Cockpit sole=open

Nothing but rot under the Fiberglass.

-- Post From My iPhone

I am Lazy

Matt spent two days grinding off the neven surfaces and beveling the portlight openings to prepare them to be glassed over.  This apparently resulted in such a cloud of dangerous particles of fiberglass flying around that we needed to upgrade the shopvac and put a filter on the fan that ventilates the tarp enclosure. So sad I missed all that.

Structural fairing compound goes up right onto the lexan windows we installed last year.

Meanwhile, my job is to clean the adhesive and paper off of the bowmar windows we bought at Bacon's, which allows me to stay home and not in all the fiberglass. Sweet. Also, I made a cover for the tiller. I think the diligence score looks something like this: Matt: 400,000 Carrie:  2

Getting ready to paint the decks

In order to glass over the existing windows, remove all the deck fittings a repaint, we have to keep her safe from rain. Probably should have started sooner than march, but there has been a lot of snow. Went to Lowe's and picked up about thirty PVC pipes and joints.

It starts to go up.

It starts to take shape.

We hang the tarp up.











Pretty neato. We used zip ties, which didn't even last a week. We came back to find the whole thing lying in the mud. Went back to the old drawing board, put it back up with bolts and nuts and used PVC pipe cement. So far so good, she made it a week.

Now that things are a bit more secure, everything is coming off and out, hatch covers, sliders, handles, instruments .. .

Seems like going back to square one.

This is the color of my broken heart. My teak faced bulkheads are out. Rotten on the bottoms. Not doing much good, were they? We lost all the nice trim boards that were attached to them, too. 

Head, meet dinette. Hanging locker, meet galley. Looks big inside now, and it also looks nearly as creepy as it did when we bought it. Nothing like demolition to make you feel really fricking sad. And fill your yard up with bulkheads and bow rails and stuff.

-- Post From My iPhone

Plans, plans and more plans

If it doesn't snow too much, this weekend we are building a PVC frame to hang a tarp on. I'm taking my new Sailrite Ultrafeed down to the club and we're going to sew it into the correct shape (hopefully). If I have time I want to put some covered screen vents on and maybe a door. Let's see if the execution can keep up with the idea . . .

Split Rudder: Step One, Remove Rudder

Completed without incident. Hope the rest of the repair goes as well. Much to my surprise, the whole assembly did not plop out at the speed of gravity once the retaining pin was removed, but had to be slowly pulled out. The whole thing was very reassuring, and surprisingly still well lubricated.

Just for laughs, I found the email that the prior owner sent us to try to convince us to buy the boat last year. Let's call him Mr. Smith to simplify it.  I didn't change anything, seriously. And the pictures below are the ones he included.

Hello Matthew,


This boat can become a beautiful sailing machine. Any of the work

that needs to be done on the boat itself can be done by the average

handy person. However, materials and sweat (man hours) will need

to be invested. Other sailors on the yard often are generous in

giving advise and there are books that can help as well. Keep

this in mind also: I will be showing this boat to an interested

party this weekend. If you would like to see it please call me

at ###-###-####. I hope the images and information below

is helpful to you. Thanks for your interest.



Jeff

Found: Boat junkyard of sorts that has sailboats huzzah!

Drove all the way to Annapolis yesterday to visit Bacon's, but apparently they aren't open Saturdays in the winter (maybe ever?). Took a trip to Sailrite, where we had the most astonishing customer service. Matt remembered once passing something that looked like a boat junkyard while driving down the Eastern Shore so we left and crossed the Annapolis Bay Bridge. We drove south for another hour and found a little tiny establishment with twenty or so junk boats. Feeling like we had found Christmas we ran inside a little shed/garage that was chock a block full of motor parts, refurbished antique outboard motors, odds and end and a dusty counter top. The owner came out and greeted us. We asked her if she had any bow or stern rails, at which she expressed some reluctance to part out the boats out front, but agreed to sell us parts from one particular boat. We're waiting on her email with a price for the rails we want. While we were looking around a young man asked for a price on a 22 foot wreck on a trailer and she told him she would take five hundred, so we are optimistic that the price for the railing may not be too bad.

Amidst the crowd of sad old boats we spotted a Grampian 26 in relatively good condition and asked to go aboard. We climbed up a rickety extension ladder, over the mast, and then through the companionway hatch as the doors were struck in place. The cabinhouse liner was completely intact as were all the original shelves, galley counter and table. All the plywood had significant water damage but it was very interesting to see the original layout and placement of the teak.