Planning the Haulout

We're getting a lot closer to the big, expensive part of the refit: hauling out Windbird at Charleston City Boatyard, securing her on land for a month, yanking the mast, replacing her chainplates, stem iron, and standing rigging, fitting the mast with a new Tides track, replacing a cracked gooseneck fitting, fixing a small area of water intrusion in the skeg, replacing a seacock, refreshing the bottom paint...and oh yeah, replacing the radar and masthead wind transducer if I can ever get the insurance company to call me back. Dealing with them has been pretty frustrating. It's been a full month since the lightning strike and I still don't know when they'll send out an adjustor. I'd hate to move the boat to Charleston before then.

Regardless, we've set everything up with CCBY. We'll be arriving on Sept 30th, decommissioning over that weekend, and hauling out Monday Oct 3rd. We'll be headed to Annapolis the following weekend which will give me a week to work on the mast and boom. When we get back, before splashing the boat we'll paint the bottom. Apparently I'm going to work a few days in there, too. It's my first month based in Atlanta and I bid efficient trips to several places I haven't been before: Lagos, Nigeria and Bogota, Colombia. 

Dawn and I spent all day today trying to nonrev out to Myrtle Beach; we eventually gave up on getting out of MSP on Delta and took American through Charlotte, which worked much better. We'll be cruising the ICW and Waccamaw River to Georgetown SC the next few days, getting some boat projects done along the way. Really looking forward to moving aboard at the end of October so we can spend less time traveling back & forth & more time getting the boat ready...and so I can see Piper more than a couple days a month. I definitely miss my pup.