Sunday, March 15, 2009

Looking forward to May

The week of May 4th is the magic week for me. I now have a deadline to finish all of my dry-dock work before launch. One thing haunting me is the way Shumway stored the boats this winter. They squeezed a Beneteau to my port side with no more than three inches space at the widest part of the beam. There is certainly no room to get a ladder up for my spring-time application of Polly Glow. I talked with Mic at Shumway, and she said that they would look into it. I hope that they do it before the weather starts to warm up.

I have a huge problem with scheduling cruising this coming summer. I am now back to work full time, and being a "new hire", I have no vacation time for one year. I will be working 10 hour days starting in June, with a 3-day weekend every week. That is what is what they are thinking now, but business is so good at Harris RF Communications, I would be surprised if they don't require more working hours this summer. Here it is, my first week at work, and I put in a 6 day week. They want more, but I figure that since I am new to the position, I wouldn't be able to offer enough for that overtime.

There are also things to do at home. Free time is going to be a little scarce this year. That is a good thing though. The economy is the reason for starting back to work. We are affected like so many others, and the retirement funds are disappearing much faster than they should. Believe me, we have even talked about trying to sell the boat. OMG as they say... I hope it doesn't get that bad. The boat is the reason we worked those many years. I hope jobs open up for the unemployed and things pick up on the stock market.

I will try to do some more postings on the blog with pictures once we get back to sailing.

2 comments:

sabre28sailor said...

Hello Dry Sailor
It's a small world, I also work at Harris RF Communications. I have been here fo r25 years and thought I knew all the sailors in the company. Welcome aboard! Did Shumway get you some clearance to work with? How have they been to you over all? I have a Sabre 28 that I keep Sackets Harbor so I am not familiar with the Rochester marinas. I would like some feedback because I may move the boat closer at some point. Hope your talk of selling the boat has gone away it does look like we will all be gainfully employed for some time to come. Would love to hear from you.
sabre28sailor

Dry Sailor said...

Hi there sabre28sailor. Thanks for the comment to my blog.

I retired from RF Comm after 25 years service back in 2005. I worked in System Engineering back then. Just went back to work through Yoh Co. as a contractor, and working in manufacturing now at Carlson Rd.

Shumway moved the Beneteau back, so I had plenty of room to do my spring work on the hull of Water Colors. I launch Tuesday, May 5th, and looking forward to spending some time working on the boat once she is wet.

Shumway has always been good to me, and the price seems to be competitive with other marinas. Skip Shumway keeps a well maintained facility and I would recommend them.

The only other marinas at Rochester are Voyager next to Genesee Yacht Club, and Riverview, beyond the bridge. I cannot speak for either one except to say that Voyager docks are not dredged and look pretty shabby. Riverview is a marina that is trying to make a comeback, and I have not been down there to check it out lately.

Send me an email at drysailor@gmail.com.

Cheers... Ken Palmer