Saturday I went to Mr. Dan Fontaine's beautiful place and purchased
the once known as, "Orca" a fiberglass Windmill. While I was at Dan's
I got on line and signed up with the Windmill Class association and
committed to do the DIYC Thanksgiving Regatta without ever having
sailed on this boat.
The next day (Sunday) I had to get up early to take my eldest
daughter to the airport so she could be with her new husband in Oahu
Hawaii. He joined the army about 1 year ago and has been gone since.
I didn't just lose her , I lost her beautiful 4 month old baby girl
too. All this put me in a very somber mood and I didn't feel like
doing anything when I got home. I was however drawn to start going
over the Windmill. I started out by fixing the fender on the trailer
whose bracket broke probably due to lots of vibration on it's way
down to Florida. This got me going and I started removing all the
stickers from the boat which lead to wet sanding with 600 paper over
the entire boat inside and out. I took the boat off the trailer and
added to the carpet on the bunks of trailer. I completely rubbed out
the gelcoat with West's Teflon boat polish all the while my other
daughter Janell, (and future crew) helped with this entire project.
She loves making things look all pretty and clean.
We were blown away at how awesome the boat came out after all the
elbow grease. Wow! She's a beauty. I'm very happy with my new
purchase.
I didn't have time to go over the rigging but upon my initial
inspection I didn't see anything that required any attention. I do
however want to rig her with a pole launcher to simplify things.
When I placed her back on the trailer I had to move her forward about
3 inches after setting her down. You could have moved her with one
finger. The teflon finish was that slick.
So by the end of the day my mood had improved dramatically.
I just want to say Thank You Dan Fontaine and I can't wait to get the
newly renamed "My Mojo" #4481 in the water and start applying her
VooDoo to the other boats in the class.
Colin Browning
