Preparation

Chris and I are hard at work getting Just Us II ready for launch. we bought the KK44 late last year and we need to change out the name as well as having some general Preventive Maint performed. We are finding that the name removal is more difficult than on previous boats. We have been able to remove the Sojourn name from the name plates on top of the Pilothouse and apply our name "Just Us II" with a little elbow grease and use of a Dewalt 20v battery heat gun and some spray on glue remover. The name and hailing port on the Transom is proving Much More Difficult! It takes about an hour to remove each letter and we still have the glue residue to clean off after the letter removal. We have the name graphics ready to apply.

I am also taking more time for the install of the Starlink antennae and routing of the cable that powers the antennae and carries the signal. Placement of the power supply and electronics box will be in the navigation electronics console and I know generally how I want to setup the network but the running of the 2 Starlink cables and the mount location of the antennae is a little more involved. Stay tuned for more follow up on that once we are in the water and I have an accurate view of the sky. Options for placement include its own location on the forward aspect of the pilothouse roof directly over the cable routing soffit or we could reuse the Satellite Dome mount and cable routing. It looks like I could reuse the mount for the Satellite Dome and then route the cable in the same manner as there are holes and cables that could be removed and then reused.

All of this will be in pursuit of time on the water including work time. We can be in motion to some place cruising slowly and I can work. Gotta love Starlink. Once we are at a marina we can assess the WiFi situation and either use the Starlink or the provided WiFi. Some marinas do a good job of providing WiFi while some do not. Plus we are planning on doing a good deal of cruising on weekdays when most people are not in the marina so we can take advantage of the lack of competition for the bandwidth.

Skipperbuds indicates that the boat that is blocking us in is getting detailed this week and once it is launched, we will get launched. Our propeller is repaired and shiny after being polished. I hope that we can gain a few tenths of a MPH as an outcome. It would be nice to cruise closer to 10mph than 9.2. That is closer to 8.5kts rather than 8. That makes a difference in time on our long runs.

Stay tuned as there is always more to come.... Out and back to 16