This year we repowered Chaos with a Yanmar engine and saildrive. Unfortunately, Yanmar had just released a new saildrive, the SD40. It seems to have a design flaw, although it's hard to know. We have had two units fail so far and are now waiting to see if a new unit with a different propeller that is recommended by Yanmar may do the trick.

In spite of these difficulties, we managed to have a great season anyway. Michael had to pull a couple of rabbits out of hats to have the repairs made in time for our trips, but we seem to have still been on a few nice ones.

Ralph Rodriguez joined us for our first trip in Casco Bay. We visited a new spot, Quahog bay, which was a good spot for the P. Ellen. We had a touch of rough weather, so we carefully navigated an inside route to The Basin. We hid there for a day and then returned to Portland. I brought along one of my guitars, a bold move. It was a good  choice, as the bad weather kept us below decks enjoying food, wine, and a little guitar playing. The Basin was a perfect hideout from the weather. Although it was very unsettled at the mouths of Quahog Bay and the Meadows River, we were sitting quietly in The Basin in total comfort.