Today's the day for the sea trial, haul out, survey and re-launch. I really
wanted to wait until spring, but the buyer's broker has insisted, so here we
are. Forecast is for heavy rain, thunderstorms and winds at 15-25 mph.
Seas 4 feet or so. Ok. That's not ideal, but we can handle that.

I came down to the boat yesterday afternoon. Haven't been here since before
Christmas and I wanted to remove the Christmas lights and the insulation I
had installed in the windows and the air inlets to the engine room. Got
here at low tide and noticed another challenge for today.

My boat is in what is called the "Back Basin". It's a man-made slip area
behind the marina buildings and parking lot. The front section is the main
harbor containing more slips, mooring sites and the channel leading out to
Buzzard's Bay.

The new challenge is that during the winter, the marina removes all the
slips from the front section and stores them in the back basin area and in
the channel leading from the back basin to the main harbor. This channel is
normally about 50-60 feet wide and is about 7 feet deep at low tide in the
center. I walked down there at low tide and realized that with the
floating slips from the front all tied up in the channel, the navigable
water was less than 20 feet wide. Worse, all the slips are stored on one
side of the channel which means the passage is not in deep water. The
Navigator has a 15 foot beam and draws 4.5 feet.

The most interesting part though is that due to the way the front slips are
stored in the water, they present a "mouse maze" type puzzle in terms of
how to get out and back. They consist of sections of the main slips with
finger slips still attached, all tied together in random arrangements. It
will be a series of maneuvers, pivoting the boat using reverse, forward on
alternate engines just to get through the maze. There's simply not enough
room to make a normal turn.

As I said, this should be interesting. Especially since it's been a while
since I had to maneuver this boat around in such tight quarters. Glad I
extended the navigational insurance for another month.

Eisboch