January 12-14, 2000 -- Work Commences

Bright and early Wednesday morning, Ron from Merrill-Stevens stopped by to review the list of deficiencies that needed to be fixed. He brought two people with him, an electrician and a mechanical lead. We spent about an hour to review the list when the plumber showed up. We reviewed the plumbing with him and after some discussion, came to the conclusion that the correct decisions were made with regard to the plumbing. Everyone got to work quickly. We decided that it would be better for us to make sure that we were available to the workers, in case there were any problems. This proved to be a good idea, since periodically, we were needed! Mostly this had to do with how our electrical system is set up, or to show where various vents were, but it certainly sped the work being done. On Thursday, January 13, our Gen-Air grill was removed because the fan did not draw well. Merrill-Stevens expected that they would have to improve the fan that was on there. They took the grill with them at lunch. It was back by mid afternoon. As it turns out, the grill's fan was wired incorrectly from the factory, and the fan blade was also put on backwards. With these two deficiencies corrected, the fan proved to draw efficiently. The work elsewhere was going well on the boat. The nicest thing was that if we were not available, the leads on the job caught problems before they started. On Friday, January 14, Ron came out to see how the job was progressing. He also brought a Rigger with him so we could discuss the problem that was occurring with our spreader lights and furling gear. After discussing the two issues with him, he went with Otto, the electrician, to look at the base of the mast. Our gen-air grill was hooked back up for the weekend, with its own, new, 220 volt plug (it was hard wired previously). However, we decided not to use it for the weekend since there was no exhaust duct. At the end of the work day, the boat was partially reassembled so that we could live on it for the weekend relatively comfortably