Finally getting to some of the issues

 2020 has been something of a ... weirdest time in our realm.  However Paul my first mate is able to give   me hand about the issues we must deal with.  Doing it "on water" represents its own complications. So far so good...

And there are the inside issues which are again have to play a role ....

And the fore deck area... you can possibly tell ... that we are busy...

still more yardwork

Well both of the props had to be replaced. They were not able to fix them and replacement had to be done in order to get everything just lined up and balanced perfectly. Boy, the new shaft went in just like butter... it will make a huge difference when the boat is in the water and running at higher speeds. Wilmington Iron Works has been doing this since 1920 so they should be doing something right. I really did not want to put my perfectly balanced shafts on a tweaked shaft. I tried very hard to save money by spending 6 hours labor to take one nut off the port shaft. Had I known that it can not be straightened I would have just cut the shaft, like I had to on the other side because of galling. Also the other side (starboard) is the side where the damage was visible.

proper routing

I am very proud of this because of it's simplicity... I used simple plumbing supplies because the deck pipe I needed for our set up is so large ( the shackle is so huge) that I couldn't buy it in the store. I built this one and it'll be a good test as to how long it'll stay.

getting rid of the blue

slowly but surely we are painting the ugliest blue out of our existence... note brass window frame for the wheel house has 80 screw holes ... that is 320 holes to be plugged with epoxy and wood, since there are 4 of these puppies. See hatches waiting for the new plexi to be installed. Aluminium rings to follow for sure.

more prep work

Hatches being prepped and the frames being looked at. It is all in need of TLC. Glass will have to be replaced.

sanding=dust=aftdeck

More sanding in the aft deck area... discovering some rotted areas and basically just prepping for the paint. Also removing paint from all brass and bronze. Darlene was right when she said that it seems that the whole boat was dipped in this light blue paint and she added but at least it was preserved. I guess that is one way of looking at it. Anyway we are swimming in dust again for the twentieth time. The floor boards got a treatment of nonskid and the white stripe was started. The hull got the final treatment of blue after some nasty wind storm blowing crap all over the freshly painted area. It was rather discouraging and made me very upset to the point where I yelled at Ephrain and that was totally wrong. It got cleared up but still this whole week was a little... how should I say? Rocky?

non skid

have you ever dealt with trying to remove the glue from a crappy tape... I have no idea how it got to be used but when we removed it, there was so much glue that I spent 3-4 hours cleaning up and didn't even had the time to paint because it got so cold.... it was rather frustrating of course. The non-skid looks pretty good and let's see if it'll work with the amount of activity we do and of course nobody ever washes their feet when boarding, except me. Both Darlene and Paul love to bring mud on board. It usually starts out in the dinghy and continues unto the boat. This will be an excellent test.

have to deal with this

this has to be plugged... can not get a proper cover for the chain locker... went to the SHIPSTORE and they could not get a big enough unit and my connecting links will not fit through this... The door for the chain locker has to be rigged so I won't need a separate opening...