A friend from work and I move the boat from the boat yard to the marina yesterday after work. We have a new slip this year. Last year we took what was available in terms of a slip.
It was a 40 foot slip for our 29 foot boat. The new slip is a 30 foot slip. I discovered last night there is a big difference in coming into a 30 foot slip with a 29 foot boat as compared to a 40 foot slip. The 30 foot slip doesn’t leave room to maneuver. It is a tight fit.
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| Thanks Dad’s new slip |
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| Tight fit in the slip |
I also discovered a crack in the engine’s “mixing exhaust elbow”. This is the pipe where the exhaust and cooling water come together before exiting out the back of the boat. So during our trip to the marina, all the cooling water and exhaust came out the crack and not the back of the boat. It made the engine compartment a bit wet.
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| Crack in Exhaust elbow |
Over the winter, we did several projects and ebay became my new friend.
Unlike last year’s March when the average temperature was 50 degrees and we had a week in the 80’s, this year’s March had an average temperature of 30 degrees. It finally got into the mid 40s the last couple days of the month so my brother and I took the opportunity to remove the tarp and breakdown the frame. We match marked each piece of the frame so we will be able to get it back together in the fall without too much trouble.
We did miss drilling and screwing one of the 45 degree fittings on the frame and in January it separated and then shifted the whole frame causing the back to open up and a couple tears in the tarp. We fixed it and it was fine afterwards. In March one of the other 45 degree fittings broke (it had been properly drilled and screwed) but didn’t cause a problem with the tarp. Since it was so close to the end of the winter season I didn’t bother making a repair. All in all the frame/tarp survived the winter fairly well.
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| Tarp after the Winter |
I bought an electric flush toilet on ebay. It was a mfg rep’s demo and is in perfect shape. The manual pump on the old toilet had a crack and I got the new one for less than what replacement parts for the old one cost. I removed the old toilet, removed and replaced the old thru-hull fitting for the water intake, capped the overboard discharge thru-hull fitting, took out the old flooring, hoses and bladder style holding tank. Cleaned and painted the hull in the head area, fabricated a new floor for the new toilet from “King Starboard” and installed new hoses and a hard sided holding tank. Still need to do the final connections from the water intake to the pump and then the toilet.
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| Old head area |
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| New head area |
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| Old bladder holding tank |
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| New holding tank |
Under each of settee berths in the cabin was a 35 gallon stainless steel water tank. These were original pieces of the boat and at over 45 years old I was not intending to ever drink water that had been inside these things. I removed them and am planning to make this a storage area at some point.
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| Removing the old water tanks |
In the cockpit of the boat is a panel with indicator lights for low oil pressure, water temperature and alternator charging. Two (2) of the indicator lights had broken lenses and there are two (2) larger holes in the panel for non-existent gauges. These holes had hole plugs in place, but they were cracked and would fall out easily and frequently. I removed the panel, painted it, bought new hole plugs and bought new indicator lights. Unfortunately, the holes in the panel for the indicator lights are 5/8”
diameter and the largest indicator lights I could find are ¼” diameter. So I bought 5/8” holes plugs and drilled them to mount the ¼” lights. Also made labels for each indicator light.
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| Cockpit engine panel before and after |
My dad had rigged the boat for single handed sailing by removing the mast winches and cleats for the mainsail and jib halyards and mounting them on top of the cabin so he could raise and lower the sails from the cockpit. I bought and installed used winches and rope clutches on eBay to update the rigging. I cleaned and re-greased them before installing them. I also cleaned and re-greased the jib winches and bought new line on eBay to replace the main sail halyard.
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| Old rigging |
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| Winches before and after cleaning |
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| Newly cleaned winch during installation |
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| New rigging with rope clutches and winches. |
Before fabricating the tarp frame in the fall, my brother and I removed the lifeline stanchions and their bases from the deck. Several of the stanchions were bent and the guys at work straightened and polished them for me. They also cleaned up the stanchion bases by bead blasted them. They are looking like new now.
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| Stanchion before and after |
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| Stanchion bases before and after |
I had to cut the life lines in order to remove them from the stanchions, so we had new life lines fabricated and changed the design slightly with a threaded gate eye at the most aft stanchion. This way the life lines and be removed without cutting and they don’t become too loose and useless when the gate is
open.
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| New life line’s Swivel Gate Eyes |
The bow and stern pulpits were also bent. I think the mast resting across them when the boat was hauled from Maryland bounced up and down and bent them. I tried to straighten them myself, but didn’t have the proper tools to do it. So I found an auto body guy who was able to do a good job improving them. They are still not perfectly straight, but are a lot better than before.
We also painted the cockpit area. Last year we primed, but we never got around to painting it.
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| Painting the cockpt |
