Getting "Hurulu," our Islander 36, ready for the trip to Mexico is not a cheap process. We now refer to each incremental expense in terms of "boat units".
Here is the formula:
1 Boat Unit = $1000 in US$.
1 Boat Unit = $1000 in US$.
Believe it or not, it makes it more palatable than if we were using actual figures for each piece of gear. It's like using a foreign currency...it feels a bit like Monopoly money, so that $9 cappuccino in Italy isn't quite so painful.
The most recent addition was a Monitor Windvane self-steering system. This ingenious contraption of steel tubes and lines (http://www.selfsteer.com/windvanes101/index.php) uses the force of the wind against a vane and water motion over an auxiliary rudder to change the direction of the wheel, thus automatically steering the boat.
We were told that if we tried to hand-steer for the entire trip, we would go mad.
Thus, the price of sanity, in boat units, is approximately 2.6.
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