summertime.. and the livin is easy.....

Mother nature Is such a tease....It was cold, wet and nasty for 60 days, and then for 3 days last weekend we had the kind of weather that reminds us why you want to live here - It was beautiful out - I mean like "the fish are jumpin and the cotton is high" kind of beautiful....

Then, our 72 hours of beauty was up and, POOF - Right back into Rain, Thunderstorms and Cold.

Grr...

I need to go to Maui.



-C

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

Inaugural Post for the Holo Honu

After 20+ candidates, 3+ months of searching, and a month of negotiations, I closed the deal on my first trawler.

I had several items that formed the selection criteria - Mechanical Condition, Cosmetic Condition, ease of maintenance, Size and layout, and price.

After about the 5th boat I looked at, It became clear to me that every boat is a compromise of one kind or another. One of the items that I knew that I didn't want was Teak Decking. Its pretty, but it really dug into my mind that every 12 inches on each plank theres a screw holding it to the deck underneath thats eventually going to leak. No thanks.

Making that decision alone narrowed the scope of my search quite a bit.

The other thing that I paid close attention to was the interior paneling around the hatches and windows. I saw lots of boats that leaked like sieves in the wet weather. This boat had no evidence of leaking around the windows.


I actually looked at my boat 4 times before I made an offer on her. The previous owner bought her from the original owner in 1997. The first time I pulled the floor hatches and examined the engine bay it was evident that both of them took especially good care of the mechanical systems on board.


There were a few things that I had questions about, but unfortunately the PO had passed away leaving the boat to his widow. It sat for about 2 years without any use or care before being put up for sale, and it sat another year at the sales dock with nary an offer because of the asking price.

The Good:
It had a perkins 125hp engine with 2500 hrs on it in excellent condition, it had my coveted fiberglass decks, new electronics, a spacious mahogany interior (in need of a good scrubbing), Complete Canvas, and a new dickinson stern thruster with dual controls.

The Not as good:
It needed deferred maintenance - The batteries were shot. The bottom needed to be done, Gelcoat blisters were found on the survey, there was a leak at the radar mast, the heads were shot, the brightwork was pretty sad, and it was generally kinda scruffy looking. On the sea trial, if I held the engine at WOT for more than 5 minutes the temperature would start to climb. at 100 rpm under wot it was fine, so I think it might be a little overpropped.

However underneath the scruffyness I could see the potential. With attention to the bottom, and cosmetic sweat equity she could be really gorgeous.

Shes currently in the air at the yard - the second coat of bottom paint was applied today following the blister repair. I went with Trinidad SR.

I've replaced the starting 8d as well as all 8 US 2200 6 volt house batteries with new. Hopefully the new ones will last a while. The boat has a new Xantrex Freedom 25 inverter charger, so I'm in good shape there.

I had one through hull replaced, and another one added for the air conditioner/heater that I will be installing soon.

More soon -

-C