Spring clearing.

This weekend I spent some much needed spare time organizing and clearing out the Dockyard. I took some time going through all of our sails, pulling them out and marking those that needed maintenance before sending them back out into service. I shifted the trailers and did my "spring clearing" of the brush and tall grass that had begun to spring up in the back forty. Now, thankfully, we are returning to normalcy after the great scamble over Mini-Hornet.

After months of not having a stitch of free time to get that and several other related projects done, it was odd to have an entire weekend with nothing that NEEDED doing. It was almost surreal. And as a few of my colleagues predicted - I didn't quite know what to do with myself. But of course, my boredom inevtably leads to productivity - I don't sit still very well.

I broke out and set up the Bandit 15, my own personal boat, a 30-year-old racing dinghy that is doing well but approaching its last few seasons. After a quick scrub down, she looked tolerable again and all of her rigging and spars were in good order. Of course, I need to find a new jib - having shredded the leach of the existing sail last year. But with a little bit of searching and an ungodly amount of money for such a small but critical sail, she'll be back out on the water in a few weeks. If you're ever on the waterfront trying to find me, the Bandit flies the NHS pennant, and, well, her hull is bright yellow. Can't miss that, really.

Hopefully by the time I get around to procuring myself a new jib and getting the last of the pollen stains out of the cockpit it'll provide me a great personal diversion, some occasional time away from the continued heavy lifting on the HORNET Project. And who knows, it might actually save my sanity!

NNNN