Whups! Now Delivery to Thunderbolt looks like delayed to Mid-March.

 But, hey, that's not so bad.  It seems that we may have a Delivery Captain on the hook, but with conflicts that wouldn't allow for a departure before 12 March.   So, we're all going in the right direction. 

 This news was brought to light just before the weekend. Unfortunately, too late for us to save our planned two-Saturday Training event we'd planned to host with the Aquarium.  It was cancelled when we thought we would likely be up to our necks in prep for Delivery this next coming Saturday.  The Aquarium cancelled it, but is still considering rescheduling with us sometime later in Spring, when our future is hopefully, better defined. 

This past Saturday, Volunteers mustered with high hopes we'd be teaming up on some real schooner man stuff, like setting the foresail.  That mass of canvas had been roughly stowed for over a year, open to the elements,and was developing some green staining on some of the flakes.  

The plan as of last week, given favorable lack of wind, and sufficient crew, would be to hoist the foresail up, identify specific cleaning/ damaged issues, then lower down and take brushes, vinegar and sea buckets of fresh water to take off stains. 

Well, everything cooperated except the wind. 10-15 knots off the quarter make it inadvisable to raise all that canvas into the breeze. Nevertheless, 10 crew, the same stalwarts as last Saturday, with two prodigal sons; Dan Maurin, and Layne Carver, piled on to several projects. Because we tackled so many, Volunteers also all over the place, pitching in here, than shifting to another project as one ran down, and another started up.  Here's what they did.

Overhauling a foresail peak halyard block
 prior to sanding and painting

Emptied a new bottle of Neatsfoot oil, wiping down every leather protecting tackles, spars, and timbers from jibboom, to the helm. 

Sanded down and sand-tone spot-painted four large blocks in the headrig, and foresail peak halyards

John Hart points out some wood rot
 in one of the blocks  he was refinishing

Applied first coats of varnish over the freshly preserved and sealed Dory Gunwales

Scraped, sanded, and repainted the cockpit waterways

Dropped the foresail out of it's furl, pulled out flakes exposing weather stains, and scrubbed clean with water and vinegar.

Ken Fonville mousing a shackle
 on the Jumbo Sheet tackle

Calvin Milam and Frank Thigpen sleuthing
for the source of a persistent water leak
 into the engine room

Tony (Lefty) Marchesani passing the needle to Layne Carver-portside, to 

Set up the Juki Sewing machine  (got it running without jamming )to repair the helm sunbrella cover.

Bryan Oliver checks Tony's flawless flat stitch
 technique and coordination with his unseen shipmate Layne,
 pushing the needle from port to starboard. 

Stitched a 5.5" canvas patch on both sides of small tear developing near  the head of the foresail.

Peer trained some volunteers refreshing skills in making bowlines, particularly in docklines.

And all that by 1400 hrs.   Not bad, not bad at all.

There's still that foresail that needs a harbor furl bad.  Next Saturday maybe.

r