The Final Days - Monday

The final days are upon us now and I will likely post everyday until
the "Fuelishness" is in her slip. The past days have been filled with 
feverish reassembly and final prep. Suzanne and I have tried our 
best to "Think it all Through" so we wouldn't be doing stuff twice.
Suzanne has gotten the cabin looking great and that part is now
off the list of need to finish items. Truth be told it'll never be really 
totally done as she will always be tweaking this or that, or adding this
or that as time goes on.
Some of the past days have been spent working on the drives and 
getting them back in shape. Dennis has outdone himself  with this part
of the project and I cant tell you how proud I am to be able to show you
the following photos. We all remember how bad the drives were and 
how devastateing  it was for us to deal with. 

        

     This was before

This is after

The difference is like day and night. The real difference is the care and quality

that has gone into the repairs and restoration of these drives. I'm not going to 

get up on a soap box and preach the word, but I firmly believe that we all would 

agree to the statement of  terms that you only get what you pay for and often we find 

ourselves paying dearly for less than professional quality. 

I have asked myself this question a hundred times, " Why would you put $12000.00

worth of hardware in  a known corrosive enviroment with out at least checking to see

if the factory provided countermeasures "Mercathode System" was in working condition?

And I have come up with a hundred different answers and 99 of them have a direct link

to non-professionality. The single take away that I might venture out to all my friends

would be to inspect with your own eyes the work you are getting. Many contributing

factors in my situation could have been seen with a simple inspection by me before

launch and corrected quickly and easily.

"And thats all I have to say about that" (Forest Gump 1994)

The real fun was last night as Bill Moyer came by and we loaded the Fuelishness on 

the trailer for her ride to river. There is no turning back now. 

These are the jacks we used to lift the boat and hold it up so we could get the trailer

under it ( 2 used on each side ) 

 These are the oak cubes that the " Fuelishness has been sitting on for the last year,
note the ropes looped around the cubes. When we raised the boat we used the ropes
to pull out blocks, because i'm not getting under the boat - no sir !!!

   

There ya go - cubes out, I had to add this shot . Thats 14000 Lbs of boat  kinda

hanging  in mid air sorta. This gives me the willies. It was no big deal to Billy,

he does this stuff all the time, he says you'll get used to it.

This pretty much says it all , "fits like a glove" . Heres the Fuelishness ready to roll.

Now I  have to get some fuel delivered and test run the engines, a final check and we

be getting the  " Fuelishness" to her new home at Alton Marina dock J-1. 

    

Next Up : The Final Days - Tuesday

See ya tommorrow !!