We ended up leaving SAILS at Viking Boatworks on March 1st and returning to Punta Gorda by car... On Friday March 4th I contacted Viking Boatworks on the phone to see if they had come up with the hard numbers for the bottom paint repairs… and I found that they had changed their tune and were once again back to square one and the problem was not their fault… they had determined from emails with emails to a company that deals with CAPAC systems that my CAPAC system was not working and the cause of the trouble.

The had come up with several other options for me… 1) Just recoat the bottom with new bottom paint and add zincs to the props… turn the CAPAC off. 2) Sandblast and recoat with epoxy and new bottom paint all at my cost. 3) Sandblast and recoat using their new Seahawk paints they now represent… again all at my cost. 4) Drop me back in the water and we part company… no charge!

I opted for option 4) and we are now back in the water and headed back to Punta Gorda on SAILS.

We did not get away from Viking Boatworks until 1100 hours so we will not try to make the 15+ hour cruise in one shot… we’ll stop somewhere along the way back and spend the night and get up early to make the final leg back to Punta Gorda.