The mast on Darling had become very chalky so it was time for a wash and polish. I had Paige come and help me out. She hoisted me up the mast with the electric winch and I first of all washed the rig down then let it dry for a half hour. Next she hoisted me back up and as we had walky talkies I gave her some jobs I don’t like doing to do while I put the wax on and polished it off 5 feet at a time. Paige got to clean the fridge out, do some ironing and spot clean the cushions! The last hour I was up the rig (total time 5 hours) it started to get a little windy and cold. This was the hard work to make the weekend even more fun!

Coffee Darling style capsules that go into the coffee maker – confusing colours!

With the very long days this last two weeks I have actually had to drink coffee to wake up in the morning.

Sunrise at anchor looking towards Angel Island on Sunday turned out to be a stunning day unlike a few days before when we had lots of fog.

Fog  shrouding Angel island from our anchorage off Ondine’s resturant Sausalito.

Sea grass removed from  engine and generator intakes

My phone in a bowl of rice attempting to save it after a dunking in salt water. It wasn’t revived…

Tabouli (recipe from my friend Olivier) for the guests on Sunday. We had 12 aboard.

Food all ready for Paige to serve out to the guests on Sunday’s AC45 viewing.

At the helm of Darling keeping the boat on station.

Surrounded by 450+ sailboats, ferries, motorboats all crowding to see the racing.

AIS shows how crazy it was for commercial traffic but there was also all the boats without AIS.

One of the fleet races starts.

People keep on asking how the AC45 racing was! Frankly I couldn’t tell you I was concentrating too hard on keeping Darling on station and in a good position for the guests… A total of 145 hours work in two weeks. 4 days out on the boat. Basically it takes about 40 hours to set her up to go for a day sail and 40 hours to put her to bed! I haven’t finished putting her to bed yet. Tomorrow time to wash down the hull and polish her and get the interior back in shape.

Last two weeks Chad and I have been working on Darling from the top of the rig to the bottom.

What I was doing up the rig was removing the old top cap that had been demolished on the furler. It had damaged the foil so i had to hacksaw part of the foil then hammer out the old top cap and install a new one (as seen here). Instead of two machine screw I installed 4.

The remains of the old top cap and copious amounts of tape that had been put on instead of fixing the problem.

The  batten pocket ends had suffered a lot of UV damage so the massive mainsail that ways 400 lbs had to be removed from the boom by Chad and I and carted up to my truck and taken to Doyle (who has ground floor access) for repair.

You can see from the different shades of blue the uv damage to the mainsail.

Some safety equipment has needed an overhaul.

The cloud from the Chevron fire over in Richmond luckily we were upwind.

View from the top of the rig.

Chad being domestic and doing the ironing. I did some as well!  All those white sheets have to be ironed and hospital folded in the cabins.

Some nights I have been leaving pretty late.