October 30, 2017
Steadfast 4
Monday
A brief but highly intense wind and rain storm blew through Maine early in the morning, with up to 70 MPH winds causing widespread tree and powerline damage and putting over 400,000 electric customers in the dark–including us just after 0500. With generator power at the house and no major damage at our property or immediately nearby, I had no immediate worries, but since the shop didn’t have the luxury of a standby generator the storm put the damper on my work plans for the day–and, as it happened, somewhat longer, as the prospects for full power restoration to the state looked like many days hence.
In the afternoon, with the full impact of the storm now evident, if unbelievable, I decided I had to go down and do something, not only for the immediate satisfaction but also to prepare for at least a limited workload going forward during the week with no immediate hope for normal power. I spent the time setting up staging around the boat so I could reach the wooden bulwarks for stripping (and eventually the hull for sanding), and taped some plastic over the now-doorless pilothouse to keep nuisance dust out of the cabin during the work in the immediate future. I set up power cords and prepared my portable generator for use on the ‘morrow so I could get back to some progress.
Total time billed on this job today: 1 hour
0600 Weather Observation: Rain, extremely windy, 50s. Forecast for the day: Rain ending, clouds, wind diminishing, 60s.