Boatyard Fatigue Syndrome

Boatyard Fatigue Syndrome. It happens to the best of us. Especially when you're doing surgery in a 6" hole, upside down, in the dark.

All cruisers contract it; severity varies, compounded by an increase in days spent in-yard.

Symptoms include:

• Minor fatigue. Escalating exponentially to severe bitchiness. (This may occur equally in both women AND men, no discrimination). Cured by a post-dinner Thrifty’s ice cream run.
• Sunburn. Mild to severe 1st degree blisters. Never fun.
• Dirty feet. Working in flip flops in a filthy boatyard. ‘Nuff said.
• Stuffy nose. Believe it or not, boatyard dust causes nasal havoc…sneezing and mega boogers.
• Wrenched back. Due to constant contortion of one’s body into small spaces, ie.”The Hole”.
• Persistent Paint Application Hunchback. Leaning over 90-degrees for 2-hour-periods results in this separate condition, reversible only by long bouts of lying in bed, watching back-to-back Hawaii 5-0 reruns.
• Tinnitus. From over-exposure to buzz-sawing, grinding and sanding noise. (Gimme the per owl. What? Er owl! Seriously, I can’t HEAR you! Pa-per Tow-el!!! Ohhhh. Here. I can’t hear you over that guy’s sander! Plus, it might help to take that black marker out of your mouth. Just sayin’.)
• Sore knees. From kneeling and squatting; kneeling, squatting…kneeling, squatting… typically from applying miles and miles of blue tape.
• Aching butt muscles. From scrambling up 9ft ladders. Ow! I forgot I had muscles there.
• Poor communication. (Hand me that wrench. Here. No, the black one. There is no black one. Yes, there is! You mean this dark silver wrench? It’s black! Um, no, it’s actually silver. Granted, it’s a darkish silver, but whatever. Words DO mean things.
• Forgetfulness. Did we lock the boat? Analogous to forgetting if you shut the garage door when you left for work, circling the block just to make sure.
• Exhaustion Blindness. Example: When we remove our cockpit engine cover, we undo and place the bolts in the same spot every time. After contracting BFS in the last hour of our otherwise productive workday, we lost one. How is that possible! At 3” wide, these are not easy to lose. We search for 5 minutes… FIVE!; I even looked in the garbage! It had rolled under the cover, hiding the entire time. Oy! Too tired to think clearly.
• Inattention to detail. Did you put Tef-Gel on those bolts before you spent ten minutes trying to insert them? Sh#$! Do-over.
• Stumbling and bumbling. One day, in the last hour, Brian hit his head twice on the bimini. As we were leaving the boatyard he stumbles and nearly twists his ankle. I place my hands wrong on the ladder and nearly pinch my fingers. OK. Time to go.

More and more, I find it a good idea to end a boatyard day on a good note. Before we contract BFS. After working in the hot sun for 5-6 hours, things can start to go awry. Miserably. If you’ve been at it all day and want to complete just one more thing, thinking it’ll only take 15 minutes. Just. Don’t. Stop while you are ahead!

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We worked on Indigo in the yard for just over 2 weeks…the right amount of time before boatyard boatwork gets vexingly tedious. The more days in-yard, the higher susceptibility to BFS. Normally, it would be high time to launch. Except… We’ve decided to go home for Christmas! We plan on coming back January…ish. See you then!