The welders told me the bar on the davit broke because I always loaded the motor end on that side. So in my wisdom, and not wanting to stress the side that is broken already, I loaded the dinghy the other way around before bedtime. What’s the harm? The lines I use to haul it up shouldn’t care.

Well, there is one harm. In the middle of the night I get up for some relief, look out the companionway and see the dinghy hanging sideways. The motor’s steering lever rubs on the ropes and cuts through them. Mounted the other way around, the motor has just enough lean that it doesn’t rub. I’ve replaced two already, caught the others before they sawed right through but this time I’m too late. Worse, the gas can is floating upside down in the water. Hopefully, no water got in it but that seems unlikely.

I get up, lower it into the water, retrieve the gas can and lock it to the boat. That’s enough for 3 am. Will have to look at this – it is an issue with the new dinghy the way the aft lifting hooks are relative to the rest of the boat.

Later in the morning I get into the dinghy and it starts after some trepidation so perhaps nothing major happened. I empty our spare gas can into the dinghy can, hoping it will dilute any water in there. We’re going to La Phare Bleu for lunch so I’ll fill up the spare can there.

While away the morning I guess, getting ready to move over to Woburn Bay and doing biz stuff. Around 1 pm we dinghy over to La Phare Bleu. I arrange for a gallon of gas while Christy goes to the restaurant.

There is only one backgammon player playing with Chris so I just sit and eat wings with the gang. Just Jim, Amanda, Roger and Alita (?) and us there today, although there are lots of cruisers by the pool. The gang leaves and Christy goes for a swim in the pool while I chat with a young father. A bunch of young families here, turns out they are mostly from the university.

After Christy goes to get dried off I go and play a couple of games of backgammon with Chris while I wait for her. Then we’re off.

The dinghy is definitely unhappy about it’s dunking last night and starts with difficulty, runs well once the RPMs are up but if it slows down it will stall. Over the next few days I will have to put it in gear while there are decent revs going which is hard on the transmission but otherwise it would stall going into gear.

We’re packed up early and ready to go to the dock at Clarke’s tomorrow morning.