One of those weeks

     Last weekend was taken up with the 2nd annual Crab-B-Que at the house.  It was a smashing success, but no work on the sailboat.

     Yesterday was supposed to be spent on the boat, but life got in the way.  It seems my dog got sick the day before, leaving presents all over the house for us. Unfortunately the wife and I were both at work all day.  Great timing dog.  So instead of working on the sailboat I spent the day renting a carpet cleaner, moving furniture, and cleaning all day.  It was so much fun.  Ask me about it sometime if you want to hear me vent for a bit.

     The plan for today was to fix where the boom attaches to the mast so we could attempt to go sailing this coming weekend.  I'm sure you can guess how well this simple repair went.  Here are the before and after pictures in case you lack sufficient imagination.  There is also a broken off screw in the mast that I need to figure out how to remove.

     I went to all the nearby marinas to buy a replacement.  After many false leads and lots of running around I came to the conclusion that my life sucks.  It turns out that this is a 7/8" wide piece, and all anyone can order (let alone has in stock) is a 1".  Time to scour the internet.  If I can't find one I can replace it with a 1", but then I have to replace the part that slides onto it as well.  No, I have no idea what that piece is called.  I'm a fireman, not a sailor, so leave me be.

     Seeing as that wasn't going to get fixed today I moved to the inside for a bit.  I got the drain for the icebox installed after much cutting and fitting.  I didn't get the area around it filled with foam because the top of the can of good stuff broke off when I tried to use it.  Notice a theme for my day?  Lovely.  I also did some finish sanding on the top pieces and got them (temporarily) in place.  Next time I have need for some 4200 or something similar I will glue them down.  They aren't going anywhere for now anyways.  They fit so tightly in place that I had to use a little persuasion with my hammer to get them installed.  The two lids don't fit like I want yet, but thankfully the are a little too big rather than too small.  I can work with that.  Right about them is when my phone died, so no pictures.  Use your imagination, it is a top on a box.

     Not ready to go home yet I moved on to the starboard side seating area.  I tried to sand off the sticky fuzzy crap but it just gummed up the paper in a matter of seconds.  Instead I used some natural paint thinner on it, let it sit for a while, then went to town with a scrapper.  I can't say I got it all off, but I did get most of it.

     Now I have moved my work to the air conditioning to look for parts on the net.  That and have a well deserved beer.  I also had an idea for a name today.  The previous owner was going to name her "Firefly" from a TV show; sticking with the theme I am thinking about "Serenity".  That is the name of the ship from the same show and has a much better ring to me.  Let me know what you think.

Back at it

     I know I have been absent from this for a while.  Life seems to have been pretty busy in the last couple of weeks.  We had a visit from the wife's dad, had to unexpectedly replace a car, and went on a week long trip to visit my family in Michigan.  Yesterday I did absolutely nothing, but today I jumped back in to the boat.

     I put the third and final coat of paint on the inside of the icebox and the bottoms of the top pieces.  After getting the drain installed I will be able to seal it up and give it a test run.  It's hot out there and  it would sure be nice to keep some cold beverages on hand for when I'm "working".

     After painting I decided to see if I could get the drain in place.  Of course I couldn't.  The first problem was the drain tube.  During all my fiberglass work I seemed to have filled it with fairing epoxy.  I tried to chisel it out, but that wasn't happening.  I ended up having to cut it out from the side leaving a nice big hole in the insulation.  After I get it back together I will fill it with some filling foam.  Once I had the whole piece out it cleaned out quickly and easily.  I then tried to install it only to figure out that the hole where the top piece of the drain fits had grown smaller with all the epoxy work.  It shouldn't be a big deal to widen it out a little bit but I didn't want to do it while the paint was still tacky.  I guess it will just have to wait a bit.

     I wasn't ready to go home yet so I started doing some picking up and organizing.  I had put it off for a while now and it was starting to look pretty bad.  While picking up I started moving my supplies and tools over so I can start working on the seating area on the starboard side. With this done I had a nice big open area in to start with.  The first step will be to sand everything down and fill the multitude of old holes created by who knows what.  Then comes the priming, and then I can move on to building out the backrest and dividers.  I'm actually looking forward to that part.  Crazy huh?

     Before I can start sanding I had to remove an old covering of some sort from the side.  Most of it seems to have been cut off at some point in the past, leaving only a piece running behind the backrest from the galley to the forward wall.  It seemed to peel off pretty easily, but left a nasty residue of some sort.  I'm sure it is from the adhesive origionally used to hold it in place.  I'm hoping that it will come off with the sander, but I ran out of time for the day so I will have to wait to find out.

I know...

I know it's been awhile since the last post.  Life has been pretty hectic with not much time for the boat.  I have done a little bit of work though.  Tomorrow I will try to remember to take a picture or two and update my non-existent readers.