This shout-out to Pete Linwick and Buk at Florida Rigging and Hydraulics is LONG overdue - I wouldn't have even had to chance to figure out my engine had gone tits-up if it weren't for their help way back in December....

Just before heading to CA for Thanksgiving, I was airing out my headsails after a rain one morning... when it came time to furl my genoa again, nothing... my 15 year-old Profurl was entirely locked up, the carbon steel bearings obviously compromised and seized... My NC-31 had been discontinued when I bought it from Defender originally, so I thought I was probably looking at an entirely new unit, and needless to say was not looking forward to installing a new one in December in NJ, probably would have been the deal-breaker on this winter's cruise...

Parts for this unit have not been available for a LONG time, Wichard saw their last drum go out the door several years ago, and the only one I could find was at a rigging shop in England that would have cost almost the same as a whole new unit... So, as I always do when I have a rigging issue, I give my buddy Pete a call...

Of course, he manages to find a couple of old NC-31 drums in his parts bin, orders the bearing kit from Wichard, and we're figuring he can have one rebuilt by the time I return from CA, and am ready to head south...

Well, Wichard drops the ball, doesn't ship the parts before Thanksgiving, so all of a sudden we're running behind... I sent him down my own unit, so we could salvage the link plates and other pricy bits, which I had been trying for several days to remove without success... Well, it's in Pete's hands now...

Long story short, both Pete and Buk went to heroic extremes to get one rebuilt and back to me in time... It took hours of their combined time to do the job, those Profurl units are not really intended to be rebuilt, to begin with... The one they sent back to me, worked better than new, and I was able to get it back on the boat, and sneak out of Barnegat Bay in the nick of time... As always, AWESOME service from Pete and the entire crew at Florida Rigging, they really made this cruise possible...

Anyway, while I haven't had the prettiest weather, have had a great sail down the coast... Left Beaufort on Thursday, snotty day with a brisk NE, back in at Masonboro for the run down inside Cape Fear... Made it over one of the worst ICW trouble spots behind Carolina Beach with inches to spare, though finding the tiny temporary buoys after dark in a driving rain was more luck than anything else... (grin) VERY nice to get alongside the dock in Carolina Beach, definitely would not have wanted to be out off Frying Pan Shoals that night, it would have been very shitty...

Rode the tide down the Cape Fear River in the early AM, a cold front had moved through and was producing the usual NW breeze... Flew down to Cape Romain, breeze faded a bit that night off of Charleston, then filled in the next day out of the NE, pretty much a carbon copy of the delivery I had done a couple of weeks ago... Pretty sporty ride down the Georgia seacoast, finally saw a break in the low ceiling Saturday night, some moon coming through right around midnight, a very auspicious beginning to my birthday...

Arrived in Mayport Sunday midday, just as the breeze really started honking out of the S-SW, I had sailed right into what NOAA was calling a "complex low pressure system"... LOL! Stopped at Beach Marine in Jax Beach, just in time for the kickoff of the Jets/Colts game, and just before the weather got really wild... Perfect timing, perfect day...

Another front was moving through, by the time I departed St. Augustine Inlet at noon yesterday, a brisk westerly was blowing... Not a cloud in the sky fast sailing down the coast - it doesn't get much better than sailing down that coast in a good westerly ... By the time I was passing Canaveral late last night, it had come a bit more NW and piped up a bit more, very fast sailing... Along the east coast, few things compare IMHO with passing by Canaveral on a clear night with a bright moon, I'm always mesmerized by that place from offshore...

After breakfast, the breeze lightened up enough to make the switch to a spinnaker, and I had several hours of perfect sailing before it faded completely... spent the rest of the day motoring/motorsailing and soaking up the sun for the first time this winter, I'm finally getting somewhere (grin).... Pulled into Ft. Pierce inlet just as the sun was setting, probably one of the best trips between Hatteras and Canaveral ever...

Now, if only Florida Rigging & Hydraulics did ENGINE work, I'd really be in business... (grin)

best regards,

Jon