January 14, 2010

I awoke at 4:30 am, partly due to nervous excitement, and partly to arrive at Napa Valley Marina early in the morning. I knew the yard crew would want to get the boat off-loaded and on the stands right away, and Thomas would want to be on the road as soon as possible. I had heard from the marina that the truck had arrived the previous night after having some brake problems. I had also gotten an email from Thomas telling me he had arrived safe and sound, but had narrowly averted disaster. He said he would tell me about it when I arrived, so I was eager to get the full story and see for myself that Circadian was okay.
As I pulled in the drive at Napa Valley Marina, there was Circadian on the truck, with Thomas removing some of the securing straps. The whole scene was dramatically painted by the light of the rising sun as it burned through the morning fog. Thomas was just the tall, slim Texan I had imagined. Of course once I saw that Circadian was fine, I had to hear the story of what had happened.
It had been raining as Thomas was going over the notorious Grapevine pass in Southern California. One of his wipers wasn’t working properly, so he stopped to fix it. To access it, he had to move a control bar below the dash that was part of the air brakes system. When he closed up, he failed to move the bar back completely. That caused, unbeknownst to him, one of the brake shoes to drag on a drum on the trailer as he went down the long steep incline. When he heard the distinct bang of a blown tire, he recognized what it was and stopped to investigate. What he found was a left rear brake drum glowing orange hot. It had melted the tire rim, which caused the blowout. It was so hot he was afraid the tires might ignite. If the tires went, everything went. He knew his fire extinguisher would be useless, and frantically tried to find a source of water to cool the drum. He remembered the cooler full of drinking water he carried, and used that to gradually cool the drum. When everything cooled down, he changed the tire, repaired the brake and continued on his way. Disaster averted.
Now that the tale had been told, and questions from curious “yard rats” had been answered, it was time to get to work. The dinghy was put back on its davits, and the mast off-loaded with the crane. The travel lift straddled the truck and Circadian, and the big lifting straps were threaded under her belly. She was lifted off the truck, and the truck pulled out from under the boat. Ten minutes later, Circadian was resting on jack stands in the spot where she would remain for at least the next month or two.
My first priority was to look things over to make sure everything arrived intact and to find the items Cindy and Jessie loaded aboard after I had left for home. The forward cabin stank due to the closed up fridge and the disgusting unidentifiable slime growing in some water in the toilet. I opened all the hatches and tried pumping out the head. When I met some resistance on the pump handle, I decided I better not force it, but should wait until I read a manual to make sure I didn’t blow a hose and create a real disaster. As a stop gap, I poured some Pine Sol into the bowl and covered it with a sheet of plastic. I cleaned the fridge with the Pine Sol and took out all the removable bits for a good soaking in Clorox at home.
When the atmosphere was again breathable, I started surveying the cabin. The only casualty appeared to be the glass chimney and inverted oil burner from the hanging trawler lamp. I bummed a broom and dustpan from the chandlery and cleaned it up. The stripped out aft cabin was stuffed chock-a-block with gear that had been hastily stowed for Circadian’s move. There was barely room to stand inside, but it seemed everything was there. Because it was impossible to get to much of it, I won’t be able to determine just what I’ve got until I clear it out.
I was ready for a break, and it was lunch time, so I headed for my favorite local spot at Cuttings Wharf on the Napa River. No obnoxious wine tourists, good food and a great view. To top it off, there was sun and blue sky for the first time in more than a week. Surprisingly, it was even warm. I was enjoying the meal on the deck and casual conversation with a local architect, a couple who worked in a winery tasting room, an elderly woman from Sonoma, and three dogs, but it was time to get back to work.
Back at the yard, I decided to junk the old and musty, albeit “custom spring,” mattress in the v-berth, jettisoned it unceremoniously over the side, and hauled it to the dumpster. I found the gas-powered high-capacity emergency pump and associated hoses in the aft lazarette. It was a bit rusty, but looked like it might still run. It was also very heavy. Nonetheless, I decided to take it home, both to get it out of the way and to test it at my leisure later. I secured it to some half-inch line, wrestled it to the cap rail, and slowly lowered it the 10 feet to the ground using a belaying technique I had managed to dredge out of my old mountaineering memories. Lugging it to the truck and loading it was just plain grunt work.
I spent the last couple of hours of daylight covering the leaky hatches with the plastic sheeting and duct tape I had brought just for that purpose. I did some final tidying up, locked the companionway doors with new combination locks, and climbed down the ladder carrying a saloon cushion cover that was the victim of spilled oil from the trawler lamp. I took down the ladder and made a last visit to the “facilities” before wearily climbing into the truck for the hour-and-a-half drive home.