Category: The First Eight Years

Well, we have been working so hard on the boat and on finishing up our shore-lives, that we haven’t even posted to this blog!!!

For the last several weeks, we have both been working around the clock to get the boat ready for the water…The target splash date is this Friday! I’m not entirely sure it will happen this day, but we are working hard to get it in very close to that day!

Here is the list that I THINK I haven’t mentioned that we have gotten done since the last post:
-Patrick has fixed the deck at the bow- the water penetration problems there. He has installed a deck block and backing plate for the windlass. He has installed the windlass, has put in all the wires that I (luckily) ordered in the right size and length. He’s had put in the control box for the windlass, and the breaker near the companionway. He is re-using the current foot controls at the bow, and keeping the new ones for spares. He has the anchors back on the bow, with new oversized hardware attached, and while we held our breath in anticipation he tested it all and everything works GREAT! As usual, he amazes and impresses me!!
-I put in the new 6 volt house batteries, wired them to be 12 volt batteries, AND Patrick put in the new engine battery, attached everything , installed new water-miser caps, and watered the batteries. I have the old NON working wind generator, now working through what I thought was a NON working regulator…happy to report that is now regulating reliably. I ordered a NEW blocking diode with heat sink, which turned out to be my primary problem after all these years, and am ready to install those in to my otherwise working system tommorow. The solar panels are now hooked back up, with a new selector switch, which was my problem with the old NON working system, and those are now working too. After much analysis of my NON working LINK 2000 system, which monitors the charging and the usage of my battery banks, I opened up the system to find a FRIED systemboard, which has been returned back to Xantrex for HOPEFULLY a quick repair , so that I can then hook it back up. It was a wonderful system when it worked, and if it can’t be fixed, I will definitely buy a new one. I love KNOWING exactly how much each system, each lightbulb, etc is taking from the battery bank, and exactly how much the solar and wind is putting Back in to the batteries!
– I tested the inverter and the shore power, and they still work! Once I recieve the LINK2000 monitor back, I will be able to see if the battery charger works, but I believe it does based on preliminary testing.
-I installed the TACKTICK instruments and believe them to be working. Setup was very easy, and all parts became members of the network rather easily. Now we just need to mount the wind transducer at the top of the mast (once we have our running rigging back up), and Patrick needs to make me the mounting board for the TackTick Dsiplays in the cockpit-I introduced the TACKTICK NMEA insterface today! We were not sure if it would be something we would want or need, but now I’M glad we have it. We will be able to see a lot of the information from our other instruments out in the cockpit! I never imagined we would be so sophiticated!!!
-Patrick has built a number of shelves- in the wet locker for boots, at the nav station taylored to our instruments, etc.
-Patrick has installed springs on the new hatches so that they can stay oepn with one hand rathe rthan 2 on your tippy toes while underway. Neither of us liked the hatch arms- its much better now. I need to order some spare handles for when the ones on there break.
-We have both labeled countless numbers of wires, rerouted them, eliminated them, or cleaned up connections on them!
-I installed and routed the GPS antenna through the boat to hook up to the RayMarine Network that is also being installed on to the boat. I took out the old one. Its amazing how old antennas become saoking in the sun and water for a few years. Its seems like yesterday I ran that GPS antenna for the black on white chartplotter I put in a few years ago!
-I mounted the Brookhouse Multiplexer, the TackTick NMEA box, and the AIS unit at the navtable so they can all talk to eachother, and all the instruments can share data with eachother as well as with my laptop as a backup system. I was able to route wires between them with very short short, accessible runs. I have started hooking up SOME wires, but a lot remains. The chart table is a disorganized mess at this point! DONT ANYONE TOUCH ANYTHING OR I WILL BE COMPLETELY DISORIENTED!!
-I installed the FishFinder Display Unit, with inline fuse, correct wire size, etc through its onwn circuit breaker. I tested the thruhull for speed and some sort of depth readout – It even seemed to think that Patrick was a (big)fish under the boat – he was in the process of installing a NEW hole in the boat for the transducer. He cut and installed an outside fairing block, etc for the new fishfinder transducer so that it will look straight down to the ocean floor rather than to the side. . Another hole in the boat makes ME nervous but he has full confidance in the hole he filled in, and the new hole he made. A third hole in the boat scares the cr*$ out of me, but if anyone can make a foolproof modification to a boat, its him… so I wont lose THAT Much sleep over it! We will now have a lot of redundancy/backups on this boat!!! He finished that installation today while I unfortunately had open houses and showings almost all day. It KILLED me to do those rather than work on the boat – but a few thousand dollars more will go a long way towards all of these upgrades to the boat!
-I brought the canvas in to the Canvas Store to have snaps and bottons and rips repaired, after washing everything at home. I also dissasembled the part that attaches to the hard dodger to hook in the awning. IM having them remake that whole part since it was so deteriorated. It involves strong plastic, and a zipper…They promised to have it all back to me by our wedding!
-We have an electronics specialist advising us on the installation of the autopilot. He came and looked at it this week. The boat has always had a wheel pilot (above deck) autopilot on it- so there has never been a below deck one before…so figuring out HOW to attach it to the rudder/quadrant has been a big question mark for us. He has ordered a keyed tiller arm from Edson for us, and will hopefully be back someday soon to install it for us. We will install the course computer and the control head (display), but We will have him install the linear drive for us at the very least.
-We have sanded away many of the blisters above the waterline (cosmetic in nature). We were going to wait until Cartagena Columbia to do this, but Rebecca became overzealous one day and opened up this can of worms…now we have a fiberglass guy helping us out on it! It’s a mad race to get it done this week! I wish I had never started it, but there WERE a number of already opened cracked spots that DID need immediate attention – I just tripled the number of spots to pay attention to, and probably created a little more work than we really wanted to do – oh well, it wont need to be done again at least…He started today….further grinding down some of the blisters. He makes me a little nervous though that he doesnt work on Sundays, doesnt work Tuesday nights because he races, and he has a full time job during the days. He is quite confidant that he can have it done and ready to go in the water this week!
-We have the running rigging back from the rigger- now to get it installed….
-The new lifelines are all installed. They look great!
-The stereo speakers were too big, so I have smaller ones on order now. We need music! We also need to find a bracket to mount it on.
-I installed new cabinet liners almost everywhere- the nonslip, have some air uner them kind of liner. The Head actually is liveable now, and has some nice clean things in the cabinets, and is ready to use!
-I cleaned the whole boat, not perfectly but better than it was, and removed a lot of junk, and straightened things up in general. If nothing else it made me feel a lot better!
-I completed coats of InterProtect 2000 barrier coat on spots we had opened up/grinded on the bottom to repair some delamination, etc. 4 coats of that. And then 3 coats of SuperShipBottom. I also touched up some spots on the rudder. We had the yard move the stands, and sanded/painted 3 coats of bottom paint in those areas.
– We ordered, recieved and put the new name on both sides of the boat, and the hailing port on the back. Ones side was terrible, and then I learned a new trick for the second side and that looks great. We have to park the boat starboard side to the boat in all cases 🙂
-We inquired about cleaning the fuel- no resolution/decision on that yet.
-We have sanded the rub rails, removed the stainless steel plates on them and shined those up, and have applied 3 coats of Cetol Light and gloss to them. We have reinstalled the stainless plates on them.
– We have removed the winches from the port side now, cleaned them, rebuilt them, and refinished/coated the wood. The winches sit in a bin begging to reinstall them. We better hurry or we will forget how they go back on 🙂
-Patrick installed a plexiglass protector over the engine controls in the cockpit.
-Patrick installed springs on the cabinets doors so they stay open when they are opened, and latches that keep them closed when they are closed.
-Patrick has done some sanding to the companionway steps and that’s ready to refinish.

There are COUNTLESS other things we have done- thats just what I can remember! Im sure Patrick could post a list of 100 items. If I really concentrated, I could post another 50….but then you would all be asleep right now – so I will stop for now! its coming together slowly but surely, and we are getting to the really fun parts now!!!

I am very enthusiastically involved with installing our electronics at this point- I can’t wait to get there tommorow morning to continue! I dream it by night and do it by day!

We are taking pictures as we go, but I have none for this posting quite yet- any day now there will be a whole collection here – if you are interested!!

I changed the insurance today to be taken off PORT RISK, and actually allow navigation in local waters!!! We are set until Jacksonville now…then we will have to make some very serious decisions about insurance…its a kind of scary how expensive it is to HAVE insurance, but also scary to think about how much we have to lose too!

Things like house insurance, bank account deposits,withdrawal, preparing for tenants and management, finishing up our jobs, and getting ready to move aboard consume every minute of the day. Its exciting and what Ive been waiting my whole life to do!!! Its also overwhelming and exhausting as well! I CAN NOT COMPLAIN!!!

Well, thanks for reading, hoping it wasnt too boring, and will try to update the sight sooner next time!!