A Little Painting

Posted on March 27, 2012 by Dave

With the beautiful weather here in Florida we find it hard to stay focused buuuuut…. With our departure date looming we find time (between trips to the beach) to get some boat work done! We have been working on the traveler and spreaders, rebuilding and refinishing. The refinishing is done, now I have to track down parts to rebuild the traveler. I love Awlgrip paint, it’s the best. The pictures do not do any justice, the paint is really nice, very glossy.

Stripped:

 

 Awlgrip primer:

Paint:

 

They really came out nice. Once I get the traveler back together I will start building the water maker…

More to follow!

Categories: Boat, Refit | Tags: , , , | 2 Comments

New Rigging!

Posted on March 22, 2012 by Dave

Well it’s been a while since our last post, nothing much to report until now. We ordered new rigging for our main mast from www.Riggingonly.com. They were great to work with, very professional, high quality and much cheaper than any other rigging shop we contacted.

New upper and lower shrouds, back stays, and triatic stay which connects the main and mizzen mast. We had the rigging shop swage the upper fittings, we will be installing Sta Lok mechanical fittings on the lower ends.

We also ordered new turnbuckles, sta lok mechanical fittings, pins, and back stay insulators for the SSB antenna.

Not sure if you can see the difference but the top is the new upper back stay and the bottom is the 30 year old back stay:

We are also rebuilding the original 1978 traveler:

After three hours of work:

It’s difficult to find parts but we will get this rebuilt and reinstalled. It will be an all out push to get the boat ready for launch!

We are getting ready to head back to the boat soon! Launch date is June 28! Looking forward to seeing everyone again!

Categories: Boat, Happenings, Refit | Tags: , , | 2 Comments

What we’ve been up to…

Posted on December 12, 2011 by Dave

Well it’s been a while since our last update.  We have been home in Florida since the end of October and still have not been able to find work. While we’re searching for work we thought we would have some fun. We have been getting the house in order, spending time at the beach and going to some of the theme parks. The prospects for work are looking up so we are going to have as much fun as we can…for now.  

On November 26th we went to the beach at Cape Canaveral to watch the launch of an Atlas V rocket. The rocket is carrying the latest mars rover and it will take almost nine months to get there! It was a nearly perfect day. 

parachute surfing guy:

The rocket is going to come from that tower…so we’ll keep looking that way…

The rocket launch didn’t come from that tower and there was no noise at first. When we saw it we started snapping pictures as fast as we could, fortunately some of them came out.

It was really bright and after about 30 seconds the noise came.

 

The rocket was traveling at 4900 mph so it was gone pretty quick, but it was impressive none the less.

So what do you do after a successful rocket launch to Mars? …go to an alligator park…of course!

“Yes” we had to do this:

While at the alligator park we saw peacocks:

More peacocks:

…and more…

…and monkeys…

…and snakes…

…and vultures…

…more vultures…

…and stupid people…

…more stupid people…or person…

and of course alligators:

Lots of alligators. Did you know alligators are cannibals?

After the alligator park…it was December…so we put up the Christmas tree, decorated, and put lights on the house:

It’s December and it’s still in the upper 70s, even low 80s so off to Disney World!

Stand under the tree…”ok”

 Inside the entrance, town square railroad station:

town square:

Huge Christmas tree in town square at the start of main street USA:

Main street USA looking up toward town square, decorations are beautiful:

Main street USA looking toward Cinderella’s Castle:

Cinderella’s Castle, at night the lights are amazing:

Mickey, Minny, Cinderella, Snow White, and some other…character:

We had a great time, this place never gets old:

Ok so we rode the people mover, woo hoo! …but it was AFTER space mountain!

Before riding the people mover…waiting to get on the roller coaster inside space mountain:

Getting ready!

Heading up to the top:

The rest of the ride is in total darkness so this is the last one. This is near the top just before the first fall:

Beautiful:

It’s a small world. This ride is less annoying than before. They don’t play the song at all while you’re waiting to get in your boat:

…it’s a smaaall smaaaall world….

…it’s a smaaall smaaaall world….

Remember records? Remember when they skipped?  …it’s a smaaall smaaaall world….

skip

…it’s a smaaall smaaall world…

And of course…

The haunted mansion:

Swiss Family Robinson tree house:

The lights in the park were amazing:

Really beautiful:

The castle changes colors:

Start of the parade. People started camping out an hour and a half before the parade started. We showed up five minutes before the start so our view wasn’t the best. Still had a great time!

Not the best pictures but you get the idea..

Girl on a mushroom. Is that Alice?

Worm on a mushroom:

Alice again?

Pirate ship…Captain Ron, I mean Hook!

Dwarfs:

P man:

Big head, little hat, lots of lights:

Purple castle:

Is this Pete’s Dragon? Anyone know?

The parade ended with a long wavy American Flag and a Huge Eagle, really really nice!

Then the fireworks, they lasted about half an hour. Really nice show and I could not get a decent picture..

Pictures are terrible but the show was perfect!

And one more of the castle changing color from blue to green:

That’s it for now…

Categories: General, Happenings | Tags: , , | 7 Comments

Update

Posted on November 8, 2011 by Dave

Well it’s been a while since our last update but we’ve been pretty busy. Tanya has finished up the paneling in the head, we put some final touches on the engine bay, installed the fuel filters, installed the windlass, epoxied the exposed core on the forward companionway, Awl-gripped the companionway sliders, fitted the new ports, and put the batteries, engine and v drive in place. The last few weeks have been a blur so that is the condensed version!

Tanya on the brad nailer!

Cleaning up the engine bay:

Fuel filters for the generator and engine:

Rebuilt windlass installed:

We epoxied the exposed core around the forward companionway to prevent water intrusion:

Awlgripped the companionway sliders. We’ll do the non skid next spring:

All the ports are fitted. Not a small job!

We installed (put in place) the new batteries, engine, and v drive.

Waiting for the crane:

“Is that the crane?”

After a week or two of false hopes, finally…

The batteries are 320 pounds each:

New engine going in:

V drive (hey it’s pretty heavy!):

 Soooo what happened next? Well a few weeks ago we came to the emotionally crushing conclusion that we were not going to make it back into the water this year. We made tremendous progress, amazing progress, but we experienced some delays along the way. Once one project gets delayed it affects every project down the line. In addition to delays, it was starting to get cold in Maine. You can see in the pictures that a lot of the leaves have fallen from the trees and we had a few nights that dipped down into the 30’s! We made the decision to close up the boat for the winter and finish up the refit next spring. Not at all what we had planned but we didn’t want to be rushed, we want things done correctly.

We’re bummed that we are missing our intended first cruising season but we’ll get in the water next year.

  

We have headed South for the winter to our home in Florida. We’ve brought several boat projects with us to complete over the winter. We have scheduled our launch date for June 28th and hope to be underway within a couple of weeks. We’re going to focus on the hull when we get back so, regardless of the rest of the projects, we can go back in the water.

We can’t thank everyone enough for all the help we received this summer! It was great to be around family and friends again! We will update the website from time to time over the winter.

Categories: Boat, Refit | Tags: , , , , , | 2 Comments

Taking a break

Posted on October 22, 2011 by Dave

We are taking a break for a little while. We have accomplished a lot but it’s time for a break. We’ll update in the next week.

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