An Unexpected Enemy

She's coming for me

While I was recovering from my surgery, I overheard something.  Something that I thought I'd never hear, coming from someone I never thought would say it. Someone who I thought was a friend.

What I overheard was Mrs Skipper telling Skipper that it was a waste of time working on a junker boat, and that he should get rid of it.  For a while I was cheering her on, thinking that she was talking about the Harlot. She was, but then I found out she was talking about ME TOO! She was trying to convince Skipper to sell both of us and buy a new Sunfish!

Skipper can't get rid of me! I've been with him longer than she has! He knows me inside and out! Literally! He knows when I am about to capsize. He knows when I'm leaking and getting bloated. I know how he sails and all of his habits. I know when he's going to tack before he does! He just cured me of terminal leakiness! He can't get rid of me!

Skipper has to keep me! and to keep me, that means he has to keep the Harlot too, because if he gets rid of one of us, the other is vulnerable. Skipper to keep us. Both of us. Together we're stronger. I've got to get  message to the Harlot! We boats have got to stick together!

Does This Leak make Me Look Fat? Part VI: I'm Healed!

The leaks are sealed and the cracks are gone! 

When skipper took me home a few weeks ago, I thought I was a goner.  I had a horrible leak that just kept getting worse. Skipper took me to specialists, who gave up on me. They said I was done for.  But skipper would have none of it.  He propped me up on my trailer, ground out all of the rotted glass, and patched me up good as new.  he even did some cosmetic surgery around my cockpit. Now that all of the sanding and painting are done, I have no leaks, some fresh fiberglass around my cockpit cheeks, and a new coat of gelcoat.

I feel like a new boat! I can't wait to go racing!  

Complications!

Look Ma, Just one cavity!

Remember the cosmetic work that Skipper was going to do for me? Well this is what he found.  There were some pretty big gelcoat cracks in the back corners of my cockpit. Skipper thought that they were just gelcoat cracks and was going to patch them.  When he sanded through the gelcoat, he found that on one side, there was only a single layer of fiberglass in my deck! He put his finger through it. By the time he removed all of the thin flaky fiberglass, there was this giant hole in my deck.  After that, he decided to inspect the fiberglass on the other side too, just to make sure that there the fiberglass on that side wasn't paper thin.

 Skipper spent some time laying in new fiberglass to cover the hole on my starboard side, then put some on the port side too "just in case". He said that his fat butt puts a lot of stress there, so he wanted to shore it up as much as he could.

Skipper has spent a lot of time working on my various maladies, so I guess that I'm not going to be a goner after all!