Any project you can do to pass the time... General Forum Forums

Hello, my name is Pua, and I have been a  downeaster liveaboard for about 3 years. ("Hello pua", the group of bankrupt downeaster owners go) We bought our downeaster 45 on ebay off the hurricane Ike auction (who knew we would finally buy a boat off ebay. Too weird). We live in Hawaii, so it only made sense to buy a boat in texas. Or atleast, it made sense at the time. Me and my father (who clicked the button on ebay that led our family to this boat) decided we would fly down to texas to start getting our boat ready to sail back to Hawaii (notice that I capitalized Hawaii and not texas- there is a reason why I didn't!). Naturally we thought it would only take us about 6 months to get her ready, because we believed the previous owners when they said that they had taken good care of this boat, had invested much moolah, and time, and 5200 in this boat. Since they had lived on her, and 'sailed' her around galveston bay for like, 10 years we thought they knew what they were talking about, but they didn't. So here we are, still in texas 2 and a half years late on our departure date. We've been changing our 45' from an apartment boat to a seaworthy vessel. We've done alot, me and my dad, from raising a new mizzen mast in the marina by ourselves (you should have seen the office lady's face when she found that out) to taking out the completely rotten bowsprit and making a new one, to building new dinghy davits, and not just any dinghy davits, solid stainless davits that we salvaged off this guys 1920 river boat after he sold us the davits and then went and suck his boat for insurance money. Which is a really funny story by the way. 

So heres an incomplete list of things we have done, and the projects we will do. Not to bog anyone down( hey, you're reading this of your own free will!) I'll just list the general things, not go into details. These are also kinda in chronological order. Kinda.

 Bought rigged and raised a new mizzen mast

Replaced the bowsprit

Replaced the anchor winch

Put in 9 new batteries

Replaced the holding tank(this one was the job straight from hell)

Put in new dinghy davits

Put in solar panels

replaced water pumps

replaced AC pumps

Put in a new hard top for the cockpit

Replaced sail covers

Made new brackets for the main spreaders

Replaced all navigation lights, deck lights, inside lights, etc.

Recaulked all the windows, currently replacing all 6 of them and making storm covers

Currently putting new prop and shaft underwater since what the heck, why do things easy when you can make them hard?

Replacing stanchions, life lines 

 These are just the things I can name off the top of my head. Repairing all the cosmetic damage done to the side of the boat from the hurricane took alot of time, and repainting the sides and decks took alot of time, especially in the marina.

I think the hardest part of doing all these jobs was the fact that we were thousands of miles away from our home and any family who could help us out. Alot of things were challenging. I mean its no fun doing a job when you know if you need something from the store you don't have a way to get there. And working on the dock was fun when you don't have anywhere except the deck to store all your tools and projects. It was a challenge. 

I just felt like posting this, half as a vent, and half because its nice to know that theres a whole community of people who own the same boat and do alot of the same projects. I have alot of questions to ask, but I guess I didn't ask alot in this post.  If anyone reads this post I salute you, since this is awfully long and rambling, but I don't feel that bad since if you did read all the way down to the end then there has to be a reason, and if no one reads this then hey, I don't feel bad anyway. Thanks for reading this!