First sail of 2009

At last, we had our first sail of the 2009 season. The temperature was about 20 degrees and the wind was approx. 15 to 20 knots from the east. Glorious. We went wing on wing on the way back. I find wing on wing hard to maintain without a spinaker pole to keep the genoa out proper. Whe we went back in I was nervous about entering our slip. I have issues with the motor, it seems to quit on me when I need it the most. Fortunately, my good friend, Graham, who is a mechanic and a boat fanatic likes to tinker with it so I had no issues with it today. There were two opinions on my docking procedure. My opinion was that it went flawlessly. My wife's opinion was that the 4' of open water she had to leap across to the slip with a mooring line told her that I need more practice. At least there wasn't any crunching of any hulls on wooden slips, so it was perfect. Case closed.

We secured the boat alongside, then Ellie crawled into the vee birth and had a nap. I myself laid on the cockpit cushion and promptly fell asleep myself. Mmmmm, boat naps are the best.

The mast is up!

No pictures today. The mast went up last Saturday and a very good friend showed up and we re-bedded the hand rails and sealed the deadlights, most had small leaks but one had a good leak.
We were going to sail on Sunday but my wife fell through the companionway into the cabin and hurt her shoulder. As she is my bos'n and rope handler we put the sail off until later on in the week.
Good thing I suppose as I forgot to hook up the ground to the mast. That was an easy fix. Then the wife dicovered that the bilge pump was not working. Just a bad connection, remedied by cutting out all connections and replacing them with heat shrink connectors and electrical tape. Also put in an in-line fuse holder and hooked it up to the house battery directly. Installed a second, albiet, smaller bilge pump operated from the circuit panel.
Finally returned a new friends' (Vic), two hand held GPS'. He loaned us some of Paul and Sherry Shards videos, Distant Shores and the units were in the bag. It really weighed on my mind that we had them. He was gone for 10 days as he is a long haul trucker. just one of many good people we met in the marina.
Another nice seeming guy is Steve Smith, you know, Red Green. I never spoke with him but did nod a couple of times.
I have had drinks on two other boats, been invited on a couple of more, sailed on one. Had people drinking on mine. It is a lifestyle I want for the rest of my days.

Here are three photos, one is the boat being launched at the end of April and the other two show the result of the deckhead painted. My wife, Ellie, did a superb job matching new paint to the old. Uncanny I say. We still have a lot of work to do, but we are getting impatient to sail so we are going to rush things a bit so we can get the mast up this weekend and sail...Allan

Shown here is one of four repairs where the aft stanchions crunched the deck. The hole you see is for the engine well blower vent, yet to be installed. This week we'll prime the repairs. That's it.

Here is the hull with the second coat of paint. The white boot stripe is our secret. Ok, Ok, its actually the original gel coat....we just masked over it then painted the hull then the anti-fouling.

The paint job has some runs in it but that will hold 'till next year. We are counting our pennies now. Soon I'll post some photos of our overhaul of the cabin insides, be warned, it looks like Beruit during the eighties. Total war zone.

Shortly we'll mount the outboard and test it. After all, we launch in 7 days. Must remember to install a new bilge pump, I, ahem, accidently punctured the old one with a screwdriver... don't ask.

Also stopped some major leaks from the deck, yahoo!!!

Look at me and my shiny red hull.This is just the first coat. Tommorow the second coat goes on after a light sanding. Then the anti-fouling.
I still have to stick the new plywood ceiling to the deck head. I also have to finish off the engine compartment deck. Somehow.
It is all fun.

Hole in the deck!

Here are two pictures looking aft, with the engine compartment removed. The circular holes were where the engine compartment vents were, and will be again. The other four holes was where the guard rail stanchions compressed the deck. I cut them out. Hint: use a metal cutting blade on the fiberglass as any other blade won't last a minute.

I cut a 1/4 plywood support panel for underneath and uses some glass and resin and bonded it to the bottom of the deck from inside the engine compartment. Then I glassed on a bigger fiberglass sheet cloth than the plywood support panel.

This is only on the port side so far as the f#@%&^g weather is not co-operating.

We have to delay the launching of the boat 9 days because of this.

To save money, we are using Bondo marine body filler for fairing the repairs as it is way cheaper than the 3M stuff, plus you get a lot more of it.

Damn, I want to be sailing now.

This lets me know that we can afford a larger fixer upper and over the years do it right while sailing the traing boat. All we need is some land to store it!!!