It is May 2nd and we have just brought Ariel back from Annapolis to our dock in White Stone. J Gordon has finished their work and we have four weeks to get Ariel ready for departure June 1st. This blogging thing is new to me so I am sure it will take time to work the kinks out but I will do my best. A great deal has been accomplished over the winter and I am very pleased with the work that J Gordon has done. We have, among other things, replaced the Raymarine electronics with Furuno's new touch screen system and on the way down (with Lloyd Redlin, thank you Lloyd) it worked very well - I have still a tremendous amount to learn to get full utility out of it. We gave added a diesel heater, replaced the autopilot with a new hydraulic unit and reconfigured the vee berth to half storage and half berth. Last year we replaced the standing rigging and the chain plates, pulled the mast and repaired a number of problems and put it back with Spartite, added two new 50 gallon diesel tanks on the aft deck, bought a new aluminum RIB and bigger outboard, reconditioned all of the deck hatches and installed a wind generator.
I still have to install a fire suppression system in the engine compartment (required by insurance), fix the aft head and change out the propane bottles. When Sue has time she will show me how to post pictures of some of this. Right now we have the RRYC shakedown cruise to deal with - I wil add more later.
