Life and times of Ann best

As promised, I went down to the marina to assess any storm damage. There was damage. At some point, the ruddder lost a lower pintle. No Problem, I had a spare pintle. For the uniniated, the pintles are the parts that hold the rudder onto the stern of the boat. For some unknown reason, I had the presence of mind to buy extra pintles via an internet sale. I wonder if some unconscious premonition prepared me for this minor disaster. However, the worst was yet to be discovered. On the Catalina 22, the keel is raised and lowered by means of a cable and winch. The aft end of the keel is attached to this cable. In essence this is an ingenious system which makes it possible for a boat to both have a long keel and be trailerable at the same time. The designer, Frank Butler, came up with this idea which makes it possible to trailer your boat easily merely by raising the keel. The length of the keel goes from from five to two feet in an instant. However, if this cable breaks there is a major catastrophe. The challenge becomes easy to articulate: How does one get the boat onto a trailer? As such the boat now sits three feet higher than the trailer is designed to accommodate. The keel weighs 550 lbs. It pivots on its forward edge by way of a pin bolted to the underside of the boat. The job will be to get the swing keel to swing up the requisite three feet without the use of it's cable and winch . I hope this all makes sense to you. Stay tuned for further developments. The photo shows the frayed end of the cable and a portion of the winch.

Happy Sailing