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4th of July 2008 Work Party

Posted on Mon 07 July 2008

View from aloft

Dawn and I worked on Deep Playa over the long weekend and as part of that I took my first trip up the mast as you can see from the mandatory masthead photo. Here's proof I went all the way up to the tippy top.

Last week a contractor was supposed to come out and do some fiberglass work. They got hung up on another boat and we need to reschedule. To prep for that we took a lot of stuff off the boat and that lead to a lot of running around to get stuff done since some of the things we needed were at home. Another thing which hinders our ability to get things done is the steep learning curve on materials, tools and just having supplies on hand. We really need to stock up on stainless steel screws, bolts, heat-shrink wiring connectors, etc. All kinds of stuff. In the past couple of weeks I have also bought a heat gun and a soldering iron. Both of which I think are going to be worth their weight in gold in the long run!

As part of our on going cleaning efforts we pulled all the cushions off and took them to D.A. Burns to be cleaned. We also started pulling down the last of the hull liner in the aft cabin. After that we'll use the heat gun to pull off all the glue. We tried a little test patch and it worked awesome the glue pulls right off pretty cleanly.

Here's a quick list of what's actually getting done!

  • Put a new bulb in the Stern light. I was looking into upgrading these to LED, but decided we'd keep them for motoring as-is and put a new LED tricoloranchor light combo on the masthead since the existing light isn't working. This will save us from dealing with a new light which won't have the same footprint as the existing lights, plus the bulb lights are fine when the engine is running.
  • The hatch to the propane tanks is now re-attached. The old latch was shot and the hinge screws were pulling out. This is something I'll probably end up doing again with long screwsbolts and washers but for now its working.
  • The old stereo only played Radio or CDs and the FM Antenna wasn't working. I put in a new stereo that includes Sirius Satellite, CD, iPOD Controller and an SD Card slot. Its still not playing the normal Radio or the HD Radio, I need to sort out the antenna issue there still. As part of this I'm doing all the wiring using a bus bar so we can add remove without having to cut into and shortening the wiring every time that happens.
  • Dawn measured the docking lines and looked into new fenders. The old fenders are marring the hull. She also measured the jib sheets and furling lines. As we were going up the mast we learned the wire jib halyard is frayed and needs to be replaced immediately. So I'm researching that as well.
  • Pulled the primary anchor rode to be re-galvanized or replaced. I'm not sure if we can re-galvanize what we have. I'm looking into that.

OK, that's a pretty long blog post so I'll call it good. The summary is projects continue some small one completing and as always more projects revealed. :-)

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