Here in Virginia it seems late in the season, but we’ve had rain on top of rain for 1 1/2 months. Yesterday finally had clearing skies, so with both my youngest boy and my newest pup we went to unwrap Luna yesterday.
Aside from being discouraged by the degradation of the varnish on the toe rail, all was going fine in removing the 3 tarps, the structure supporting them, and hanking on the sails. Fine that is, until I watched the main halyard run up the mast. Dumb! The marina “experts” promptly suggested all kinds of retrieval methods from heeling the boat using the jib halyard, standing on an adjacent powerboat with boat hook to linking 3 boat hooks together and reaching high. Perhaps more pedantic, I decided to fashion a bosun’s chair and haul the youngest at 81 pounds with a boat hook with wire hanger taped to the end to snag the lost shackle. This would be a lesson in self reliance. However, he was not too comfortable at spreader height (or confident in my grip?) so we brought him down. Surprised at how easily I could haul him up on the 2 part halyard, I decided to haul myself up with tailing assistance on the deck. Once above the spreaders and just below the jumper stay, I hauled the boat hook up the flag halyard and grabbed the prize. Back on deck I decided to make a legitimate chair. Here it is:
We’re not planning to lose the halyard again, but you never know … at least next time we’ll be ready and familiar with the drill.
Lingering Lunacy 
You failed to implement your most valuable tool. Dog. Of course you must liberally slather your halyard end with “prime balona” essence. Don’t need a winch. That puppy’ll run right up the mast for your shackle. Helps to have an old school dog. Gotta job man!
We’ve been working on “Fetch” actually. Just not ready for prime time. Certainly not yesterday.
We have a Boykin. She is wonderful, and starting to slow down at 8 years old. She is a great swimmer, and entertains herself by dropping floatie toys off the floating dock, diving in and retrieving them! She also is a recycler. We take her for walks on a golf course, and she goes off hunting for plastic water bottles. She’s brought us 6 or 7 on one walk! Other Boykins are trained to hunt and bring back an endangered turtle for population censuses. Cheers!
That’s good to hear. Our Huck loves water bottles too. He goes so far as to eat them. He’s not found any turtles yet. He’s 14 weeks old now. We’re ready to take him for a real swim.
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