Season's close

Last night I put the winter cover on Cal 20 #1220, /Martha C/. It was also the first night I've worn long pants to work. There was a stiff wind from the north and it was chilly. I had worn shorts the night before when doing my last epoxy work and when putting my winter cover supports in place. The epoxy work involved replacing the fiberglass on a portion of the overhead. A couple years ago there was a sudden water intrusion via a tiny crack at the corner of the forward hatch. It caused a strip of the interior overhead fiberglass to delaminate from the forward hatch to the main hatch. It happened right at the end of the season, so I cut out the delaminated glass to let the plywood core dry over the winter. The boat sailed perfectly well without the strip of fiberglass on the overhead, so I made myself promises about attending to it one of these days quite soon. Well, fall came again, and still no repair. Then I got a tour of a local Tripp 26 when the owner helped me get my winter mooring marker in place. His son was very proud of a core replacement job he had done on the overhead of that boat. That made me a bit embarrassed about not attending to mine, so I formed a plan and turned it into a multi-evening project in steps. As we all know, gravity is not your friend when working with epoxy goo and fiberglass overhead. I used large boards with compressible foam on the and with plastic sheets over that, propped up from below. It worked pretty well. The surface will need some fairing, then I'll varnish over it with some dull or low-gloss varnish so it matches the rest of the overhead. Maybe I'll do all the clear-finished overhead with the varnish. But that's a chore for next spring, likely, unless our weather takes a sudden turn for the better or my other fall chores disappear. The last fall chore was securing my new Brummel hook to the spinnaker head. You may recall that I had asked if anybody had the second half of a small Brummel hook. Our listmate Drew mailed me one, but the USPS sorting machine apparently squeezed it out of the envelope. Well, last weekend I stopped at a "garage sale" sign that said "boat stuff." There wasn't much boat stuff but there was a small Brummel hook half @ $0.75. I splurged. Wow, it fits! I seized it onto the spinnaker using some polyester "waxed lacing thread" on a big spool. Now I'm ready for downwind work next season. Chris Campbell