Pink Jobs vs Blue Jobs

For some reason, most sailing couples divide boat work into 2 distinct categories. Pink and Blue. These jobs fall strictly on gender lines. But before I get into this subject, I am going to throw a disclaimer out there that states that I wholeheartedly believe that Brenda can do everything I can do, and most of those things she can do better. I may be physically stronger, but she has an attention to detail that my short attention span just can't compete with.

I can hear the hillbillies in the audience murmuring in the background that women belong in the kitchen, popping out babies. I can also hear the defiant feminists in the background that want to kick those hillbillies in the nuts just to prove the point that women are strong and to hopefully stop those hillbillies from further procreating. I am going to stay out of the middle of those two groups, mainly because I don't want to be caught in the cross-hairs and be kicked in the nuts, but more than that, I am a firm believer in equality.

Now that the legal disclaimers are out of the way, I can tell you that we have pink and blue jobs just like almost every other cruising couple. Most of these jobs are divided like most other couples. Plumbing, wiring, rigging, and engine maintenance fall mostly to me. Not because Brenda can't do those things, but because I was in construction forever and I am proficient and efficient with those tasks. I also keep track of spare parts, tools, and maintenance schedules for all of our machinery.

Brenda does most of the cooking, the sewing of our canvas, sail repairs, and keeps track of food storage and our emergency medical supplies. And it's not because I can't cook, but because Brenda would quickly get tired of my version of cooking. Bacon, top ramen, PB and J's, reeses peanut butter cups, and stuff that comes out of a can for some reason gets old for her (and she unfortunately doesn't eat any of that stuff). She handles the sewing because of my short attention span and the fact that she agonizes over tiny details that don't even register for me. The sewing projects just turn out better with her running the project.

When we are actively traveling, Brenda will pick where we are going next, because for me, I get too overwhelmed with an endless possibility of places to see. She can sort through the vast list of possibilities and pick a place, and then I figure out how to get us there. I work great when I have a task that needs to be done, like getting us from point A to point B. I can sort through the weather, tides and currents, and find us the perfect place to anchor if I just know where we are heading.

I generally drive the boat when we are docking because I am a control freak and because Brenda is much better at the long jump when my docking skills leave us a long way from the dock. Brenda drives when we are anchoring because I have massive muscles and can manhandle our huge anchor off of the bow a little easier. It's not that either one of us can't do the other person's jobs, it just how things have landed.

A lot of things fall under both pink and blue. We both do the dishes, the laundry, and stand watches. Although there are times when Brenda has gone right behind me after I have cleaned something or done the dishes, and did it over again because I obviously didn't do it right. There are different versions of clean. A pink version and a blue version.

When we don't want to do something, we will try to pass it off as the other person's job. Like when I need to crawl under the floorboards to fix some plumbing, or if the toilet needs to be rebuilt, or if some electrical gizmo has gone haywire for the 3^rd time, I will vehemently say “that's a pink job. You need to crawl under the floor and swap that sewer hose. That's definitely a pink job. Remember, plumbing and pink start with “P”. That means you need to get under there and fix that stupid thing.” Brenda just answers with a “no way. That's definitely a blue job.”

For the last month or so, we have divided up all of the things that have needed to get done by whether or not they have fallen into a pink or blue category. Brenda has tackled some sewing projects and gone through the sails and I have wrestled with plumbing and wiring projects. We come together when either of us needs a helping hand, but for the most part, we are left to our own devices to take care of the pinks and the blues. It's a system that works for us and most other cruisers.

We are just about as far along as we can go with our various projects. Until the boat goes back in the water, we are happy to say that our list of things to do is almost complete. Tomorrow we have the crane booked to hoist our mast into place, and hopefully by the end of the day, it will be completely installed. The yard is progressing nicely with repairing the crack in our skeg, they have stripped the keel and have multiple coats of epoxy laid up, and by the end of the week, the bottom paint should be on and complete. We are almost floating again. Progress is good.

The other news is that our newest episode of our incredibly exciting video series is now up on youtube. The link is here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hALOSX7s_s

That's our boat being pressure washed and prepped for the bottom job.

She's just hanging out.

Parked at our new home for the next couple of weeks.

That's what the keel looks like after a hearty pressure washing.  Next up is the grinder to finish the job.

And I'm sure this is what you are all waiting for...the video.  For some reason this doesn't work on some devices, so the link is above.