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March, 2006 - time for annual maintenance and repair work:

What can I say, but - again - "thank you, thank you and thank you" to so many volunteers who slaved so diligently over our fair craft for almost ten days this month.

Twelve people managed to put just over 255 person-hours into repairs, upgrades and maintenance on Miss P at Holiday Island.

In addition, Champ Cox has put in 50+ hours at home making the mast racks for trailering and the cover frame - as well as rebuilding the tie-down brace that broke.

Repairs consisted of the following:

1) opening up hull and topside cracks in the cypress and packing in a thick mix of tinted West System epoxy with filler,

2) removing about 4 cubic inches of rot from a spot on the stern cap where water leaked around the broken bedding of the loose starboard cleat (too ugly to photograph!),

3) repairing the fender damaged in WVa during the GWashington filming.

Modifications were made to:

1) the rudder, by extending her bottom edge almost 3 inches (still keeping it above the worm show skid, however) and adding a small fillet to the leading edge (we'll see if the latter really makes a difference!)

(We also repaired two large cracks in the rudder oak)

and 2) modified both masts by adding four feet to the top of each.

They are now closer to Mike Alford's original design, and will help a lot when it comes to trimming the peak of each gaff. [We'll still clear the Rte 17 highway bridge by 2 to 3 feet at mean high water.]

This hard working crew also managed to put two coats of varnish on the entire boat (inside and out), six sweeps, the rudder stock and tiller, and both masts. This is important because varnish protects the epoxy, which is UV sensitive.

Here is a rogues gallery of nine of the volunteers:

Jerry Palmer, Don Johnson (doing the real dirty work!), Alan Thompson

Ted Huffman, Win Boyer, Jim Burns

Champ Cox, John Ernst

Roger "Hutch" Hutchinson

People missing from photos: Barb Mueller, Rod Mueller, Kent Saunders

One helluva job was done by all in a compressed schedule from March 6- March 16.

And our hearty thank you to the people of Holiday Island, who once again let us use the shelter of their maintenance shed. We could not have done it without that building over our heads. Our thanks also to Ken Ries, who arranged for us to use the building.

Maybe next year we'll have the new 'barn' up at NBWH (of which Periauger will occupy about one half), so we can work on a less rushed schedule.

See you on the water.

John Ernst

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