It's the dead of Winter and the winter blues seem to have set in. I want to go sailing, but my sails are at the sail loft in Annapolis for their winter repairs. Meanwhile I have been busy trying to finish my time consuming project of making rope fenders.
It feels like my whole week is consumed with commuting to work, keeping the boat warm, and making fenders. Last winter I was very busy making the new synthetic stays for Wisdom! This year I'm making giant knots in the shape of fenders. The stays were made with the dreams of sailing to far away places whereas the fenders are going to sit on the deck for most of their life..
It is kind of hard to think that the very tedious process of making fenders is going to help me sail further, which makes it hard to justify staying in to work on them instead of going out with Maddie and friends. When I was making the rigging, it was acceptable to say that I wanted to stay in tonight and work since it needed to be completed by Spring. The fenders don't have the same ring to them and I have needed to make other justifications to finish them.
I finished the sculling oars and gangplank, which were my other projects towards the end of the year. My next set of projects are:
Wedging the mast partners
Make a sail bag for the jib (Josh)
New check stays with baggy wrinkles to avoid chafing the main again
Install solar panels on the transom
New house battery bank (our batteries are close to 10 years old and very dead)
Build a wooden tender to Wisdom that fits on the deck
Install a Monitor windvane on the transom
As you can see, the next set of projects appeals to me and I really want to get them accomplished! I know that if I start working on them, the rope fenders will fall by the wayside and never be finished. I will have a large spool of rope sitting in the cockpit waiting for all eternity to be turned into a rope fender!
This is my motivation to finish the fenders. Not because I feel interested in making large unbreakable rope fenders (though I am a little bit), but because I won't start my next project until they are finished!
We are going on a short trip this summer, and then on a much longer trip to Maine in 2017, followed by a year in the Caribbean come 2018. I need to get everything ready and prepared for the coming cruises!
