Well, the boat is back on the hard. I (Diane) am finding what time I can to join Ev in the fun - for some weird reason I really like boat yards. The goal this weekend had been to prep the hull for painting. There really is an awful lot of more pressing things that the boat needs before it gets a trick paint job - but with the storm damage needing repair it seemed like as good a time as any to spruce the old girl up.

For those of you who are playing along at home - you'll know that we are not afraid of a little colour. So, despite Ev's hope that it would never have to actually happen, I'm going to be beautifying the boat, colouring in Ceilydh, giving the yacht a little yowza... You get the drift... He overruled the leaping dolphins with flames shooting out their mouths - but we will be going with a variation of the paint job we came up with a while back.

This weekend we removed all the illiterate vinyl signage from the boat. We are Dos Cerveza no more... After using copious amounts of chemical and deft technique to remove the tenacious snot like residue (who knew my parenting skills would be called into practice during hull prep?) we started to sand. And sand. And sand. 40 feet x 2 hulls is big. It's sort of like 80 feet.

Once we finished sanding we went and picked blueberries. Evan whinged a bit and said it wasn't quite the right activity to follow-up sanding with. But hey, it's blueberry season.

Hauled out - 3rd time lucky....

After 2 aborted attempts at motoring up the river to Shelter Island to haul out, we finally made it on Sunday, with thanks to 2 guys in a little powerboat who towed us the last 2 miles. Lots of engine troubles with water in the fuel and perhaps an air leak.

While in the boatyard we're going to be painting the topsides, bottom and putting in some new thru hulls (for watermaker, galley salt water, relocating a galley sink drain, replacing a head outlet valve which has seized up). Somebody else is going to do the repair to the fwd. crossbeam.

Progress Pictures:

Due to popular demand (o.k. some friends naggging us...) here are few more photos.

Back cabin door. It's a dutch door so you can open the top part when it's raining or rough and still keep good ventilation. The little 4" overhang over it keeps the rain out nicely. It will look nicer when all painted.



Main saloon table. About 6' x 3' or so. Room for 6 people to sit around it for dinner I suppose. The table legs are ex-windsurfer carbon fiber masts. Very nice und stiff. 1" thick carbon/nomex honeycomb core with 1/32" thick maple veneer laminated to top surface.



This is an example of "Evan gets carried away with himself" or "carbon fiber boat porn". Here I could have bolted on a nice off-the-shelf turning block for the genoa sheet. Not me, no way. Would have taken like 1/2 hour probably.

First I buy this very trick sheave from Harken (a sheave for you landlubbers is like a pulley, without the side plates). Super good deal, high load capacity, Torlon roller bearings etc. but no side plates.

Again I could have done these side plates in aluminum. But no, first I laminate the lower side plate in carbon fiber, molded in place to match the curved solid fiberglass mounting pad. Then pop it off the mounting pad, trim it to shape, and re-glue to mounting pad.

Then make up a foam wedge that has the same profile as the sheave, cover it all in mylar tape, laminate the top side plate in carbon. Let it cure, pop it off, trim it, glue it back in place.

That's where we are today, drilling holes through this fitting for my original sheave. I probably have 3 hours or so into each one of these (1 port and 1 stbd.). Sometimes I'm too clever for my own good.