Itchy Foot is a Hallberg Rassy 39 Mark II. The yard that produced her has a good reputation and a long heritage of making solid, luxurious and seaworthy yachts for the moderate to high-markets. Think Jaguar or Mercedes but wetter. Even through (or possibly because) she is now twenty years old, there are some ‘standards’ and expectations to be maintained – there is an owners association and they have views.
For example, we chose to add an arch to the back of Itchy Foot, providing somewhere to place two large solar panels and quickly hang the dingy for short trips and security. But, gosh, that changes her lines, this will not do. If you must add then please consider a davits rather than an arch! Ahem.
We try our best; we don’t polish the stainless steel very often but we know where the bottle is at all times. The alcohol we use to kill fish is in a Molton Brown bottle on the back. We even debated getting fender socks but Jon drew the line – no fender socks – waste of money!
But. Our fenders ( big rubber balloon things your put on the side when in a marina between the boat and the pontoon ) are now 20 years old and the rubber is starting to leach out oil. This oil collects dirt on the surface of the fender and then applies it liberally to the side of our once white boat. Every time we used the fenders we would then spend several hours cleaning the hull, trying to remove oily dirty marks which only respond to sand paper. Cleaning the fenders themselves lasted for about a month. Two solutions: new fenders (they are 100 USD each and we need 8) or cover them in socks.
Clearly socks then, they can’t cost as much as new fenders. Ha! Imagine a shop that sells everything you need for a wedding. Not just a bridal shop which sells you a dress, but everything. Flowers, cakes, invitations, table settings, photographers, a lotta shoes, a lotta rice. Now imagine the prices you would find on the items in that shop, the specially wedding shop, they would be a ludicrous! Well, boat shopping are just like that – ludicrously overpriced.
How much for a fender sock? 25 USD. For a tube of stretchy fabric that goes around a fender. We needed 8 of these socks and therefore also a plan B.
Thankfully Mia is very good a a great many things, not least of all imaginative and cheap solution to problems. Mia noticed that our fenders are roughly the same size as, how shall we say, big boned ladies thighs. She also noticed that in Panama you can buy a pair of very heavy duty and generously sized leggings (navy blue please) for about 3 USD. And that is for two thighs each!
Flash forward and in-between bunting the project Mia and Tina started work on our fender socks today and boy do they look great! Itchy Foot is going to look lovely in the Pacific.
Anything else happen today? Not a whole lot. The wind continues to be glorious and basically perfect. The waves have continued to build but even at their peek today are more comfortable than we feared. We saw another yacht on AIS today and had a nice chat with them after lunch, Adele 1 from Oz. They caught up with us doing the night and looked set to overtake us today, so Jon trimmed the sails a little more and now we’re going the same speed. Collective noun for yachts? A competition, we suspect. A nice and quiet day finished with watching ‘The Princess Bride’ for the n’th time for the Wrights and the first for Tina.
And now? It’s 3am (we’ve chosen currently to be in California time zone – it’s a bit arbitrary but keeps the sun in line with our meal times) and we took the bimini down so above our heads is a blanket of stars. Endless.
