Lurch, launch and all before lunch

Amid frankly appalling (see wind-driven sleet in the tiny clip above) conditions and a case of skipper's jitters regarding the soundness of the standpipe thread sealing...

When access was straightforward, no problem...

...but with this much lead in front of it, a concern.

...thanks to the restoration of the house battery bank, seen above minus tie-downs and lids, we launched on April 27. Second boat in, in fact, in the East Yard, winter lodgings of the behemoths of the first row.

Always be cinch-belting!

There's often a touch of ambiguity about our sling marks, as the movement of internal ballast over the winter can be significant.

So we requested, and grudgingly (because launch waits for no one) received "a minute hanging in the slings" to check the integrity of our multiple valvings, tapings and pastings. Luck and, I certainly hope by this stage, skill prevailed and we had no ingress at the many threads in play. That meant I could leave the engine cooling water valve open, fire up the iron jenny (already tested in the cradle as being good to go, the harness and battery connections fully restored) and proceed to our dockline-festooned slip.

Back where she belongs...until July.

As I was on towboat duty, and, inexcusably in my view, a lot of boats this year needed tows (the ones with dead engines/no engine get a pass, of course), I couldn't linger and admire our handiwork, or tapework: Mrs. Alchemy and myself resumed "helping out at Launch".

Shot from mid-morning, this gives an idea of the scale of the cranes employed at launch. Ours is not, in fact, the heaviest boat in the club, an alarming stat for a steel boat owner.

The wind, at times gusting past 25 knots (borderline for crane operations and enough to make Alchemy "shiver" in the slings a few centimetres off her cradle), gave us in the club workboat Storm King plenty to consider. I lost count past 20 tows, but it was near-continuous and increasingly cranky duty. Why can't people ensure their motors work (and have batteries and tillers) on the day? It's not a surprise if you can work a calendar!

Alas, my logo was rejected in favour of cheaper Mac-Tac

After my shift concluded, I got a picture of the effect of Alchemy's winter on the substrate...

No wonder I felt pitched a little for'ard.

This subsidence was, perhaps, aided and abetted by the rising levels of the lake, which led to a group decision to get the mast in as soon as possible.

Two weeks ago. Today, the bricks are partially awash. The lake is 1.6 metres above chart datum.

I had to sort all the wires, cables, strings, stays, shrouds, halyards, etc. and bolt on the spreaders. I'm getting about as fast at this as I think I can. Kudos to the club members who helped with my notoriously massive mast.

It's only confusing if you think about it.

Some chafe-type repairs were needed and the usual "keeper wire" sorting, but it went well and the masting, while heavy work, went without blood sacrifice.

Looks good even boomless, we think.

So, for a multitude of reasons, launch came and went to our satisfaction, even though we needed every minute in the run-up to it and many minutes since.

Postcard-grade, really.

The boom is on, and the new lazyjacks can be seen. More to come shortly as the Drive to be Live in July continues.

I rigged the lazyjacks by copying a picture I saw online. Ah, modern sailing theory!

As a postscript, our former boat Valiente is now sporting a new, stainless steel rudder. We are vicariously anticipating great things of it for the new owner!

Anode goes where? As she's on a mooring, not such a big deal...