New Rudder Post!

This week has flown by! I guess this is what will happen until departure…time will only continue to speed up. We’ve had several ‘good’ things happen this week:

Thanks to the wonderful guys – Richard & Mike - at Union Tool, we have a new rudder post!! The Bronze stock was ordered on Monday for Tuesday morning delivery and they received it and started machining it on Tuesday. They called Wednesday morning and told us to come get it – and it was at a VERY reasonable price. We were thrilled to say the least! After putting all the other pieces and parts on the shaft, we found that ultimately two pieces also had to be machined to fit onto the new shaft. Again, the guys at Union Tool came through and got us all set by Thursday evening.

Now that we have the shaft, we also had to rely on several others to help us get all of the remaining items ready – Keith McMillan helped us with some welding, and loaned us some tools to get the job done. He also picked up several nuts & bolts for us, did some alterations to our current pieces, & did everything post haste, as he knew we were scheduled to go back in the water on Friday morning.

Corey Coxon also came over and helped Michael out putting the new rudder in place, with all of the new pieces & parts. We decided to pick up a Pillow Bearing to put at the top of the rudder post to help with some of the ‘slop’ in the top end. We found out by looking at the original plans, that it calls for it. So we picked one up at Allied Bearing, Inc. Bryan at Valley Prop did some alterations on our propeller since we had it off to make it operate better. And everyone at Anchor’s Way Boatyard that have helped us so much: Andy, Gill, Melissa, Doug, Frank, Jose, Dan, & Les – they’ve been so helpful while we’ve been in the boatyard.

Geez, I hope I’m not forgetting anyone! So….the party is still on – at the same location – WOOHOO!!! We’ll splash the boat Friday morning at 8:30 and will head back to Channel Islands Harbor. We’ll tie up close to Michael’s shop and will rope off some space Saturday morning for the party. We’re both starting to get “excited” now. We’ve moved our official departure date up to the 9th of November so we’ll be able to get some business stuff done before we leave. We’ll write more later…..Rene & Michael