It takes lots of hose clamps – dan
…to keep a boat afloat. Ah, the humble hose clamp, not as flashy or as proud as a dorade or even a deck cleat. It’s not the first thing one thinks of when considering things nautical; probably not even the last, but, vital none-the-less. I must admit that I have never given them much thought until recently when I started replacing them on Gypsy and, believe me, there’s a lot of them onboard. In recognition of the vital role that they play in enforcing rule number 1 (keep the water out) I’ve been giving them their due respect by inspecting each and everyone of them, replacing any that show any signs of corrosion. As I go through this practice I’ve come to wonder; what are the hose clamps that keep our lives and relationships afloat? Surely communication must be an important one; honesty, (within and without) another; tolerance too... Must keep all those in order.
We finally got around to changing Gypsy’s hailing port; no longer is she from Macatawa Michigan (previous owner’s home port). A vessel can use any town in the country to list as a homeport. Any town; there’s a boat on our dock that has Denver CO on her transom. Go figure. We like Mystic.
There was a regatta on the river behind us last weekend that was fun to watch; not that I was able to spend much time taking it in. I watched a couple of heats and then turned back to work on Gypsy.
I installed and AIS (Automatic Identification System) system. We selected the ACR’s Nauticast B. It’s the least expensive class B transponder on the market. The instillation instructions could be improved on but in spite of that I managed to get the unit hooked-up and displaying on our Garmin 5208 chart plotter. We now can see any of the big vessels around us on our plotter display and they’ll be able to see us. We also got XM satellite weather going. The hardware came with the boat when we bought her. Even though it is primarily a US mainland and costal service it should serve us at least halfway to Bermuda and then a little later when we’re in the Bahamas and northern Caribbean.
Tomorrow we’re driving a vanload of “stuff” up to Massachusetts for one of Susan’s cousins. It will be wonderful when we’re finished dealing with the past and can move on to our future.
