I'll Mark Your Chain Mister!

As the temperature continues to hover in the 'stupid hot' range, we keep inching our way down the short list of items we need to complete before our mini shake down cruise in the next few weeks. The heavy lifting on the plumbing and deck hardware will have to wait until the temperatures drop into the 'slightly dumb' range which should be late September or early October.

One of the tasks on our to do list is to mark the anchor rode. The last time we went out for an overnight, we had to guesstimate how much rode we had out which was not only an inexact science but was a source of much unnecessary worry and angst. We are all about lessening the angst when possible so marking the rode is high on the priority list for our little jaunt. I happily told Mark when he was reading off the list of current To Do items that I was in fact capable and willing to handle the marking of the chain all by my own self. He agreed to let me handle it and I was pleased to be able to help alleviate the work load for him a bit.

The next day, Mark asked me how I planned to mark the rode. I told him since nothing would last forever and since this was intended to be bit of  his much loved redundancy for a chain counter at the helm, I planned on marking the rode every 25 feet with paint using four alternating colors. Very simple, very easy. If you are seeing yellow for the second time, you have 125 feet out. If you are seeing green for the second time, 150 feet and so on. It was quick to do, easy to keep track of as the rode went over the gypsy and would be easy to redo when necessary. This is when Mark's left brain kicked in on him again and he went all Captain Perfecto on me.

Mark informed me that my method was in fact, not simple as I had assumed but was in fact overly difficult due to its lack of complexity. He had a better idea. What I would be doing would be to use a base five number system with an error checking bit and here was a handy diagram he had made for me to follow.

I blinked. I blinked again. Hard. "Dude. You are so over thinking this". "Not at all" he replied. "This system is thousands of years old! It is simplicity itself". I blinked again. I asked him how he expected me to be so precise with the spray paint markings as to carefully delineate individual links. He had a quizzical look on his face "Why, you will just have to use a small brush and thoroughly paint each link.". As I looked upon his satisfied smile, I knew there was no other method that would make him happy. I was now an active participant in a Rube Goldberg project due to that left brain of his.

 After a bit of research, we did opt to mark the rode with cable ties- much cheaper than the rubber inserts chandleries sell and much quicker than putting on multiple coats of paint waiting for each coat to dry. I did get to enjoy a wee bit of subversion though. Mark sent me to get the cable wraps at the store with instructions to purchase black, yellow and red. I was feeling feisty so of course I bought black, yellow and HOT PINK. Ha!

Taking a break

And so it was that we sat out on the scorching dock and marked that chain in a few sweaty hours( you didn't think he'd really be ableto let me go it alone did you?) and I do mean very sweaty. I just hope those little cable wraps stay in place for a bit. I know they will eventually fail but if they could just hang on for a wee bit please. So far they seem to have no difficulty passing over the windlass and going in and out of the chain locker so here's hoping. Thy will probably pop off and it was probably an utter waste of time but Mark is my favorite person to waste time with so how can it be a bad thing?

Another item checked off of our list was to get some 12 strand and splice an anchor bridle. Mark spliced the rope, while Maura burned and whipped the ends. Kitty lent a hand checking our rolling hitch knots. That is 2 items off the list....