We went down to Rock Hall this weekend. We wanted to finish up the electrical fix and take the boat out for a trial run. The electrical problems are finished. The accessories are running --the lights, light and the motor purrs. I rigged a line to allow us to drops the main sail quickly and trying it today it worked perfectly. We took the boat out Sunday for a test sail. The motor worked well. And we had lots of wind for sailing. The new rigging is working well and the method we learned for reducing weather helm is working just right. We sailed along for about an hour and Marilyn went below for something to drink. Then she asked the question I never want to hear. What's this water on the deck? Whaaaa? Oh boy. Run below. Bildge pump not working. Oh Shoot!.... Get Aux bildge pump handle. Ok only a couple of gallons of water..... Well, we turned around and got back to the slip OK. Turns out that the side plate of the engine rusted thru. It was dumping a couple of gallons an hour of cooling water into the engine compartment while it was running. Looks like out season is done. The engine has to come out to fix this and I'm going to leave this one to the professionals. I will have the engine overhauled while it's out of the boat.
So we'll go to Rock Hall Fall Fest next weekend, take the sails off, and put the boat up for the season.