Teak cleat blocks

Drilled the 5/16 holes in the teak blocks and then added a coat of varnish. Could not use the old holders for varnishing as the hole size changed so the coat hanger option was used. Now to buy the new bolts and drill the boat for new holes. Hmm that does not  sound right, drilling holes in the boat, for some reason.

Shower grate get varnish evened by sanding, six coats - 2010

To get the Pettit Z-Spar Captain's Satin varnish V-975 even I had to sand it down a bit. I used an electric sander for this sanding as it was a bit much for hand sanding. I hated to see my hard fought varnish come off but it needs to be flat and nice.

Plywood deck for temp shower grate - 2010

October 2010 - At Marina Cortez Harbor Island, San Diego, CA
This is our plywood floor for the interim while we varnish the grate. It is ½ inch thick and beveled on the edges with the sander.

A look at under binnacle - 2010

This is a look at under the cockpit. The binnacle to be more exact. The green cable is just an extension cable run to the aft for 110 volts.

Buss removal

 So there seems to be some question as to why we need two 250 amp busses. They could be right. I may remove them. I was thinking of future growth and “Why not”. But it seem that KISS is a better way. So out they will come and I can always add them back if needed later. If not I will sell them off before we leave.


Cap rail leaks

We have some leaking going on in our cap rail. It is confined to one area and could be in several places.
So once again we need to re-caulk this area. It could have been many different factors causing the leaks.
   The are was not prepped well enough.
    We did not use the multitool on this area
   Could have been still wet when we applied the caulking
   The product we used
  Could just be that it is a crap shoot and we lost on this spot



This is the stern area 
This is the forward area, up to the scupper
The four bolts are the ones holding the port rear cleat in and you can clearly see some old and new leaking there. There may also be some by the rear stanchion bolts.
Piece of removed caulking


We removed the cleat (furler cleat) and tried to remove winch but it is cemented in place.
We removed the caulking and used the multitool to dig out the old rotten wood and mud etc
We then remove all varnish that was by the caulking. The sanded and sanded it clean.
Now we are waiting for it to dry out and then we will caulk with 3M 40000 UV.




Buss shuffle recommended by the Sailnet forum folks. - 2010

2010 - Marina Cortez San Diego, CA
Black cover is on positive buss in this pic

Beta Engine Video of Freeport and Chuck's install - 2010

Here is a video which I took from Chuck  S/V  Perrovida at perrovida.com who did a  Beta Marine 37.5 engine installation.

Cleaning canvas

Marina Cortez in San Diego Harbor Island 6\28\2010

Debbie cleaned off the sacrificial canvas we have put on the boat to protect some areas from the bird poop. It gets pretty dirty and with the rain it got even more so.


New used ball fenders

Two new used fenders we bought at the marine swap meet. We got them for going to pump out. I Did not like not having anything to protect the bow. Debbie got a red and black one and it needed some air. I got a blue gray one that was pumped up. It is slightly larger, could really be too large.  We got them to the dock I pumped up the red & black one and it is fine, just needed a little air. Now where on the boat do you store them?
 So the next week we sign up for a pump out service! We are going to remove the Perkins so no way to get to pump out.
Now looks like we will storing two big fenders J



Adding fuse blocks etc to battery bank - 2010

Got some electrical work done. Installed a few Blue Sea Systems  busses and switch and fuse block and fuse panel.

Teak work

Finally! We found the teak oil we bought. The stuff in not inexpensive. We bought it to math up the teak we are working on so we can then varnish it.
 We did two spots.







The teak board we put up to cover the spinnaker pole hole from the PO and where the new fan is going to go. It has one coat of teak oil. We will wash the surrounding teak with TSP and see how it blends in. We may need to give the new piece a second coat of teak oil.
The second place we are working on now is the cabinet over the bed. I only did a section to see how it would look. Besides there are more teak plugs I need to put into old holes from the light that was there and want them to be oiled also. Looks like the same drill as the other spot as we will need to play around a bit to get it to match up. Here there will be two LED SS reading lamps and two tow blade quiet fans. That will help blend in the teak as it will be partially covered.

Looking up from the pillow



Cap rail

After the rain we were reminded that we still have a few leaks in the cap rail. We were not sure of where they were. It was a fairly dry summer as usual (ok wetter than most) but it was a light rainy summer, meaning when it rained it was light and did not accumulate much. So we were not bother by the leaking cap rail and were busy with other projects.
 So we started looking at the section that still leaks.
 Debbie has re-calked the entire cap rail but the stern. Inside and outside.
The part she started on was compromised I think by bad weather and possibly the product we used and the learning curve.
We started with Life Caulk on the inside but then switched to 3M 101 I think it was or 3M 4000 UV.
Any way we know more now and are going to remove the winch and the furler cleat we just replaced and pull out the caulking we did. The clean real good and re-caulk it with 3M 4000 UV.
Debbie in the port lazerett, you can see some leaking on top

 The winches have been upgraded by the PO and they are large. You can where the SS nuts look like new.
We will remove the winches and take them home where we will service them.

Also notice the fill and drill of the cleat bolt holes

You can see that the winches have been upgraded to a larger size 
Also moved slightly inboard
Looking aft

Aft

We have stopped most all the cap rail leaks and some of the water marks are old. We need to paint over them to see any new ones. Also need to silicone some dams in areas to isolate the leaking.





Hatch hardware from painters, R.W. Little Co - 2010

We went to install the hatch this weekend, but it rained all morning on Saturday! We like to use two days for the install. The second day was for final cleanup. 

Teak cleat blocks

We decided we need to fill and drill the teak cleat blocks and the cockpit coming so Debbie and I did the filling.
Cutting the needle tip off

The epoxy gets all over!

Debbie shooting up the teak block!





Refer build, measuring for insulation - 2010

October 2010 - At Marina Cortez, Harbor Island San Diego, CA
Refer to the right.
Saturday we did a mockup of the refer box with added insulation. We also visited a dock mate once again who built his refer box and put in the Frigoboat refrigeration..

New Self closing Hinges

Went by West Marine and picked up the hinges for the head bottom drawer which is really a door. The hinges are self-closing and are made from steel and are brass-plated. 

They do not clean up good as the plating comes off. I have been searching for new ones and hoping to not have to fill and drill much. These look a lot like they will match up. If it is the case, we will find out tonight as we are going to the boat for the weekend as usual. If they do match up there is also a door over the bed and one at the bottom of the hanging locker drawers and one under the stove that I know of from the top of my head. We will check out the hinges and see if they need replacing and if so order more.


Picked up a few new brass screws. At .065 cents each I will not lose any more!

New Beta Motor

I talked today on the phone with the Beta Engine dealer here in San Diego.
betamarinewest.com/

I went by the office and saw that it was empty. Said that is not good.
He said he is cutting costs like every one else, working out of his home.
We are seriously considering having him do the work and start in December.

We could just be tired and that may be the case but having it done and guaranteed and Debbie and I only needing to scrub the engine room and put in all new insulation etc seems the way to go.
Removing the Perkins and putting in new motor mounts and doing the learning curve thing with all the install components seems like a lot of frustration.

Sure it would cost more and we are thinking about the cost but it is one of our last really big projects and we are not looking forward to it. We both work 40 hour weeks and this seems a bit much.

Still thinking about it. We have some dock mates that will help remove the old engine and put the new one in. 

Still they are not all around all the time and putting this together seems a bit lot.
We also want to replace the two blade prop with a three blade and he can match it up.

Hatch glass installed

We removed the blue tape from the hatch top. Now I think I can remember we waited 24 hours for the sealer to set up then removed the tape on the others also.

On this glass top I forgot to get it beveled. On the other I got about a 1\16  of an inch bevel on the top. It helps seal it and the transition from the top to the frame with the sealant is better.

 This top glass is a little thicker than what Islander supplied. We could not get it any thinner.
Actually at first they did not have the darker tint so we got it in a light tint, the first hatch lid. Then they said they could get it in a darker tint so we ate the $50.00 for the first glass and got them in the darker tint. We did not order them all at the same time. Probably should have but I think that not having the bevel will be no big deal.


New SS 8 inch cleat

Yesterday I went to Sailing Supply and talked to Dave and picked up a SS 8” cleat.


That is my red jeep parked in front. It has been raining all week in San Diego so the top is up. Not like SD, usually I can have the top down. This time of year it goes up and down but mostly down till about the new year then it stays up mostly for a few month. All summer it and the doors are off, love it. It is a 91 and rides like a truck but it has a 6 cyl fuel injected and the CJ type role bar, cool! That is because I removed the two bars going to the windshield. It is essay living in SD with this buggy.

They did not have the fasteners I needed so that will be another trip probably to WM for them.








I tried fitting the cleat to the teak blocks and it is close. There is enough room on top of the teak block for the new cleat. The old holes are ¼ and the new ones need to be 5/16. They are close but it would be really hard to get them drilled right with out a big vise and some other tools we do not have. We will do the fill and drill method to get it done right. We will epoxy the holes in the teak blocks and the cockpit coaming on Saturday. Drill next week.

A/C and Heat Unit

 The AC that we are coming close to choosing is the Air Breeze 16,000 btu by CruiseAir or Domestic, the same people who makes the VacuFlush toilet that we have.
 It is the same company that owns both company’s so it gets confusing. The AC units are branded different and use different controllers but are owned by the same company, Domestic.    
 I stopped at A to Z Marine and had a nice talk with them.

 What is nice, and is probably not unique about this product, is that you can put a wire on the intake duck (course it cost extra) and it will act as the thermostat. Then as we wish, you can hide away the thermostat control some place and just use it to operate the AC and heat. We do not want the thermostat mounted in the bulkhead some place. It goes along with us not wanting the boat to look like an airport with all the little led lights.

 The unit we are looking at is 8” high by 30” long. This should fit under the forward section of the settee and we can sound proof around it. Of course it costs more because it is not a high production model.
The settee is 12” high. It could be made 13” high by cutting out some of the top plywood or more if you want to cut away some of the plywood over the water tank. Still not really big enough for a standard AC unit.
Even though it is not bad looking we want it out of sight

 Our other option was to put a AC unit under the salon seat by the companion way. This is where we would like to put the water maker. This spot is against the bulkhead that goes to the state room and would no doubt be heard by us in bed.

A lot of Freeport owners put a AC unit in the large hanging locker but we do not want it in the state room for noise reasons and my wife likes that hanging locker for her clothes etc.

So this project we will start at around the first of this new year (2011) along with the re-power.

 It has heat by way of heat pump.