We're Gonna Need a Bigger Bolt

It's Sunday afternoon and I am sitting in the air-conditioned hotel room typing this, while Kevin is toiling away at the boatyard in the hot Puerto Rican sun. He won't allow me to help work on the boat today, but more on that later.

Yesterday morning started off so smoothly. We had found exactly the type of oil Kevin needed for the two saildrives. We had also discovered a leftover can of bottom paint from our last haulout that was three-quarters full. It will be just barely enough to cover the bows and transoms and a few other areas that are bare to the gelcoat. Kevin got to work on changing the saildrive oil while I started masking for painting the bottom. I was just finishing that task when I heard some quiet cursing coming from under the saildrive. Moments later, Kevin walked up and said "We are screwed. I stripped the threads on the port saildrive plug." He was holding a tiny bolt in his hand and I said, "That's no problem, I'm sure you can take that bolt over to the chandlery and find another one that's a similar size and shape." He shook his head, "No, you don't understand. I didn't strip the threads on the bolt, I stripped the threads INSIDE the saildrive itself." Oh. This was a major problem. The saildrives are the parts that attach the propellers to the diesel engines. They are underwater all the time so the bolt has to fit perfectly to prevent water getting in, but it also has to be removable so that you can change the saildrive oil every year or so. Our saildrives are old models that aren't sold anymore, and even if they were it would be very expensive to replace the whole drive. So Kevin was right. We were indeed screwed.

Of course these types of things always happen on a weekend so the Volvo mechanic Kevin tried calling did not pick up. After quite a bit of thought, Kevin went to Sears with the idea of picking up a tapping set to make a bigger hole in the saildrive. Risky, but what else could we do? He also went into the office to postpone our launch two more days, to Tuesday instead of Sunday. While he did that I took an inventory of all the canned food we had left aboard the boat. Note to self: next time don't leave ANYTHING edible aboard. Most of the cans were fine but very rusty on the outside (yuck). But there were a few where the tops and bottoms were puffing out. Mmm...botulism, anyone? So quite a few cans went into the garbage bin. I'm still not sure we want to eat the stuff that's in the rusty cans, but we'll clean them off and see if they're okay, I guess.

Kevin returned with a tapping set and a slightly bigger bolt and started work on drilling out the hole in the saildrive. Meanwhile I kept going with the prep work for painting. I began wet sanding the areas where the new coats of paint would go and by the time I'd finished, Kevin was also done with the new threads for the new bolt. After shortening the new bolt with a hacksaw, it fit perfectly. Way to go, Kevin! We had an hour left until the yard closed so we wanted to get at least one coat of paint on. We were both painting, but I was wearing a bunny suit which was very hot. Stupidly, neither one of us were wearing masks. After forty-five minutes I started feeling headachy and nauseated from the fumes and went to sit in the shade. Kevin finished up the first coat himself and we cleaned up and went back to the hotel, which is where the fun started.

We both showered and were planning to celebrate our saildrive victory at a local sit-down restaurant, rather than yet another night of fast food. But what's that saying? "If you want to make God laugh, make plans". Before we could leave for dinner my headache went from mild to severe and I was soon puking my guts out. Kevin did a quick internet search on my symptoms and suspected I had heat exhaustion and dehydration, so he ran out to get some gatorade and pedialyte. But I couldn't even keep two sips of any liquid down without making another mad dash to the bathroom. It felt like the mother of all hangovers. After four hours of misery, Kevin finally convinced me that we had to go to the hospital.

We drove to the hospital around 10pm, past an odd gathering of fifty or so men on horseback weaving in and out of traffic (???! At first I thought I was hallucinating, but Kevin saw it too so I guess that's just the typical party scene on Saturday night in Fajardo). We managed to find the ER and there were a few staffers who spoke English, thankfully. The doctor advised that I was definitely dehydrated from not drinking enough water, but that the paint fumes were what probably did me in. I was given a bag of IV fluids laced with pepcid and reglan to quell the nausea. (Which, ironically, were the exact same medications we gave to our cat Boris every day for the last few months of his life...it was weird to be on the other end of the needles this time). It didn't take long for me to start feeling much better and by 2am the fluids had finished. I was discharged and we headed back to the hotel and fell into bed, exhausted.

So today poor Kevin is slaving away at the boat, while I lounge at the hotel. He plans to put a couple more coats of paint on (while wearing a MASK this time!) and run both engines. So it's not a total disaster and we are making some progress. In fact I *think* we might even still launch on Tuesday as planned, but I can faintly hear God laughing (and I can CLEARLY hear loud peals of thunder) so we'll just have to wait and see what old Solstice throws at us next.