Odalisque - June 25, 2004 Log

Log 2004 – June 25th

Friday June 25, 2004 – “The Launch”
Crew: Caleb, Matt, Jessica
From: Jude Thaddeus Glen Cove Marina

We had the yard guys drop us in the afternoon as the tide was rising. The stream of boats disappearing out of the yard had slowed significantly by this time so I was fairly confident that they would be prompt, and they were. Matt and I were just arriving back from dropping his car off at Hempstead Harbor Club when the boat was towed towards the travel lift. Once on the lift we painted the spots that were left behind by the stands the yard used to keep Odalisque off the ground all Winter. Odalisque was lowered into the shallow water and the yard hand said: “Check the bilge!” I took this remark to mean check the bilge pump, which I did. The motor started up fine and we motored to our previously arranged guest mooring at Hempstead Harbor Club. I did not notice if the water temperature gauge was rising at this time.

We made our mooring and set up our new jib and old main except its reef lines. I thought about the black box rule and fretted a little because we put it off. The fact is that we were unsure as to how to configure them until I reread my log entry from last fall that tells how it is done. We set sail under a threatening, cloudy, gray sky heading north towards Rye, NY. Matt complained that the new jib was too small. I tried to console him that on very windy days this would be better. In fact I had asked the sail maker to make us a 150% genoa for our Tartan, which is what I thought we previously had. It turns out that the old genny was probably a 185% or so. Oh well. That was my job to oversee the repairs, including having a new sail made. I could have brought them the old sail (which was in tatters) and let them use that as a design but I had not. Asking for a 150% sail was solely my call. I was impressed with the fabric of the new sail though.

Jessica asked me to check on the sounds of water that she heard inside the cabin. I investigated. There was the normal sound of small waves hitting the hull in the V berth. Eventually I discerned the sound of a babbling faucet coming from the engine compartment. I soon found the source of the sound as I looked into the engine compartment from both sides: the stuffing box. It was dribbling like a faucet that had been very poorly shut off! Alarmed, I alerted Matt and thanked Jessica for being astute. We all thought that the boat was slowly sinking and we ran the bilge pump and made our way back to our mooring before it got too ominous and eventually rained like hell. This was distressing news but I reasoned it might fix itself and Mike the launch manager at Hempstead Harbor Club assured us that this was quite a common occurrence with stuffing boxes. Still, we were depressed by the events of the day enough to be talking about getting professionals to look at our stuffing box.

— Caleb Davison