Calling All Volunteers

We’ve said it before and we’ll gladly say it again: Mistral is an experiment in community curation, which is to say it takes a village to hoist a halyard and do the list of tasks that rests on the official Mistral Palm Pilot Task List. Here’s the list, with comments.

Varnish toilet seat – as wooden toilet seats, this baby's state of the art. Here's your chance to try your hand at some serious curatin' where it matters most.
Find and install lamp shades – the boat has bare bulbs now and needs the warm glow of diffused light.
Overhaul the winches - Thunderbird foredeck master Suzy B. has offered to lend a hand at this and will give a tutorial should you want to learn the craft.
Chase bow leak – challenging work. There’s a slow trickle coming from the port bow.
Overhaul sink/bilge plumbing -- there’s some old pipes there but it could be interesting, not to mention very helpful if that bow leak turns into a gusher. It’s a few hours with some hunting for gaskets, most likely.
Connect head – it’s overhauled and just needs the lines connected. One hour. Easier right now with the mast out of the way. The volunteer who completes both the seat and the head will win one overnight trip on the Mistral, complete with working plumbing.
Replace gas tank valves – not that hard a job, actually, though there will be a trip or two to Fisheries or a plumbing store.
Countersink and replace teak plugs in cockpit – this could eat up some time.
Check battery levels – piece of cake.
Repaint interior ceiling – waitable.
Bottom paint – for the haulout.
Paint hull – see bottom paint.
Repack stuffing box – see paint hull.
Replace warped bulkhead veneer – possibly the lowest of priorities, unless that’s your bag.
Replace faucet -- a one-hour job, if I remember to bring the new faucet down.
Top off stove with alcohol – 10 minutes.
Clean ceiling of fo’c’s’le, hatch – an hour or two with some water, soap, bleach, not to mention some nearly instant gratification.
Clean cover – an hour with a brush and soap on a sunny day.
Change oil, plugs – an hour or two.
Replace elastics on cover – in progress. The trick is to set the elastics up with hooks.
Pictures – if you see us out on the water, we could use pictures under sail.
Sew cover – Paula, CWB seamstress, is being courted.
Refinish mast – we’re scraped and half sanded. Props to Martin, Dave and Kemp.
Strip and varnish hatch doors -- they’re mostly scraped and need some further work. A nice, self-contained project.

Before undertaking projects, please consult the Mistral steward, Eric Sorensen, at svwhim@yahoo.com or 206-799-9186. I thank you, and Mistral thanks you.

Volunteer hours count towards your free sailing time. As an added bonus, time spent sailing on Mistral is not deducted from your volunteer hours.