To say we have been busy these last couple of weeks would be an understatement. Not only were we thrwarted into wedding planning bliss (insert large, toothy, purposefully strained grin) but we had the holidays, family parties, out-of-town guests and - well, lets face it - our upcoming July 24th nuptials took precedence the end of November. Wedding planning, FYI, is not for the faint of heart! Did you know there are brides out there that book venues BEFORE they get engaged? Yeah. Enough said.
Anyway, this past couple weeks of wedding induced chaos has put a monkey wrench in boat work. HOWEVER, we have hired a wedding planner (hooray for me and my sanity!) and now, boat work can commence! And boy oh boy did it ever on Sunday. First of all, we arrived at Canal Street and the magic elves at the marina shrink-wrapped our little beauty so we can work on her in rain, sleet or snow (sounds fun, right?). Our boat is now a super-cool fort! It was great timing really, as it was rainy on Sunday - and there we were, working away on deck completely dry. Sigh. Luxury (Not quite, but it's all relative).
The big news is we removed 4 of the 5 seacocks in our boat! What is a seacock you ask? Well - it is a valve on the hull of the boat that can either allow liquid to flow in (for engine cooling intake, for example) or out (from the bilge, for example). Our seacocks are of the "gate valve" variety and have been on the boat for 35 years. They are old and need to be replaced before we shove off. It is incredibly important to have your seacocks in top condition, for if and when they "break" you have either a VERY wet boat (at best) or a very sunken boat (at worst). We're not taking any chances. We're replacing them all. Using a huge pipe wrench, a sledge hammer, a phillips head screw driver and a LOT of elbow greese and brut strength, we finally got all those tricky buggers off! Now they can be replaced with shiny, new ball-valve seacocks! Hooray for small victories! One item down, 2,624 more to go!!
Love,
Brittany & Scott
Just an additional info, A gate valve is a valve that opens by lifting a round or rectangular gate/wedge out of the path of the fluid. The distinct feature of a gate valve is the sealing surfaces between the gate and seats are planar, so gate valves are often used when a straight-line flow of fluid and minimum restriction is desired. The gate faces can form a wedge shape or they can be parallel.
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