The Belly of the Beast

Mistral saw a nice spurt of work today in just a few hours -- a coat of varnish on the house, the last two screws on the pulpit/lifelines, and the removal of the Mistral carburetor. The current thinking is the carburetor is the chief source of woe for Mistral's finicky engine. The spark plugs blacken quickly, a possible sign of the engine running too rich, perhaps because a clogged jet or dirty air intake isn't allowing enough air in. Yes, this is a very complicated case, lotta ins, lotta outs. Michael will clean and rebuild the carburetor and we'll find out. The goal is to do this in two weeks, now 12 days, so we can motor down the ship canal for the Duck Dodge's last hurrah, the Rum Run, on Oct. 21.