Getting Some Work Done on the Masts

This Friday was spent getting some work done on the masts.  On the main mast I discovered that someone had left an old wire in the mast....  It got wrapped around the halyard for the genoa. what a mess... Oh well, it is fixed now and the new wind speed and direction unit has been wired.

I am also trying to source a track for the storm tri-sail that I can attach to the mast...  I have found one so far but it is in Rhode Island...  To ship a piece 20 feet long will be a real problem so finding something we can use close to home would be great.

I wired the mizzen mast for the WiFi antenna, the DSC/SSB antenna, and the TV antenna.  As soon as I get the last cable that I need for the radar unit I can test it and then install that cable which should finish everything up. All that will be left will be to decide which mast to wire the emergency strobe and the PA/Hailer horn to.

I also brought all of our charts to the boat and they are now put away in the chart drawers and table...

Next week I hope that I can get the SSB and the VHS transmitters installed.  this is a pretty big job that will include wiring in the antenna tuner in the lazerette and the ground plane.  The traditional way to properly ground a sideband radio is to lay out a 2" wide copper band the length of the boat.  Not only is that difficult to do but it requires a fair amount of maintenance. We found a gizmo that makes that all unnecessary. The KISS-SSB is a marine SSB ground plane system. This Icom endorsed principle is the one and only complete counterpoise system. It does not require  any holes under the water-line in the hull for a bronze plate, copper foil or copper mesh. The system has over 600 feet of exact length wire radials built in it. The SSB also has a pactor modem that we will be installing so that we can send and receive email when we are off shore...  Now while this system will work, it is limited by the quality of the signal that we have at a given time and it is REALLY slow so we will be setting up a special email address that will only be used for short "text only" communications and weather grib files.

http://www.kiss-ssb.com/about.html

Just a Little Done This Week....

On Monday this week Shelley and I went to our mailbox in Niagara Falls NY to pick up a bunch of stuff.
When we picked up the boat it had a Garmin GPS unit that is dedicated to monitoring the boats SOG (speed over ground) which is the actual speed that the boat is movies across the planet. On a boat, any other speed indicating device is affected by things like drift, current and wind. Unfortunately, the antenna for this unit got damaged when I took it off last summer. We got lucky and found a replacement...
Some of the other goodies were the sewing machine, the Jordan Series Drogue, the Gale Sail, and some used charts for the St. Lawrence River to PEI.
We bought the charts from lady that who no longer has any use for them. We plan on using electronic charts wherever possible but In Canada the Coast Guard require all boats to have paper charts for the area that they are boating in.... maybe one day they will figure out that electronic charts suffice.
Today I took some time and emptied out my Jeep... wow! what a mess... I also wired the Raymarine cables from our old depth gage to the new chartplotter through a converter gizmo.... After I got it all hooked up I ended up with this message:

Anyone wanna guess what the heck any of that means? Oh well, I will try to solve that problem tomorrow.
I also have a camera in the engine room that is viewed on the chartplotter at the helm.... That worked and is very cool!
The last job was to start to install the velcro for the new screens that I sewed the other day...the two that I got installed look great.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

A Busy Saturday....

It was a long busy day that ended with me forgetting that I had promised to have dinner with some friends who were celebrating their dad's 90th birthday..... Now that's a milestone....

As for the boat, the first job was to put a through hole above the waterline for the washing machine. I had it going to the shower sump until I realized that the washing machine pump was more powerful than the pump in the sump... That of course would have caused many problems.... This solution works great.

Then Shelley's brother came by on his new motorcycle to measure the transom and the bow so he can design the graphics for the boat.... we hope to see some ideas in the next few weeks....

After he left I painted the transom - I think it looks great.





Then I installed the VHF & SSB radios to see how they would fit into the nav station...










This afternoon I installed the radome on the mizzen mast and 2 antennas at the top. One will be for the computer network antenna and the other is for the DSC on the SSB (sideband radio).















The last job done before I rushed off (late for the dinner) was a collapsable foot peg 39 inches from the top of the mast. This will be great when I am working up the mast.....

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

A Day of Small Jobs....

Today I got a bunch of small jobs done. First, in the pilot house (main salon) I got the port and starboard curtains installed.
















Then Shelley came and we went to the new restaurant close to where the boat is. It was a nice break....





After lunch Shelley went to work and I sanded the the transom (back of the boat) It is now ready to paint. I also started to sand the teak gunnels but decided that it was too hot to finish.

The last couple of jobs were in the galley where I cut and installed some shelves for the cupboards then I repaired the gas valve on the oven. When we tested it the other week, we found that gas was leaking out around the valve... It looks like I have it fixed now...

We found out today that the replacement plexiglass windows for the front of the pilot house are at K-W Glass. We will pick them up this weekend.

Monday is a holiday here in Canada, so we will go to our mailbox where we will pick up our new (to us) drogue, storm sail and our new sewing machine.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Starting to install Curtains....

You know the interior is getting done when the curtains start going in... I had an hour over dinner before a meeting tonight so I started to install the bolts that will clamp the curtain lines... This is a bigger job than you might think, but will look great if I do it correctly... we will see.



I also added some bungy chords to the appliances. This will keep them from moving aeound when we are underway....



Here is a picture of the propane tank cover i sewed together the other day. It was working with this material that made us decide that a portable industrial sewing machine needed to be in our future...




This is the machine we bought:




This machine will handle whatever material we can throw at it and it can be operated without power if we need to.... It is not very fancy but does the job...





By the way, here are the fancy knives that I bought for Shelley... Kidding aside, they "list" fir almost $500 and we found them for $160... That sounds like a great deal..

A Little More Work Done....

A few posts ago, I said that there was a little more room in the workshop...  Well, not for much longer if I keep finding a new home for more tools...  

Here is a picture of our salt water, deep sea fishing rods, that we use when we are trolling behind the boat underway.  With any luck they won't get in the way if we need to use the bunk for sleeping.

I may be jinxing myself, but I have made a list of the jobs left to do.  I have to finish some kind of exhaust system for the generator, get a transom arch built, re-wire the masts, repair the keel, refinish & paint the bottom, weld a bracket for the watemaker high pressure pump, repair the bracket that holds one of the anchors, install the curtains, replace the front windows....  I am sure I have missed a few things but this list looks doable...  If anyone wants to help, just let me know....

For mother's day we bought Shelley a really useful gift....  An industrial sewing machine and a set of REALLY good kitchen knives...  Now some of you may think that this is not a good gift, but believe me when I say that Shelley is REALLY excited about the knives....  Hmmm, I wonder what that means....  Oh well....
HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!!!
Cheers!

It Just Occurred To Us...

It just occurred to us that we have invested all this money into re-fitting our boat, but have neglected to tell the insurance company the value of the boat has increased.... I called them this morning and now have the appropriate amount of insurance on the boat. We will have the boat surveyed in August just before we put everything away for the winter. this will help us determine the final agreed value.

Today I have been working away at a bunch of little jobs. These include adding a retractable ladder on the transom so if one is in the water, they can get back on the boat.... (safety first!).

I have also updated the firmware on our new chartplotter. At the end of the day I installed the shelf for the icemaker.



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Only A Little Done This Week....

This week I was really busy at work.  That said, I did get a few things done on the boat.  The best was that Tim came from K-W Glass on Tuesday and re-bedded ALL the hatches that were loose and/or leaking... After a few hours the job was done and everything was the way it should be.

On Thursday I spent some time and installed 2 underwater lights that Canadian Tire had for sale for (are you ready for this) $39.00!!! ( I installed one on each side of the hull, just above the rudder).  All it takes is a 1/4" hole and 4 stainless screws to mount this sealed light into place with 3M 5200 adhesive.

That is an AMAZING price for and underwater LED light.  I saw that I wasn't the only one with this good idea, as our friend's Mike and Patricia added these same lights to their 43' Formula this weekend...  You know it is interesting how quickly people will respond if companies sell something for a REASONABLE price.  Here is the link from their site:  Canadian Tire Underwater Light

Speaking of reasonable, some people who own a Dufour 12000ct in California and sailed around the world a few years ago were kind enough to sell us their old GALE SAIL and their  Jordan Series Drogue .

Hopefully, they will arrive at our mailbox later this week and we can cross 2 more safety things off our list....

The only other work done on the boat this week was I started to put tools and supplies back on the boat from the trailer.  I managed to reduce the spare parts I carry down to 4 reasonably small plastic containers.  We have a mechanical box, electrical box, plumbing box, and an engine spare parts box.  In addition I have a milk crate full of spare wire under the bed in the aft cabin.  Hopefully this will limit the amount of extra weight we have to carry around with us....

In a few weeks I will be starting my summer vacation so will dedicate a month to getting the boat ready to re-launch next spring.