Fuzzy Math

By Mike Jastrzebski

If all goes well Mary plans to quit her job at the end of January. We then hope to both work on the boat until the end of March when we will pull the boat, do a bottom job, and take off cruising. We have a few major jobs to do and a slew of minor ones. The major items on my list include adding solar panels, putting up the radar dome and remaking the dodger and bimini. I do all of the sewing in the family but with Mary off the plan is for her to do the canvas work with me helping out when she gets in a bind.

The minor jobs run the gauntlet from getting the engine going after a couple of years sitting idle to applying for passports. So where does the fuzzy math come in? Well I was always taught that if you start with say 35 projects (roughly what I had on my list at the start of last week) and complete three projects you have 32 projects remaining. So why do I now have 42 projects on my list? Either my math skills have gotten rusty over time, after all, it's been forty years since I took a math class, or boat projects are like rabbits and they multiply at an ungodly rate.

How the hell are we supposed to get everything done at this rate? Of course when we originally left Minnesota we had a handful of projects that weren't finished. Same thing goes for when we left Mobile and I suspect it will be the same story when we leave Ft. Lauderdale. I guess that's just the name of the game we call cruising.