Once Around: They Did It!

When they hadn’t hauled Once Around out by noon on Friday I was pretty bummed. But, by 12:45 she was in the air and had workers swarmed over and under her. Two guys worked on removing the old transducer for the existing depth finder and replacing it with a new one, and also adding another transducer for a second depth finder. That gives us “redundancy” which is an important sounding way to say, “a back-up system”.

Out she comes...again,

but you've seen Once Around in a sling from the boatyard before...

...but here's the boatyard from Once Around while in the sling...

...and another shot

A carpenter they called “Chopper” (honest, I couldn’t make this stuff up) cut the holes in the teak dash downstairs and the fiberglass helm upstairs, while Bryson ran the cabling. We went back in the water at about 4:00 Friday afternoon, and I was told they would finish up the final connections and dial the system in on Saturday morning.

Bryson running cables through a chase in the salon

left to right: "Chopper", Gary and Bryson at the lower helm

Back to my assigned spot on the dock I went, while Chopper was still cutting holes. He and I had a great conversation about restoring 1950’s vintage Ford pickups. I had done one; he had done six or seven. He even tried to sell me one but I told him one vintage truck was plenty for me, how would he like to buy my spare boat in California? No thanks. But we parted friends.

A few minutes later I was surprised to see Gary and his boss, “Britt the electronics guy” come down the dock tools in hand. They had decided to finish up Friday after all. By 6:00 PM we were relaxing over a cold beer and talking…boats of course (also maybe stock cars, U of Alabama football, and Southern foods, all three of which I knew almost nothing about…but do now). When they left Once Around had not one but two depth finders at each helm and a happy if somewhat poorer owner.