I guess I let this blog slide for some time. I lost my dog, she had a long hard battle with cancer. We decided to jump back in and get a puppy. Meet Bailey, she is a Portuguese water dog. We planned on taking the boat up to the north channel last summer but I talked to my wife and said that I don't yet trust it. Shortly after that everything started going wrong. Water pump, poop pump , leaky hot water tank, anchor light, steaming light, antenna, motor mounts,  the main sail furler stopped working, the list goes on.

I finished the hard top, dodger and bimini, still have to sew up the enclosure. I decided to drop the mast and go through it. new halyards, disassemble the main sail furler (what a mess) I have tossed all the bearing blocks and redesigned them. The point where the boom connected to the mast had been damaged and poorly repaired. I built a bullet proof replacement. looking for new lights at the boat show, installing a radar, TV antenna, VHF antenna, wind instrument, all new wiring. working on an aft dingy lift.

Tranny in and other stuff.

 Over the winter I rebuilt the transmission. Works great now. I added a new Ray Marine combo depth sounder / knot meter and did a lot of small engine jobs. I cut a larger hole in the hull for a 3/4 inch sea-cock. The A/C runs much better.  I picked up a Radar, AIS, GPS, repeater and a roll rate device that works with the flux-gate compass. I installed the hard top and am currently sewing a complete enclosure. On a sad note, my Dog died of cancer. I miss you little buddy.

More to come!

YIKES!

Snow hit early. I swept it all off today and got the winter cover on. The batteries get pulled next. I disconnected the driveshaft and pulled the flange and stuffing box. Next step will be to pull the Tranny in January. I will do a detailed post on that. Merry Christmas

Leveling compound

Went to the Annapolis boat show....cool!  Back at it now. I have three layers of heavy bi-axial  woven mat and 3 gallons of epoxy on the new hard top. I just picked up a gallon and a half of leveling compound from West system. Fantastic stuff. I have applied one coat, sanded and just spread the second coat. Looking good! I will finish the top and bottom but leave it primed with a two part epoxy primer. I will let the canvas people do their worst and then pull the top and finish it. that way any 'boo boo's ' can be repaired prior to final paint. The boat gets pulled in a few weeks and the fun starts then.

AND SO IT STARTS!!!

Well, fall is here and lazy summer sails are coming to an end, all in all the boat worked well. We spent a week on board and were very comfortable. The water pump failed, I replaced it, a few wiring bugs. The tranny acts up sometimes. The cone clutch is glazed and it needs rebuilding. That might get tackled this winter. We decided to go with a hard dodger, I am building it. The structure is just foam with a plywood skeleton. I bought 4 gallons of epoxy 1 gallon of hardener. I got a deal on 350 feet of woven mat fiberglass. 

Seen here, the basic shape with on layer of fiberglass. To do the edges I use tape to pull an oversize strip tight. then soak with epoxy followed by thickened epoxy to fill the voids. Then...grinding!

 You can see the corner lacks wood here, I lost to much after forming the radius. So i simply cut the foam away behind it and filled with thickened epoxy. I want to get three layers all around. I am making the poles and plates from aluminum.

Lots of work- a little sailing!

Spent the weekend at Pelee Island, had a great time. The boat ran ...okay... I had a few bugs.

The air con failed after a few days, it clogged up in the valve above the thru hull. I have installed 3/4 fittings but the valve is a little better than 3/8 when open. That will be resolved this winter with a much bigger thru-hull and valve.  I got it working, but what a piss off!

I started upgrading the electronics, the boat cane with Vigil radios. The company is long gone and these radios are pretty useless. I went with Standard Horizon GX 1700 with GPS and the Ram3 extension.  Here is before.....

The left side of the board got a sprucing up. Everything is rewired correctly. For everything I fixed, I found three more nightmares to be dealt with in the future.

Workin' on my new 42

My wife and I liked the room on board and the layout. It is fairly well built. The most important thing to me is that it has scratches and dents! The plan is to head south when we retire. I know we will bang it up at various marinas. To go it in a shiny gold plater just to have a rusty dock nail scrape along the side would bring me to tears. This boat is a great lake vessel, never seen salt. The guy who I bought it off did some horrible work. We are finding, as a rule that everything he did needs tearing out. He purchased a new MarineAire 18,000 BTU air conditioner, which is great....but... he bought a garden pump from Harbor freight and garden hose to plumb it up. What a mess. I ripped it all out. I ditched the crappy pump and ordered a magnetic 550 gallon per hour pump from MarineAire. I purchased a large Groco bronze strainer and the correct heavy duty, approved hose to do the plumbing. I had one tri- fitting that had to be 3/4 NPT, 5/8 barb, 3/4 barb. When I hobbled something together, it looked ridiculous. I decided to purchase a block of 316 stainless and carve out a one piece fitting on a 4 jaw chuck. It came out nice. As of today I am just waiting for the hose to show up. I still need to run new wiring to a separate 120 volt plug (something else he screwed up) I want to concentrate on the 'bones' as much as possible and hold off on things like up to date instruments. I would like to do that prior to retiring, thus giving me a warranty while underway. The only other strainer in the boat is a plastic bowl built by SC Marine. Never heard of them. This is the strainer for the Yanmar and we decided to bite the bullet and change it too. I purchased a 600 dollar monster. 1 1/2 inch fittings to match the intake hose. The supplier said it was overkill but I argued that the intake is 1 1/2 on the cheesy factory unit, I figure there is a reason for that, such as making sure any garbage that gets sucked in makes it to the basket. 

 Bronze strainer porn!!!

Holding the combo pump and strainer from harbor freight, note the grey garden hose.
ALSO, please note our lovely flooring, it is bamboo from home depot. YES, that is going too. All in good time. One good thing about the crappy work done by the idiot who owned it, it is easy to reverse and I got the boat for a grrrreat price!!

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The next big SNAFO involved a thru hull. The knot meter has a two inch transducer. I would guess that a lift strap caught it, the flange cracked and we had water in the bilge. We motored the boat back to the yard and pulled it. 

 That's not good!

The one on the left is missing that 'flangy thing"  Scary stuff!