Tuesday, November 22, 2016

Bored -- not any more!

Well the boredom ended last night after dinner. We went to the Riverside Cafe just on the other side of the bridge here for dinner last night. A nice easy dinghy ride. Dinner was fine for that kind of Sports bar Atmosphere but oh the ride home. Now I did not have any alcohol so we can't blame that but as we left an accident occurred. We were at the dinghy dock but had to run through a fairway of medium power boats to get out. Now it is dark with limited lighting. I had to spin the dinghy around to get out and just as I straightened there is a power boat with his transom up and the prop just out of the water. It was too close and I caught the prop and punched a 1.5" hole in the bow tube. Now this is why you want a RIB (Rigid bottom inflatable). The tube deflated almost immediately but because of the fiberglass hull we were floating just fine and motored back to our boat. It was scary in the dark but no problem. We pulled he motor off the dinghy and raised it in the davits to be sure it wouldn't sink overnight.

This morning I pulled the dinghy up on deck to repair and the damage and it did not look too bad. The cut was only 1.5" long but between a D-ring and a tube seam. My patch kit which I have 2 of was no good. The adhesive in the one kit was gummy and the other kit all the solvent had left the adhesive and it was hard. I tried to locate sone Toluol which is the solvent in the adhesive and could only find a 5 gallon barrel at Sherwin Williams -- need maybe 2 ounces. I found that Xylene will also work as a solvent but the drying time is longer.

Vic on Salty Turtle going to Lowes so he picked up a quart for me.

It was not ideal but a test patch looked okay so I tried it. Tomorrow will be the test when I inflate it.

Grrr this dinghy has been so air tight since I've had it I hope it still is.

Needles to say with no dinghy today we entertained ourselves otherwise -- like signed up Karen for Obama Care in 2017. Current plan won't be offered and what is which is only one plan through Blue Cross and Blue Shield is outrageous -- we will treat it as catastrophic coverage because as a normal health plan "it is criminal".

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