One Piece at a time..

Stopped by the boat after the holiday party at work and got the covers back on the cushions in the V berth. I want to have the whole boat re-done cushion wise, but for now these will do.
Also got the reading lamps working the the captains stateroom. I think they're basically useless for reading, but they do make nice mood lighting. I need to get some boat tshatshke.

Maiden Voyage

Met my best friend Anthony at oh-eight hundred this am at the yard for the 3 hour maiden voyage home (A three hour toooouuur lol) . We loaded supplies (the new raritan toilet) I did my systems check and we were off and running by 0:900.

While I was yammering on about all of the things I was worried about, Anthony procured from his boat satchel a suspicious looking box that appeared to be a pirates chest, he handed it to me and said that it was only to be used in times of celebration, or times of great trial. I opened it and inside was a bottle of Pyrate rum, beautifully engraved with the name of my boat. What a great friend!! I shook his hand and responded that since this event was a definite cause for celebration, we should open it immediately =)

While underway Anthony got the Raymarine dialed in just right as it happened to be the same model he had on his Catalina 36. I also used MacENC on my macbook and was very pleased with it.

The seas were calm, the perkins purred, the batteries charged, the toilet flushed, and the refrigerator was colder than a welldiggers a** in january.

When we arrived at the Marina, heads started popping out of hatches to look at the new boat. I could see people leaning into eachother and whispering things...

I closed my eyes and briefly said to myself, "Oh Sweet Jesus please help me from making a mess out of this". Keep in mind that I have never parked a boat larger than 20' and this was the first time EVER that I had piloted/parked this one. I was more nervous than a harlot in church.

I know for a fact that someone from above on high was looking out for me today as I managed to get it parked in the slip on the first try (with the entire marina watching me, no pressure) with no fouls or errors. Thank you Jesus!




The boat performed absolutely flawlessly, everything worked perfectly, so some of my hard work on the boats systems must have paid off =)

Big Box of Air Conditioning Love

Its here! Install posts coming soon, in pieces.

Bottom Job, Blisters and other Yard work

The yard called me this morning with the good news that the boat was ready! Yaay! This means I can pick her up on saturday and finally motor back to my berth. My best friend (who is the one responsible for getting me into trawlers in the first place) is going to join me on the 3 hour cruise back home.

Regarding the bottom job - During negotiations when I had the boat surveyed they found gelcoat blisters, but upon sounding and visual inspection, none extended into the laminate. The paint on the boat at the time of sale was flaking off in sheets, which is visually disturbing to see, but the 23 year old boat had never been stripped so I half expected that.

I had it chemically stripped and then rough sanded down to the gelcoat so that 1) I could really see the extent and the depth of the blistering and 2) so that the new $200 a gallon bottom paint had something it could actually adhere to.

Here it is stripped:
What we found were about 200 dime sized blisters that were just under the gelcoat. I pondered it for a bit and decided to have them fixed by the grind and epoxy fill method.

Heres the other side: Fast forward a week and the work is complete! 2 coats of trinidad on a smooth bottom sure looks pretty.


23x20 "wheel of fortune"

A little zinc chromate on the stern thruster:

Over the weekends I managed to repair my cracked swimstep (PO backed it into the dock) and get a coat of cetol on it. I repaired the crack by drilling a 12" hole from front to back, clamping it , permanently through bolting it and then filling with epoxy. Sand down the high spots, coat with cetol and booyah, stronger than original. Needs some more light sanding and a couple more coats of cetol but the hard work is done.


This saturday will be the trip home. The boat and I are as ready as we're going to get and I'm looking forward to it. Look for another post sunday night. The new raritan head gets here friday.

-C