Gerry Is Finally Home!!!

Our friends Kerrin and Jason were finally able to bring their son home today. He was born on February 28th and he is now home with his big brother William. We are very happy for them and can’t wait to meet him. Maybe he can join us on the boat sometime. With the way things are going I hope it’s before he starts walking…

One of the things that we have found since beginning this project is that you have to be ready to change plans pretty quickly. Replacing hatches and rotting floors and windshield wipers motors and repairing the air conditioners … the list of things that popped up along the way seems endless now. I re-read my last post and realized that our plan for the last thing I mentioned has already changed.

I was originally thinking that I would just spray paint the port and starboard windows in place and then just maybe deal with touch ups on them from time to time but then I really looked at the condition they were in and changed my mind.

These needed to be treated the same way as the windshields.

It took me about 2 hours to take them out on Thursday and I was really missing Tom and Chris right about then.

I started cleaning and sanding them today and, about 5 hours later, I figure that was about half done. They were is pretty rough shape.

I am fairly certain that there were 3 different types of sealants on these windows all layered on top of each other.

Once I have these sanded I will be taking the pressure washer to them to get out all of the build up of dirt in the channels. The plan is to drop them off to get powder coated next week.

Now that they are out this will give me a chance to clean and polish the gel coat around the window openings.

Donald took on the task that I hadn’t been looking forward to. This was because we really didn’t have an idea of what we were going to do. The removable panel(s) in the galley where we had to have access to the wiring in the helm was definitely something that had to be figured out as we went along.

He decided to build up the inner “structure” with plywood and overlay the finished panels. We weren’t too concerned about losing headroom as the ceilings are pretty high here.

The finished panel in this photo will be removable and will be held in place by 4 decorative fasteners. This is a generic term which means I have no idea what we will be using and will leave that problem to three weeks from now Donald and Michael.

Next he made a plywood frame to act as a backer for the two lower removable panels.

He then went on to make the cabinets along the starboard side that run from the sitting area into the galley. There will be a colour change from one area to the other; the sitting area will be the Winter Cherry and the galley will be all white.

The bulkhead drops over the width of these cabinets so the filler on top will go from about almost 2″ to 3/4″. The two cabinets on either end will have doors that lift up using flap stays. The centre cabinet will remain open for books.

We then added the filler on the left which we made 6″ wide to allow for an air conditioning vent. I also wanted to add a reading light as well for when someone is sleeping in here and wanted to read at night. The small circle that is just to the right of the light is the touch dimmer switch for the four lights over the table.

He then built the cabinets for the galley wall. These will have white doors and will also open by lifting up with flap stays.

We will be installing a Corian panel on the plywood wall once the counter top goes in.

We now have the stairs in place with the bottom step welded into place (they are very solid). They are unfinished and we most likely won’t bother getting them finished until the fall. Donald also built the wall along the port side. He will be finishing off this area this weekend so that we can install the electrical panel. This will allow Dan the electrician to come back and hook it up.

The plywood steps are just temporary. We won’t install the Ipe steps until we are finished the interior.

We are hoping to have the interior done (except for the headliner) in three weeks. This will give us the rest of May and the first two weeks of June to finish off all of the exterior work. It was windy and it snowed today and we are officially done with winter. The warm weather can come at any time.

Check back in a few days.