Lots to do inside that’s for sure. David Smith has the project of the cabin sides and new handrail at their bottom. Right now he is scarfing pieces of 9MM marine plywood and shaping to fit. I missed getting a picture of the cardboard templates made for them, he tacked them up along each side to indicate the dimensions of the new cabin sides. Once they are installed we’ll paint them white and start to build the handrails that will trim out the bottom of each side. And then we can install windows!
Last weekend I got to disassemble more of the boat by removing various parts of the cabin trim in the way of the cabin side installation. I removed the rails around the top of the hanging lockers while I was at it and peeled off the old Harvest Gold formica tops to those. I scraped off the old glue and then cleaned the tops of each locker with Acetone.
I did get to do a bit in the cockpit. The deck just aft of the lazarette was bothering me, it hadn’t been sealed and the holes for the steering shaft were not filled either. I mixed some epoxy and buttered up the inside edge of the steering shaft hole through the deck. Tomorrow I’ll drill out the holes oversize and fill with epoxy. Then I can re-drill and mount the steering shaft bearing underneath and the tiller tim above.
It’s also time to start my prop shaft project. The shaft is quite pitted where it goes through the packing box and I’ll never get it to seal that way. I’m hoping I can slide the shaft back and get the shaft seal and rubber hose out, cut a new piece of […]
We learned about sanding, sanding and more sanding. We also learned about filling, fairing, priming and taping. We stripped the cap-rail and removed the old sealant from the inner and outer edges. We removed anything from the cabin and decks that had not already been removed. We hired Brooks from Charlot Marine to spray the primer and finish coats. We dry fit all the cabin and deck hardware and brightwork and drilled out their respective fastener holes through the epoxy plugs we had made.
We had been warned that repainting the cabin and decks would be a time consuming process. True to the prediction it took an incredible amount of time. Truly incredible. It would be easier the 2nd or 3rd time, but not really knowing what to do sure helped make it a long experience. After the first prime coat we found all of our imperfections, well almost all. After the 2nd coat we found some more, and we found yet a few more after the 3rd coat.
Finally the top coat, Awlcraft 2000. It sure looked good, not perfect but good. We have a drip to try to sand out and a couple other problems but it looks good. Hopefully it will stay on long enough that I won’t have to do that again real soon.
We had lots of hot days, mid-90’s by noon. We started at dawn and either came back in the evening or simply laid off at 2 or 3 for the day.
Once the non-skid was done it was time for assembly. We fit and installed each fitting, mounted winches and etc. In spite of the dry fitting and drilling a few pieces took some additional steps. All were bedded with polysulfide. We first dry fit […]
Tiffany in the park just down from the marina here in Whangarei:
Well I’ve been in New Zealand for about a month and I’m already falling behind on the blog posts. For the most part I’ve just been taking care of lots of little projects for the last couple of weeks making the boat more livable. The engine is back in with two of the motor mounts replaced, a rebuilt alternator and a new water pump. It seems to be running as well as it ever has. I also added 2” of Styrofoam to the walls of my fridge and 4” on the bottom to try and keep it from running 24 hours a day. It’s now running a little less than half the time which means Jason now gets cold beer and fresh veggies when he’s done working for the day.
New motor mounts and cleaned up coupling waiting for my Suzie diesel to go back in:
My newly insulated fridge:
Weekend before last Arek and his buddy Adam drove up from Orewa for the weekend. Arek and Iwona have been living just north of Auckland for the past year spending all their free time working on a free classified ad site for New Zealand: www.ulist.co.nz. Everyone over here uses a site called tradme, which is similar to ebay in it’s fee structure and is quite infuriating. Infuriating enough that Arek has become obsessed with getting the craigslist model running successfully in this country. Well Ulist was talked about, music was played, rum was drunk and catching up was done and in the morning we took off for the Bay of Islands in Arek’s car. I skipped the Bay of Islands when I sailed into NZ last year […]
Below is an excerpt from the january to february log on the s/v Blue Sky Website. To read the whole thing follow the link at the bottom of the article to their website. . . . Bon Voyage Asia, January to February 2009 Shopping for a major ocean crossing is always an insane event. We are “buying low” because we learned in French Polyenesia the hard way of not stocking up. The water line is suffering, but it’s consumables so it can only get better. Cardboard is never allowed on board, as cock roaches lay their egss in the glue, and it is the number one way boats get infected. Once we bring everything down to the boat we have to take it out of all the packaging, throwing away the cardboard and plastic. The fun part is finding places to stow everything, and remembering where you put it. I write everything down now. We will be two months in Chagos which is an uninhabited island. After Chagos it’s off to the Seychelles and that is where we can expect resort prices. Malaysia basically has everything that one expects at home. Chilean wine, Austrailian cheese, New Zealand lamb, English chocolate! So it’s stock up realitively inexpensively now or pay big in the Seychelles. We are not expecting much in Madagascar so instead of stocking up for just a couple of months we are loading the boat to get us to South Africa. That’s about eight to nine months from now.
Above is our version of Costco, we found the wherehouse that supplies the grocery stores, perfect for buying bulk.
Drake is like a kid in a candy store…Oh wait he is! Purchasing our six month supply of chocolate.
I excerpted the below from a post on Amatheia’s blog by Scott Maxwell
I was perusing the “sailboat” section of the Pdx Craigslist and a listing caught my eye. The ad was for a local boat builder, advertising his services. I thought I would give him a call as I still had a major structural refit of the forepeak that I just didn’t feel qualified for. Enter David Smith, master boat builder when not selling real estate. David does this for the love of boats he says, and it’s clear that he speaks the truth.
He gave me a bid and got started on the forepeak. We settled on a plan for the refit. Plywood would be epoxy coated and glued to the underside of the forepeak, extending aft under the side decks to the wall of the hanging locker on the starboard. side and the bulkhead to port. The bulkhead that formed the chain-locker would be removed, strengthened and reinstalled. A toggle system would be constructed to receive the bitts, the toggle secured to the bulkhead.
David is a part-time boat builder and this project took a while although it didn’t cramp our other work at all. When it was finally completed he installed the bitts and bowsprit with the stainless trim around the bitts on deck. David did a fantastic job and forepeak is strong and the deck gorgeous with the great looking bitt trim and new bowsprit.
In the meantime the warmer weather allowed us to begin the prep process of the deck and house. I struggled with how to proceed. Repaint the whole deck? Leave the non-skid and just paint the old gel coat? I finally decided to paint the whole thing white, then come back and tape out the non-skid […]
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