Well, sanders...

The last couple of days I've been sanding stainless steel, taking either
rusty, dinged, material which is still on the boat, or new, to replace it,
mill finish, tube and plate, for the bow roller cage and assembly, to
brilliant.

Whew! I thought sanding epoxy was hard work! Yet, even stainless yields to
my unrelenting pressure and attention. The existing material (still on the
bow of the boat) has a couple of grits to go before I take the rouge wheel
to it. The stainless material which will be welded in place of the rotted
stuff which came off is almost to the point of rouge in a couple of items,
but the tubing for the cage is all done.

About 12 total feet of 2" pipe has been reduced from a rough gray, with some
manufacturing marks and dings removed, to a flawless 400-grit, ready for
polish. The 3.5" pipe which will replace the rotted structure on the roller
system is to a 220 grit; two more to go. The plates on the end of this
pipe, when installed, are ready for polish.

When I wasn't doing that, we were refinishing the drinks holder in the
cockpit, which sits above the new custom, aysmmetrically leaved (the
binnacle is off the centerline of the cockpit due to the shape of the
cockpit with the inside walkthrough headroom moving the port side seating
closer to the center), cockpit table. The table would impact the binnacle
to which it hinges when it's raised, so I did some very careful work with a
rotary rasp, and relieved the main table and the two leaves enough to allow
it to sit level. Lydia's totally refinished the table before that, to great
and wondrous effect.

The leaves' support system the builder made for this custom table was simply
inadequate, so we cut it off after I designed something which would actually
work. I have to source the teak to make it up, and will get the new pulpit
teak (goes in the middle of the two anchors; welding the new material up
will allow a bigger gangplank, so to speak) at the same time. In between
those table ventures, I redid the lay-flat hinge receivers - he'd not
removed enough material, allowing the hinges to be "proud" vs flush. After
Lydia had already put a dozen loving coats of varnish on it, removing the
varnish was much harder than taking off the wood!

That's, in part, because I'm now convinced that, our builder just didn't
want to mess with teak. Instead, he claimed that one could not get teak
that wouldn't double or triple the price, and the source I had didn't
actually HAVE teak. (Curiously, it was the place he got the replacement
door frame for our forward head. I wonder if THAT wasn't teak, either
[J/K, it was a case of proof of my presumption that he was just trying not
to have to use teak, not that the place didn't, in fact, HAVE teak].)
Instead, he used Spanish Cedar which, properly stained and varnished, has a
look of teak. Unfortunately, it's not much harder than balsa. The relief
of the binnacle impact area took next to no effort, other than all the
cut-and-try so I didn't take off more than needed. It's so soft, we'll have
to go to barrel bolts to assure that the screws holding the various fittings
don't pull out :{/)

After just a bit of working with it, along with misaligned hinges which make
the leaves not close "just so" (which also complicated the removal of the
material allowing the binnacle not to impact the table - something I knew
would have to be done when I designed it), I thought to myself, "I think
we're going to wind up having this duplicated in teak somewhere down the
road."

Lydia, after removing the original leaf support system and trying to repair
the damage done by the glue used, before she revarnished that area, said to
me over lunch, "I think we'll probably wind up replacing this wood with
teak, somewhere where materials and labor are cheap." If she's willing to
toss several hundred bux, it's GOTTA be bad!

Tomorrow, the Raymarine guy who actually keeps his promise (two prior have
not, one multiple times, the other merely refusing to even answer the phone
when I call to ask when he'll be here - he left to get a cable to test our
new triducer, after a few minutes aboard to assess the work, and never came
back) to show up will be here to install the new triducer for the
fishfinder. Today I pulled the old one's wires through to the bow, with
accompanying strings for leads for the new single cable, removed the
Y-valve, and generally made ready for installation. Once that's finished,
we'll finish up on the fairing of the hull, interrupted by the need to get
the stainless polished for THAT repair/installation, and, out of sheer
exhaustion/inertia, my taking a day off from that to do the table hinge
mounting and binnacle obstruction relief.

We're enjoying the work, and pleased as punch that we've attracted a lot of
attention from folks who ohh-and-ahh over what we've done so far, many of
them very knowledgeable and experienced with what we're going through. For
ourselves, we're glad we're taking the time to do everything just right, as
well as fixing lots of stuff we've uncovered along the way. But I'll be
very glad when we fill with fuel and water and head back to the Bahamas. If
the season doesn't get any more energetic, and we don't get more done than
we have, in the time we've been at it, we may not have to worry about
hurricane season, and just head south straight from here!

The most recent "Peril of Pauline" is our refrigeration/freezer seeming to
be taking a dump. Long story which I'll not encumber you with, especially
as it's not over yet, but various fixes I've done in the past when this
symptom (no cool, compressor's running, or Smart Speed Control doesn't seem
to be acting right) showed up occasionally have had no effect. Thus, going
from perfect function (8° and 32° in freezer and reefer boxes, even in 90+
heat) to having NO heat removal since sometime last night, this has a
heightened sense of urgency. Even if I get it to work again, we're going to
have to do something "final" about it before we cast off, as, if it's not
resolved, it will only get worse in the wilds of wherever we are. As the
techs I've spoken with can't tell from the symptoms what it is, we're about
to get expensive, likely, as we track down what's really happening so we can
address it. Cool! (well, it would be nice for it to be cooling, but not
yet...)

One day not too long from now, we may also get to test the shifting sands
outside the small channel entrance to where we've been holed up in the
dirtiest yard in the East, yet the favorite of so many cruisers we've met in
our various travels, I lose count. Several dozen of them said hi
immediately after we arrived, or as they've been coming in while we're here.
So, Riverside Marina obviously has a lot going for it. One day I'll have a
log posting reviewing our time here, but it suffices to say that it's a bit
of a Peyton Place in terms of intrigue, gossip, misinformation, fueding and
nearly everything else other than wife-swapping (though I can't be
absolutely sure that doesn't happen, either!), but also the home of the most
caring and giving folks you'll likely encounter.

L8R, y'all

Skip
--
Morgan 461 #2
SV Flying Pig KI4MPC
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"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you
didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail
away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore.
Dream. Discover." - Mark Twain