I bought a pair of speakers for the cockpit but I don't want to cut circular holes in the fiberglass. The plastic grilles always get kicked in and it looks bad. I got the idea to install them under the Bimini top by fabricating brackets in order to attach them to the stainless steel tubes that support it. I will paint the aluminum brackets white and install them in the spring. I need the Bimini top up to determine the best position. The base of the brackets is offset to one side and they are symmetrical. That gives me more room to play with. I need to make sure that they don't get in the way. The next problem is to wire them up so I can put them away during the week. I want a way of plugging them in. Someone suggested using the connectors from automotive trailer hitches. They are made to take weather. Maybe...we will see.

Man it got cold fast. Glad I'm not in Buffalo! I pulled the batteries and measured up for a few winter project. I mentioned the exhaust but I have to source the gaskets. The place I get Universal parts from has changed their system. They don't ship to Canada. I will have to call them up. Not touching it until those gaskets are in my hand! Working on speaker brackets for the cockpit and I want to replace the bracket that holds the flotation ring on the stern rail.
Oil is changed and the motor is winterized.

Took the mutt out to Point Pelee for the remainder of the day. Here I explain hole digging while Marley gives me the "You're insane" look.

Well that's a wrap for 2014. I took this shot traveling
down the Detroit river toward my winter storage area. These ships, both Ocean going and Lakers were lined up to get road salt for the coming winter.
I winterized the engine and did an oil change. The tanks are flushed with pink antifreeze. Just have to pull the batteries and wrap things up. I'll get some projects done during the Hell that is winter.

This is going to be one of my winter projects. The exhaust is leaking. I guess it's a pin hole in the weld. Looking at the crappy job here, it doesn't surprise me. I noticed that the engine sounded a little different a month back. This is a bit of a learning curve. I have to find out where you get this high heat wrap and I plan on pulling the manifold off which means getting a new gasket. All this ugly will finally be gone. I have two speakers to mount in the cockpit and some little jobs such as converting all the lights to LED. I think back to my power boats and all the problems that I had, I think Sailors complain to much! The little diesel always starts and the boat always gets me where I am going and home again. It's a little like a sports car from England. You have to open the hood once in a while and nose around. (The exhaust for example) but more often than not, you find little or nothing wrong. A power boat with all that bashing through the waves constantly develops problems (VERY EXPENSIVE ONES!!!). Yeah, I don't go fast, but I always get there.

 Last day of Summer on Lake St.Clair.

Detroit from a distance. Boat is running and sailing great! I hope to get out on the weekend as it is suppose to be warm. Hard to believe but in a few months there will be ice floating by.

Port Credit boat show

We ran up to the port Credit boat show on the weekend. The sailboat that caught our interest was a Morgan / Catalina 38.1 center cockpit. We were blown away by the amount of room below created by the raised cockpit. The bedroom in the stern has a large comfortable bed. It ticked a lot of boxes.

This particular example was over priced but this proves out a few theories we have. 1#- You can not get the feel for a boats size from pictures, you have to see it.
 2# -There is a boat under 40  feet that will work for us.
 We are getting an early fall but hopefully we will get a few more sails in before the long freeze. The day is getting closer when we sail south and skip a few of them!!

We continue our search for a bigger boat. Looked at a 38.4 Morgan in Lasalle Michigan yesterday. Very nice but it failed the important question. "Could you handle living in this cabin for two years?" NO! The beds were small and uncomfortable. Great boat for a week away but at the end of the week you would be looking forward to your bed at home. We were going to look at a 37 Tartan but it has tighter quarters than the Morgan. I don't want any more boat than necessary but the layout has to work. Designers always short-sheet the beds in favor of features like 'Spacious Saloon' or 'five heads!'  Our search continues. We met a couple on a Corbin 39 last week. Nice ride, I will have to keep an eye out for one to look at. We are going to check out a Brewer 44 in Tampa this fall. A little on the huge side but the more I see, the better informed I am. I make my intentions clear to people selling their vessels. I just need to see it for an hour and nothing more. If the layout doesn't work for us, we are on our way. Still- they get very upset with you. I have sold four boats and I know what a PITA it is. I figure that I will be up front about my interest and requirements and ask them for an hour at their convenience. Never ask for a ride out or anything else. That's as fair as I can be.

AUGUST! ARE YOU KIDDING!

AUGUST! ARE YOU KIDDING!!
A trip up Lake Huron never materialized this year. I worked hard to get the boat ready but in the end we called it off. The water up there is really cold and the weather patterns are odd for late July. I watched the weather and estimated where we would have been. We would have been stuck twice! I figure at least a 2 or 3 day stint in either Tawa or Lexington harbors due to high winds from both northerly and the South easterly directions and above 20 knots. Waves were 2 meters...not fun. We took off on a road trip to see some more sailboats. First a 36 Nauticat in Niagara on the lake. I had forgotten what a circus this is. The boat was in terrible condition with 'upgrades' that included a cheap fridge from Home Depot attached to a 3000 watt inverter attached to a single deep cell battery. The teak deck had been sanded with a disk grinder which left deep gouges, then finished with deck stain from- you guessed it...Home Depot. We ran away.
The next stop was very disappointing for me, I have always been a fan of Whitby 42's. We drove to Port Credit near Toronto to see a real beauty.
 I am 6'1" and my wife is 5' 10". We didn't fit in the boat! The alley that takes you to the aft cabin was so small we had to sort of bunch up and push through and then reverse to get out. I couldn't believe how small the beds were. It was built for shorter people than us, BUMMER!
Next stop was a Reliance 44 in Whitby Ontario. This boat was a surprise. It needed a lot of work but the price was right. Very roomy with big beds. I just don't think I am up to such a big project at this point in my life, also she had a full keel with a deep draft that won't work in the Bahamas.
On to Midland Ontario to see a Bristol 43.3. The boat was sold 10 seconds after we boarded her. God! What a nice vessel. We climbed off after an hour to meet the Broker who was busy with someone else. Before we shouted "SOLD! " He let us know that she had come off her mooring in a storm on Georgian bay and pounded on the rocks for days. The hull was badly damaged along with the skeg. The survey showed the repairs were not done correctly. BUMMER!
Then we saw the best boat I ever had the privilege to board. A Cartwright 43. The owner had ordered it as an empty hull in '89 and built it his way. This man was a Tool and Die maker. His workmanship was outstanding. The table was made from a slab of Birdseye maple. The Engine was cleverly hidden under the sink unit which tilted back like something out of a Bond movie. The boat is flawless.....but- the owner is 5' 5" and his wife was 5' tall. The beds were to small, the table to low. The dodger was level with my neck when I stood at the wheel. It would be a gigantic task to change all of this and a crime to destroy the workmanship in this vessel. I learned a lot and will keep looking while enjoying my O'Day .

A trip up to Harsons Island in the St.Clair river. The wind was blowing twenty knots all night!

The big keel on the BIG Reliance 44.

Sailed to Pelee Island Friday morning. We had the wind right on the nose and tacked all the way. It took longer but was a pretty nice sail.
The weather was great on Saturday but some boats from Ohio bailed due to high winds and storms expected. It didn't seem like a big deal so we stayed until Sunday. The storms never made it Saturday night but more were expected by noon on Sunday. We were up by 5:30 and underway by six. The wind was reported to be 10 knots. It was 15 and built to twenty. That put us at the known edge of our abilities!! The trip across the lake is 27 miles to the Detroit river in 30 feet of water. 
It creates waves like boxes. Three feet high and six feet apart. The wind stayed at 20 for some time then started failing back. We were beam to the waves on a beam reach. After I loosened up a little it was not that bad. We never got so much as splashed in the worst of it and the boat seemed to be in it's element.
The wind pushed us up the Detroit river @ 5 Knots and we covered the 50 miles in 9 hours. Not Bad!!
The fridge and radio were a great addition.

I installed the new radio and slid the VHF in next to it. The wiring job was a nightmare. I lost the old Barometer and ships clock. Replaced with a Lorus digital unit with Barometer and graph. I squeezed in a 900Ah deep cell battery to handle the refrigeration.

Replaced the manual bilge pump with a new unit.
It was easy to do and works great. I over did it with the fridge! The thing is surprisingly powerful. I set it to high and left some water bottles and beer / soda in it. The box drains into the bilge and when I found everything frozen solid and busted open the only thing to do was shut it of and thaw it out. The result was a bizarre concoction in the bilge with an interesting smell. I poured in a bucket of hot water and Mr Clean, then used the new pump to discharge it. I washed the box out and repeated until it was all gone. I installed a riser in the box with frozen stuff under and cool above. I turned the thermostat setting up to about 50% and that seems about right.

I tore out the old radio and the VHF. I built a new plate over on the S'board side by the Nav table. This little unit puts out 160 W and sounds really good. I wanted to get rid of CD's and use an I-Pod. This lets me use MP3 devices through an AUX jack and I can put music on 8 gig Thumb drives and play them through a USB jack.
BIG improvement. I'll post a picture when I have it wrapped up.

Well I finally got out and sailed. everything worked well. My crew (shown here) was a little rusty but I didn't make them walk the plank. I installed the fridge and it works great on battery power but the converter that feeds it shore power at 24 volts isn't working. I wrote to tech support and have a few ideas about what to do. The GPS is great, I think a new radio is next. Get rid of the CD's and use an I-Pod. I need to install a second deep cell battery as well. Never ends. I was watching an old guy from Michigan working on a 43 footer. That's where we are heading next. Man that is a lot of work. I use 3 quarts of VC-17 bottom paint. He needs 2 1/2 gallons!!! At 60 bucks a quart. Great heads up for what's coming.

After two weeks of hard work I am ready to launch
on Saturday. I pulled the teak slotted rails which locate
the sliding coach roof and refinished with Cetol.
Standard procedure, I bored out the holes around
the screws and filled with West System epoxy with
microballons. Re-drilled at installation. Bedded in
3m 4200 UV. Came out nice.

 Made aluminum spacers and painted everything white. The spacer that is standing is 2 inches long. This is slightly more than the ice trays. I will slide them in the slot that is created.  The rectangular plate is the backer of a larger plate  shown in the next picture.

 The plate at the back covers and protects the copper lines running between the plates. You can see the ice trays to the right. You fill them with water and add the insert. The frozen block slides out and breaks into cubes with the aid of the insert.

I rebuilt the ring around the lid. The old one was in bad shape. The box below seems well insulated ...we will see. Next step is to install the compressor and wiring. I finally got a few warm days to wax the hull. I did the blue stripes three times.
(BRAG). I have the best looking hull in the yard and that includes some far newer sailboats. I found a good deal on a 100 amp hour deep cell at Costco. I will need it with this fridge! Come on summer!!!!

Nothing to report. I have been working on my Kitchen for three weeks. A new fence is next. There is still a pile of snow by the boat and a good six inches of ice in my slip at the marina. I will get started in a few weeks. I planned on installing the new fridge compressor and cold plate in the yard but I may do it at the marina. That way I can get all the usual crap done and launch her. Here is a video on the Detroit river after a long slog against the current coming back from Put-in-Bay. It was over 90 degrees that day. Hard to imagine.

Not much to report. I just picked up this Garmin 421. They are discontinuing this model soon so I got a good deal.. I cleared the snow off the poor frozen boat on the weekend and took a few measurements concerning the refrigerator project. Not much else going on as winter grinds on.

A day out at Point Pelee on Lake Erie. This winter is brutal, there is not one day listed in the next ten days above freezing.
Working on the boat is impossible. The garage has a gas heater but is not insulated so I don't run it unless the temp is at least near freezing. I usually pump the water off the pool cover twice a winter but it is frozen solid. It is going to overflow soon, Crikey! On the upside the lake levels are going up.
Waiting for the weather to break...waiting...waiting.

The new fridge cooling unit is here!
 It's a Nova Cool with 3 evaporator plates.
This has been something I wanted to get to since I bought the boat. It got kicked down the list again and again. We used a plug in unit to get by. The cooler on this boat is huge. almost 7 square feet. It will be great to get it operational. 

I built an aluminum bracket to mount the
compressor unit on. It will have plastic
UHMW insert below and above the hold 
down screws. This is to reduce vibration.

 This aluminum arm is sticking out at the bottom is to receive a section of angle that will support the two copper lines before the fittings.

 Something like this

 I have to rebuild the shelf that it sits on- located on top of the hot water tank.  It was somebodies shop project in grade school I think. The evaporator plates need some thinking too.  Top loaders are a hassle when you need something at the bottom. I want to build some kind of insert that pulls everything out from part of the box. This also means I need more battery power but that was a problem last year when we sat on the hook.
Lots to do. January is half over. Got that going for me.