Wednesday, March 5, 2014

Freezing temperatures mean trouble for moving parts

I never lost my electricity, but it was a fairly nasty storm we had here.  A drenching rain very slowly turned to ice and made a real mess outside.

Since then it's only just barely risen above freezing.  I stayed in Monday and yesterday, and yesterday I started easing into a new strength routine for the month of March.  Lately I've been taking several days to get a routine together, sort of like a band working up an arrangement for a new song.  So far I know this month's routine will have some dynamic exercise ball drills and some clap pushups.  I'll describe it in more detail soon.

This morning Joe and I braved the still-frigid weather and paddled in the harbor for 80 minutes.  Often in the wintertime I find my rudder frozen, and spend the first several minutes of the session working it free.  Today, however, it stayed frozen for almost the entire session.  At first it was stuck in a right-turn position, and I paddled one clockwise circle after another trying to work it loose.  When it wouldn't budge, I got out of the boat and moved the rudder by hand into a straight position so I could at least paddle forward.  For the next hour I paddled a boat that kept tending very slightly to the right, and every minute or so I would have to do some extra strokes on my right to correct the course.  Finally, about ten minutes before we finished, the cables came loose and I was able to steer pretty well even though the rudder was still not fully functional.  Back on the dock, I unscrewed the cap on the stern deck that allows access to the rudder's post (this cap had been frozen on earlier), and discovered that this area was packed full of ice, preventing the rudder from moving more than just a little bit.  It must have filled up with that drenching rain Sunday evening.

Anyway, it was just one more ordeal in this seemingly never-ending winter.  Spring will feel that much sweeter if and when it finally arrives.

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