Kali the kitty aboard Kingsley the sailboat.

   So here's the deal: our propane tank, for the indoor stove/oven, sits in a locker up in the cockpit of the boat. The tank connects to the regulator and solenoid, then through the boat inside to the Force 10 stove/oven. All lockers have a drain in them because propane is heavier than air - that way if you have a leak, like we did, the propane flows out of the locker/boat. The picture above shows what our drain hose looks like (it's the black horizontal one).
   Problem is, the slight dip in the hose was preventing propane from getting out. We figured this out because our locker had a slight smell of propane sometimes and if you let some water down there it didn't all come out.
  I thought I'd just put some screws and twine in to lift the hose. Not so easy. For one thing, I can't fit both of my arms into this space - the access points are too small. Even worse, I can't fit one arm in and my head to see what I'm actually doing.
  So below is my temporary fix, some rope tied (with one hand, blind) in two places, holding the hose up. My plan is to check on it real quick after sails to make sure it holds and to replace it soon with a better situation...maybe a plastic zip-tie?  The design leaves a little to be desired since the drain from the locker is about 1/8" higher than the drain out of the boat, making it very challenging to get the thing right...to be continued...

   ~Paul    ETC

We took ol' Kingsley girl out for a sail the other day (we're running out of sun up here in the Northwest) and did a sail-by of the green buoy near Shilshole Marina...and what did we see? A steller sea lion! And, well, we're no sea lion experts, but if that really is a steller the poor guy is endangered here in the North Pacific...read more about it here.

We closed down the day by taking Kya the dinghy on a little motor...until she suddenly stopped...then I realized there was just a kink in the fuel line - no biggie.

   ~Paul, Amber, Micah   ETC