it came to putting the mast up we had to sling it about 4 feet below the pivot point, just to get it high enough to step. After Miami we’re going to resolve either a gyn pole or a different method that will allow us to put the mast up ourselves and not relie on other people’s cranes. So the mast is now up and we’ve motored over to our new home for the next several days. Coconut Grove Sailing Club is able to accomodate us and me sleeping on the boat. They also are a wonderful group of people.

So with the adjustments to the time line I’m now looking at starting on Saturday February 19th. I need to make sure that the boat is ready. I’m not going to rush things. The weather is looking good, and slowly everything is coming together on the boat, including the engine mount which I forgot in Toronto! Jack from Shake A Leg loaned me his from his J22. Thanks Jack! 

The plan for tomorrow is to get the rig tuned, get out into the bay and calibrate the computer and pull on some strings to make sure all of the sails go up and down properly.  Then Friday will be a time to check out the channel and whatever else is still on the jobs list.  Fortunately the list is getting smaller 🙂

We’re getting there!

Diane