Fix it or get rid of it?

That's the question I've been asking myself lately. There are only so many hours in the day. There are only so many hours in a life.

Recently I posted that I've a new main sail on order for my Oday 19. Since we lost our Ranger 23, we've decided to fix the Oday. Here's the thing, I've known that the Oday was going to need a new sail for some time. Slowly a fund was built up to replace that sail.

Then some other stuff happened. That sail fund became the seed money that went towards buying the Ranger. Add in an unexpected check that came my way and suddenly purchasing another sailboat was possible. Of course, the Oday was still left with a blown out main sail.

So now the Oday is a keeper and is getting fixed. What else do I have taking up space? There's a 1974 Kawasaki 900 sitting in a shed that I haven't used in years. The wiring needs work. The rest of the bike is in pretty good shape. Do I fix it or get rid of it?

I still maintain a motorcycle license and really enjoyed riding. The problem is that weather good enough for motorcycles is good enough for sailboats. Can't do everything. Besides, I've a really nice pedal bike which is lots of fun and better for my health.

Then there are all the canoes. I've three in good shape, one in fair, and three project canoes. With the three good ones there's plenty for me and my guests. I really should do something with the others. The other day I was checking out the project boats and discovered a moose had stepped right through the middle of one of them. Scrapping at least that one should be easy.

The list could go on.

One thing I've been doing lately is recycling my old electronics -even stuff that works. Who's ever going to use low resolution tube style computer monitors? Not much call for that sort of thing. Even so, it's been surprising hard to get rid of stuff like that.

Well, new stuff can't come into my life until I clean out the old.

-Sixbears

Fixing the boat I have

Monday was a good day for dealing with things on the Internet and on the phone. The day started with snow which accumulated to about an inch before turning to rain. Not a good day for playing outside.

The main sail on my Oday 19 is blown out and ripped. It's like the main motor is not firing on all cylinders. It really needs to be replaced. After a lot of searching around I decided to go with Bacon Sails. They e-mailed a detailed Measurement Form.

Apparently it's not enough to know the model and year of your boat. There's a lot of variance between boats, even those that are the same model. Rather than build a sail that sorta fits, they want to build one that really fits my particular boat. Makes sense, I guess.

I wish it was simple, as now I've got a lot of measuring to do. The boat will have to be unwrapped from its winter cocoon and moved to where I can lift the mast without getting tangled up in power lines. Tuesday is supposed to be another rainy day, but the sun is supposed to come out Wednesday.

I hope to get them moving on the sail fairly soon as it takes about four weeks to build it. They want half the money up front and the other half when the sail is completed. That seems to be a common practice in the industry.

While waiting for the sails to come in I might as well do a few other projects, like a mount for the 100 watt solar panel. A new cabin hatch would be great too. The Oday has a removable cabin hatch instead of a sliding one. It's a miracle that it hasn't fallen off the boat and sank to the bottom of the ocean. It would be kinda cool to build something that gives me a few more inches of headroom too. That would certainly make the boat more comfortable.

Maybe I can get all those projects done before the sail comes in. Right now all the ice isn't even off the lake yet, so giving it another month to warm up isn't a bad thing.

-Sixbears