I have to fix something so that I can replace it.  Doesn’t that seem odd to you?

My boat steering seized up and I can’t turn.  Or, better put; I can’t straighten the trajectory in which the boat is currently aimed.  I can just go in circles.  Which is strangely familiar in a psychological kind of way……

And, wouldn’t you know it…..I am fixed in a tendency to go center-left.  Round and round. Big, large, slow circles.  Like my politics.

So, anyway, The cable had to be taken off and all that.  Steering wheel detached.  Engine detached.  Cable withdrawn from nooks and crannies.  Everything lubed and goobed til it was all slick and slidy.  And then Sal and I put it all back together again.  And, even tho we are not quite done, we have bench tested it some and it is likely to work.  In theory, anyway.  Only two days into it.  Third day, today.  If it stops pouring.  We’ll see how it goes.  Just a few more hours of squiggling into narrow places (Sal) and tightening various things (me) and so we are partially optimistic that the job is done.  But it will not be 100%.

Despite all our work, the gear slips in the housing-thingy.  There is a gear that turns inside a toothed ring and that ring turns the cable that, in turn, turns the engine when, well, the steering wheel is turned.  Or so it is designed.  But, if the toothed gear is worn, it slips. And mine is worn (old) and it slips.  It is clear:: no matter how slippery the cable, I will need a new steering housing-thingy.

That’s OK.  I can do that.  We can do that, I mean.  We can get a thingy and replace the old one.  The catch, tho, is that one has to travel to get thingys and, right now, our travel is limited to the circular.  We can’t get there from here.  It’s a sea-pickle.

Of course, that is why you have TWO boats – so that you can always go get thingys for the other boat.  But, of course, you don’t want to run to town for every little thingy.  You want to get the lot of them all at once (they tend to accumulate as a list on the fridge) for when you are next planning on going to town. Mind you, the ‘other’ boat is not big enough to get all the list of thingys and the list of food and stuff and so, once again, you are in a bit of a pickle.

For the want of a nail, the kingdom was lost.

We wouldn’t want that.

So, the goal is to get the steering good enough to go to town so as to get the parts to replace it.

Is it just me?  Or does that (all that work over three days just to chuck it) not seem just a bit odd to you, too?