It's been a busy week. I took Thursday and Friday off just to get this boat in the water. I was watching the weather and Thursday looked like the last good day to get it in. So I busted hump Mon-Wed and then Thursday devoted all my time to getting it wrapped up.
I have not got the carpet in and I need to wrap the side covers in some vinyl. Otherwise, everything is complete. All electrical is wired up and functioning.
We landed on naming the boat Miss Christina as that's my wife name and I thought it was a good fit. My brother in law has a vinyl sign maker so he cut me out a set of stickers. Looks great.
So back to the splash, It was getting late yesterday and my wife came out and said "are we going to do this?". I said "Ya, but I went to start her up and am having some problems". Turning the key would just give me a "click". I knew the battery was up so i figured it was the solenoid. Eventually it fired up and we left out.
The launch went fairly well (I remembered to put the plug in). At the boat ramp we were revisited by the solenoid issue but after fiddling with it a while, we got her started.
We did a christening of sorts with some champagne poured over the bow and a brief prayer. Then we set out for our dinner spot on the lake.
After dinner (it was dark by then), we decided to go park at the end of the runway (the lake sits at the end of the current JRB. This used to be Carswell, a SAC base from the 50's through the 90's). They fly F18s and CH-130's mainly out of there now. We sat there for a while and didn't see any planes (the planes generally run during the day and in the two years we've been going to the lake we haven't been able to see one plane landing).
So, we went and parked at another spot. After about 3 minutes, we noticed a plane coming in (ch130) and I lit it up and tried to beat it to the runway but was just a hair too late. Fortunately he was doing touch and go's so he came back around several times and I got a pretty cool video.
After that, we headed back to the boat ramp where I we were once again visited by the solenoid gremlin and this time, no amount of fiddlin would get her started. I finally decided to try to use the pull start (which I have never used). Worked like a champ I must say. So.... the first thing on the list is a new solenoid.
I tried to get some video but no one wanted to do it and I couldn't because I was driving. I finally got my wife to do and she didn't do it right and got like a 5 second clip. I'll post of what I have.
nthego:
