Okay, okay. So here I have to digress a bit from the Hurricane to explain my tardiness. 2013 was a busy year for me. I was still adjusting to the new job I took at the end of 2012 and waiting for the weather to break before I could work on anything again (no place for the trailer and the Marine-Tex needs a minimum temperature). The page on the trailer did take place that year but we need to rewind a bit. In February my sister-in-law decided to get married in Jamaica. While it was nice, beautiful, and fun (all-inclusive), the one thing it was not was cheap.
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The view you see to our left was the same one we saw every morning when we woke. Very troubling, I know. That said, it was stormy and blowing the first couple days, then the weather broke and it got better. Sun, sand, and not a little bit of water. Excellent food everywhere at the resort and I found myself fighting an addiction to Ting (which, annoyingly, I can't find the in the States). More sun, sand crabs, excursions inland (there is no small discrepancy between incomes of (most) Americans and (most) Jamaicans). Too much sun(!) and time spent by the pool attempting to avoid Ting rehab. But, I'm sure, this is exactly what you're wanting to read on a site about restoring a hovercraft. |
Suffice it to say, things happened on the trip. No hour of the day was safe from...anything (well, something, specifically, but who knows who's reading this page). A fourteen-foot anaconda was fought bare-handed and in sandals. Someone almost plummeted to their death ziplining but just ended up with a case of Jamaican poison ivy instead.
Two of these three things happened. Care to guess which ones?
| Well, let's fast-forward a bit and understand spring was quickly followed by summer. These are the busy times at work for me and I had little time at home to get anything done. You see, biology has a funny way of doing things and while I was waiting for my bruises to fade and itchiness to subside, something had taken root. Something which could not be contained. Something which...well, hell, something which will one day inherit the hovercraft if he doesn't wreck it first. In November of 2013, two-weeks earlier than expected, a new hovercraft pilot pushed his way into the world. And if I thought I didn't have free time before, I was sorely mistaken. | 
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Other pictures are available, just in case you think I grabbed this one off the interwebs somewhere, but I made a promise not to my son to not spam him all over the internet. I'll wait until he's old enough to get on FaceSpace or MyBook or whatever we'll have then to make a fool of himself. I could be like other parents and complain about how we get no sleep and this and that but, really, we are quite lucky. He goes to bed at a decent time and sleeps through the night (since he was three months). What does this have to do with a hovercraft, though? Well, it makes me into a dreamer and realizer of reality. The sad fact of it all is this: the time I have to work on the hovercraft is severely diminished, which means everything will go as slow, or slower, than it has been.
Or will it?
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I have no photos of the actual work being done to the trailer except a few images. Suffice it to say, the work I was able to do was when my wife also had the day off and the weather was cooperating. I was able to water-seal the wood, sand the trailer, and shoot it with some paint to inhibit the rust. I would have liked to strip everything but it would have proved impractical with the time I had so I did the best with what I could. Still, I am proud with what I could accomplish and it brings me one step closer to having the Hurricane at my house to work on. |
The only things missing from the trailer at this point are sanding and painting on the outside edge, adjusting the light brackets to accommodate slightly wider lights, and carpeting the deck (which is why the front and rear boards aren't fastened down). We'll just have to see how quickly those few things can be buttoned up and what I might be able to do before winter.
And, just in case there's any confusion, no, the Hurricane was never for sale. I do still own it.
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