Broken Toenail Removed

I finally had to remove Zoe's broken toenail last night before our walk. It had come completely loose due to her constant attention, and was only held on the inside by some super glue and perhaps a bit of unbroken toenail. I was able to use a pair of scissors to snip the last little bit holding it on and remove it.

She was great and let me take care of it -- I tried to be very gentle and only upset her once. I put some polysporin on it and took her for a walk. She did pretty well and only limped a little once, and on the walk this morning, you couldn't even tell she had an issue. She's a tough girl.

Boat watch:

I'm going to finish installing the wind vane control lines today. I got it mostly installed yesterday, but had trouble attaching the blocks to the stern pulpit. I had to give up for the evening once it got cold. I still have to attach the second one, then install an eye bolt on the starboard coaming even with the wheel for the double block that will turn both lines to the wheel. I'll take photos later, but if you're interested in what I'm talking about, search for Windpilot and take a look at the WindPilot Pacific model connected to a wheel, and you'll see what I'm talking about.

I was able to fix the diesel leak yesterday, and found and fixed a small leak in one of my cockpit drain hoses. I thought I was done, but when I started the engine and climbed down into the starboard cockpit locker, I could see that the hose coming off the heat exchanger was still leaking badly where it connected to the muffler. It looks pretty old, so I'm going to try to take it off today and replace it. I think I can use the excess hose I cut off the exhaust hose the other day.

If I have time, I'm going to try to go up the mast to add some anti chaffing to the radar reflector mounting bracket. I'm going to try to use c-clamps to squeeze it together closer to the mast, then wrap it with plastic hose and line to keep the halyard from rubbing up against the metal edge. I think I would have had to do this anyway, but by mounting it so high, I exacerbated the problem. I've got a tri-lense, and you can see how the mounting bracket could chafe a line running along side.

I also need to add a cheek block to the base of the mast on the starboard side to help turn the halyard back to the deck block. I might also want to add a bullet block higher up to help feed it and keep it away from the radar reflector bracket, but will wait to see if that's really needed first. I'm going to use duct tape to temporarily mount the check block to see if it'll work the way I want it. Alternatively, I could mount another winch on the mast on the starboard side where the old wire halyard winch used to be. However, I'd prefer to run everything to the cockpit.

I also need to get down to the hardware store to buy a set of taps so I can mount this stuff on the aluminum mast. I'm also thinking of adding a clutch on the port side of the mast to hold the jib halyard, which normally doesn't need to be touched after it's up, since I use roller furling, but that's a would be nice thing, and not in the critical path for departure.