Retiring natures and getting wiped

My primary clients since the mid-'90s were kind enough to throw me a lunch party. Very generous of them.

A couple of weeks ago, I attended a lunch in my honour, which was a pleasant surprise, as it was thrown for me by my clients for whom I've been a contractor since mid-1996 in the roles of graphic designer/layout guy and, latterly, editor of their many publications. The firm, when I started working for them, was just four people in an attic office; now, it's over 30 analysts and has been acquired by a U.S. firm, which was, a few months back, itself absorbed by an even larger U.S. firm. All through this time, I've beavered away as a freelancer, and the amount of work, while never large, was enough to live on when combined with rental income and the modest earnings of Mrs. Alchemy, who has worked for a wildlife rescue charity for about the same time.

But, as the meme has it, the cake is a lie: I am retiring from this day gig, much as I "retired" from full-time salaried employment in 1999 (and used the "shut up and go away" severance sack o' loot to buy our first sailboat instead of, you know, a minivan or a lump-sum mortgage payment...). But I do not rule out occasional work of a less-time-sensitive nature for this and other firms, as my skill sets are largely portable, save for those relatng to boat maintenance, repair and operation. That's hands-on, baby!

Besides, I have plans to write articles for the few sailing magazines still extant, and to change this blog for a new, "on passage" blog where the emphases will be less on boat repair and maintenance and more on where we go, how we get there, and what we think of the passage-making life. I will also (sorry!) have ads on that new blog and will be supplying content to a You Tube channel as this seems to be pretty common these days....but ours will have fewer bikinis, and you'll thank me for that later.

I have a background in film and television productions and friends who are already doing this sort of "sailing television" quite successfully, and we hope to bring a slightly different angle into play that we hope will be of interest...but more of that after we leave!

In the meantime, work progresses...so many projects... 

The rarely seen Admiral in her natural habitat: holding a screwdriver while I tighten a Nylok.

This object is an Ongaro wiper motor. It's positioned to take a short arm and a large wiper blade right in the eyeline of whatever person happens to be at the pilothouse helm seat. I'll hook it up before departure, but I wanted to get the wiring run up to the pilothouse roof in now. That's a skinny mounting block of UHMWPE to spread the load of the motor and all the bolts are sealed with 4200 as well as being quite protected by the pilothouse roof overhang in this location.

The depths I'll go to...

This is the Navico forward-looking sonar transducer fairing. It needed a good demucking, and while I'm unsure whether its functions were affected by the small amount of growth that had accumulated last season, it doesn't hurt to give it a once-over.

Every boat needs a big driver.

This is the screwdriver I dropped over the side when I demasted for the winter last October. I can't recall if it belonged to my late father, or if he had got it from my even later grandfather, but it's easily 50 years old and is of a great length to spin off a big-arsed turnbuckle, which is how it ended up in the drink. When it happened, I was right on the stern of Alchemy, and I noticed the location of the bollard on the sea wall next to us. So, when the water cleared to near-transparent last week on a near-calm air day, I saw the screwdriver on the bottom. I rigged a big magnet on a length of line, extended that line out with a boat hook, and snagged the tool on my first attempt. Some wirebrush work later, it's back aboard and will be getting a light lanyard through that handle soon!