Legacy Sailing
Photo Gallery 23
October 2004 Commissioning in San Carlos, MX
We arrived safely back in San Carlos after our long summer's driving trip.  The boat was in good shape, though amazingly dirty.  She was moved from the storage yard to the work yard late on the first day.  As usual everything is delayed and happens later than planned.  We got busy right away on the big projects of painting the bottom and servicing the underwater parts of the boat.  Heather has been busy cleaning the cabin and sorting gear and supplies for disposal, replacement, and storage.
The craggy mountains surrounding San Carlos really set off the colors of the ocean.	At the Desert Posada, a small hotel near the harbor, the bright colors set off the dry land and flowering bushes.
The work yard is very crowded with boats getting ready to launch so we ended up in the sandblasting booth, not that that prevented them from sandblasting another boat just outside it!	To avoid fading and sun damage to the interiors of the boat in the summer we cover all the windows and hatches with aluminum foil.
For the summer we replaced all the running rigging with messenger lines.  As we removed them we carefully rolled them up and labeled for reuse.	Chris rolls on fresh bottom paint after washing last years light growth off the bottom.  Nothing like a non-breathing paper suit in the tropical sun.
There is a huge shortage of ladders in the yard, so one has to make due with what's available.  The one we have been using is bent, broken, and crooked, but usable!	The driver of this tractor is a genius!  He is maneuvering a 75 foot long tuning fork shaped trailer among the stands and supports under our boat.
You can see here how he has slipped the trailer in on wither side of the forward jack stand with only inches to spare.	Chris watches nervously as one of the workers adjusts the hydraulic lifting arms to support the boat on the trailer.
Launch day at last.  The tractor turns the boat around in the midst of the construction debris of Marina Seca and prepares to head us down the road.	At the harbor we float peacefully after an uneventful launch.  Because there was no room at Marina San Carlos we had to make the six mile trip to the nearby Marina Real.
We made a provisioning and mail trip to Tucson (about 6 hours north) and managed a stop at the nearby Saguaro National Park.  Here the cactus forest marches down to the edge of Tucson.	Almost all of the plant life in Saguaro NP seems to have copious spines.  Despite the spike there is color too amidst the very dry vegetation.
Back on the boat we tackled the windlass replacement.  Removing the old one left a gaping hole in the deck.	We ground back a rim and placed a foil covered form under the hole to hold the new fiberglass in place.
Chris cuts fiberglass cloth to shape to be bonded into the deck to fill the hole.    We will also have to move one of the chain stoppers and alter the protective guard on the deck to accommodate the changes.	Chris had to work inside the forepeak locker to grind away old fiberglass and then to create a new upper end of the hawsepipe to match the new windlass.
With the fiberglass work done it was time to cut the holes in the deck for the new windlass.  Chris drills through a template taped to the deck.	The new Lofrans Tigres windlass installed on Legacy's foredeck.  Heavy, but much more serviceable than the original undersized windlass.
Updated 11/14/2006