Option A, B or C?

In an effort to make Swell watertight in the easiest way possible, Laurent helped me re-glass the area around the shaft log (Option A) after I’d ground, chiseled, sanded, heat-gunned and acetoned the holes in the tube and the bad area of glass as best possible. Option B would entail replacing the entire bronze tube where the propeller shaft exits the hull. This would mean dropping out the rudder, removing the shaft, lifting out the engine, and basically doing demolition derby on the entire aft keel area…If the holes that we can see are the only source of the water that’s getting in, then theoretically, Option A should work. So we went for it and hoped for the best. The rain had stopped long enough for the area to be dry, so Laurent and I got to glassing…

In true coconut telegraph fashion, I received an invitation from Jessica and Teiva to attend their wedding over the weekend. You might remember them as the lovely young couple at the Bora Bora Yacht Club who took me in after my brutal passage from the Line Islands… ‘Option C’ sounded lovely, but how would I get…??

…Sylvain and Laurette are ready to go cruising again after their 5 year stopover in Tahiti to work and buy a bigger boat and continue on their circumnavigation. Catching wind of the invitation, they offered me a lift, as they had planned to stop in Bora that weekend anyway. And so I left the fiberglass to dry and rats to frolic and hopped aboard Meershaum, honored to be a part of the first leg of their next adventure…a Polynesian wedding fit for royalty followed!