We made another trip to the boat today making further progress on necessary projects. Technically she is seaworthy but we still want another coat of bottom paint before launch. The hull patch came out perfect, better than I could have expected and we were able to get the new seacock and thru hull in today.

Little things that will enable us to get the boat back in the water are huge in our eyes. Old thru hull:

New bronze thru hull bolted in and sealed with gobs of 5200 sealant (permanent):

Last seacock done:

When we bought the boat in 2007 there were 21 holes in the hull below the waterline. After filling the last unused thru hull there are now 9 well purposed holes/thru hulls below the waterline.

Now onto the “picture” part of the title. I have added a full-frame picture viewer to the website and it seems to be working. Now when you open a new post with pictures you should be able to click on the first picture and a full size picture viewer should open. There are arrows on either side of the picture to navigate forward or back or you can just click anywhere on the picture to move to the next. When you reach the last picture it will cycle back to the first. To exit back to to the original post you can click on the X at the corner of the picture or just hit the escape key. It seems to work on the newer posts/pictures but only individually on the older posts. If you run into any problems viewing the pictures please email or use the contact form and let me know.

Rain tomorrow so most likely zero progress.

Although we’re not cruising abroad this season we’re excited to be going back in the water. December 6 we splash and head south to a new marina closer to our home. Right now Dea Latis is on Merritt Island, almost an hour from the house which makes it difficult and expensive to get anything done. We found a very quiet, small, well maintained marina just a few miles north of our house and they just happened to have a vacancy that will accomodate our boat!  We’re very excited to be going back in the water and having the boat much closer to our home.

Right now we are making sure Dea Latis is seaworthy and that all projects that must be done out of the water are complete before December 6th. We had a 35 year old seacock that froze in the open position, an unused seacock, and some painting that needs to be done. All of the remaining projects can be completed in the water.

We removed the unused seacock and filled the hole with fiberglass and epoxy. Of course that required grinding inside and out. Thought we were done with that:

Another hole in the hull is filled:

Then the one and only seacock I did not change during the refit froze in the open position, which means we were not able to shut it if needed. Gone:

In addition to stuck, it was also spinning in place, leaking, and after removal we found that it was never installed correctly. All in all a great receipe for disaster but it’s the last one and it’s gone! The thru hull was cross threaded into the seacock:

We’re also fixing the boot stripe just above the waterline. Just a little grinding, sanding, priming and repainting. Grinding off the bottom paint just below the stripe is complete. Now we have to clean it up a bit and repaint the stripe in a more uniform width/thickness:

She looks great! December 6th she will look even better!

We will update again soon!