Sunday, December 18, 2016 –
Well here we are, one week exactly until Christmas, and we survived two of the coldest days in DC’s near past. We are settled into the temporary berth on the C Dock and will be here until the first of April. The Lady seems comfortable in this slip.
I drove the 1st Mate out to the Washington National airport on Wednesday at noon for a business trip to her newly acquired Nashville office and headed back to the Yacht Club to prepare for inclement weather. The temps dropped Wednesday night into the very low 20s. Thursday dawned very cold, wet and windy, altogether a miserable DC area day. The Misty Lady did try to keep the old Captain and the two Sea Cats from freezing to death, thanks to the space heaters. (the HVAC units are useless when the temps drop and the water Temp gets to 40 or below). Most yachts are not prepared to have folks live in cold weather on board. Friday the team arrived to begin doing the shrink wrap of the Lady. The day was cold, but no rain.
Just before noon Friday, I drove out to National Airport to collect the 1st Mate arriving from her trip to Nashville (she has an office there now with about 6 local folks). We then returned to the Capital Yacht Club and the Misty Lady. The shrink wrap team had been working on our boat. This is what she looked like as they got things underway.
The overlay of the wrap covers the entire boat from bow anchor pulpit to the stern ladder. The shrink process would follow. Frankly, we have high hopes that this shrink wrap job will, as many folks have said, reduce our power need for heating, as well as keep the overall boat warmer. It will remain in place until the weather is warmer and we no longer need the additional insulation.
The picture on the below left is a shot of the team leader up on the Lady’s bridge roof at the electronics arch. They are laying the wrap around the satellite antenna and the internet antenna to ensure that we do not lose signals.
The picture on the right above is what we found Saturday morning, after a freezing rain the evening and early morning. The white stuff on the finger dock is actually accumulated ice. The look of the wrap is obviously different since the team worked to do some shrink work, before they had to give up due to freezing on their equipment as well as themselves. The 1st Mate was concerned about these two young men and the wet, icy environment. Darkness was also fast approaching. They closed up the job and told us that they would be back to finish the job on Monday morning.
Sunday evening we discovered a good reason why one should be careful about scheduling work on a yacht for Friday. The shrink wrap team attempted to secure the wrap sufficiently to last until they returned on Monday to finish up the job with daylight and less frigid weather, as well as give the 1st Mate less worry about their health. We were all sitting in the salon, Charlotte working on her company computer, me on this one, and the two Sea Cats were napping as usual. All of a sudden, Mother Nature decided to be a real jerk and give us some wind around 2pm. Wind blowing about 15MPH and gusts up to 50 MPH causing the shrink wrap to start blowing and flapping like crazy. We were concerned that it would be torn and blow across the fairway to the B dock and either damage one of the yachts there or worse hit a person and harm them. The Bride and I stood on the afterdeck, holding the vinyl sheets that were blowing like crazy we were afraid to let go because of the worry about tearing and losing the sheets.
Charlotte came up with a partial solution to take some of the strain of our holding onto the sheets to keep them from continuing to tear more. She wound the two pieces together with a twist that pulled them together, then she took one of our spare docking lines, created a strong halter tie, winding the line around the twist, also pulling the bottom of the twist over to create a “hook” and then tied the line off connected to one of the Fender Holders on the Aft Deck. This fix held giving us respite from the constant need to apply pressure. It held also through the evening and into the following morning. When the shrink wrap team arrived, I finally untied her work and that allowed them to pull the two pieces together and effect a repair. What a brilliant woman I was lucky enough to have as my wife!!!
Finally around 6pm the winds died down somewhat and we were able to come back inside, fix and eat some supper. Altogether we had been out there holding on to the torn sheets to keep them from tearing more and blowing away.
Monday morning, December 19 –
The team is here now and are making repairs to the damages from the winds. They will then follow up and complete the total shrink wrap with the final steps being to install a window on the stern portion and a large zipper door in the access portal (starboard side door). I will take some more pictures of the boat when they have finished the total wrap. We have seen the boat with the loose wrap, supposedly it will look pretty clean later after they close up the loose ends.
I will probably hold off on closing out this edition of the blog until I can photograph the finished product.
Tuesday, December 20 – Continuing with the Blog entry for today, I am going to provide several photographs of the finished shrink wrap product.
The photo on the left is a view of the starboard side of the yacht with the shrink wrap completed. The photo on the right is a shot of the port side of the yacht. The guys did a pretty darn decent job and we can feel a change already.
The above left photo is the bow showing the anchor completely enclosed removing another area where cold winds would be entering the forward section. The above right photo is the stern showing just a bit of the Misty Lady Logo and our swim platform. The team left access slots in the vinyl at the rear of the boat to allow us to access the pump out connection for the holding tank and the fresh water connection entry on the starboard side.
We awoke this morning to some rather frigid weather, temps down in the upper 20s. This left a sheen of ice on the top of the marina waters. The two photos below are views of the ice sheen in the Fairway between the C Dock and the B Dock.
Another wonder of the metro Washington, DC waterfront. Note that other yachts in the Yacht Club marina are shrink wrapped as well. A rite of winter passage apparently.
We are preparing for our Hodges Family Christmas gathering on Saturday. We will all gather at my daughter Kurby’s new home to hold a celebration dinner, enjoy the company of immediate family and share gifts of the season.
Hope you all have a very good holiday, enjoyable Christmas gatherings and commune with family.
See you for the next entry in the aboard happenings with Me, The First Mate and the two Sea Cats.
More later.
Misty Lady Thought and Comment 