Winter Returns… And So Do Tom And Chris … Part 2!

It became abundantly clear this week that having to work full time to make money really cuts into boat time! By the time this past week ended we had been through another snow storm (we woke up to about 10 cm … or 4″ … of the white stuff on Monday morning) and the end of the long weekend looked rainy. I mean flood-like rain. Luckily we already have the ark.

Not having 3 of the hatches in yet we had to improvise. You can’t get much more high tech than a 50lb weight sitting on a piece of plywood sealed with clear packing tape.

Add to that a strip of old plastic laminate covering the port and starboard side windows. Genius really!

I keep seeing a face when I look at this photo.

We are getting down to some of the smaller details now. It occurred to me that I had no idea of how the horn was supposed to work. I assumed that there was a compressor somewhere but I didn’t know where it was. Looking back now I am pretty sure it was thrown out in my overzealous demolition of the helm panel.

With a bit of work the horn will look shiny again.

This is the part I wasn’t so sure of. Luckily, once again, the internet came to my rescue.

I now have a compressor on order and should have this working in the next few weeks.

Donald continued the work on the transom door…in his spare time of course.

He has now secured most of the inner structure and has polished the gel coat.

It was also time that I finish the wiper blade motors. The casing was only available in white so I would have to paint it black to match the windshield frames.

One coat of primer followed by 2 coats of semi-gloss and then 2 coats of a clear finish later… forgot to take a picture though.

Saturday promised to be the one sunny day on the weekend and it didn’t disappoint. Since it ended up being such a nice day we concentrated on the exterior of the boat. Tom and Chris came back for more punishment and I was happy to oblige.

They continued on with filling of the small pockmarks in the hull and were joined by Alex.

They look pretty happy considering there is over 25,000 lbs of boat over their heads.

Tom sanded the small remaining strip of the old antifoul paint on the hull and the Marine-tex putty on the transom.

We had a few visitors as well. We felt that, since the number of new cases of Covid 19 were slowing down here in Ontario, it would be safe for my father to come see the boat again. He and Susan have been self isolating together for the last few months so she decided to take him for a drive.

He has been curious about how the curved wall was going to turn out and wanted to see it for himself. Here Donald is showing him what we have done since he was last here…keeping the appropriate spacing of course.

After a lunch where we all practiced safe distancing they headed back.

Luckily we got his seal of approval on the job.

I was able to finish caulking the gunwale. It was at this point that I started wondering why we picked a 46′ long boat. With a 15′ beam that is 107′ linear feet of a joint to seal.

We will spend some time over the next few weeks cleaning up this area before we start putting the rub rail back on. I made sure that I applied a lot of sealant and may have “painted outside the lines” a bit.

My niece Ellen and her friend Alex came for a short visit as well. Apparently Alex has been following the blog where Ellen hasn’t been. A bit disappointing actually. That is Ellen on the left looking like she thinks she will be allowed on this boat at any point in the future.

The hatches finally came in later last week and, with the nice weather, I was able to install them.

We are expecting about 20 mm (3/4″) of rain tomorrow so this should be a good test for them.

I also finished installing the windlass foot switches. I applied a generous amount of sealant and didn’t wipe away extra that seeped out. Instead I let it cure and cleaned it up today.

They clean up rather nicely.

And the final product…

I also installed the remaining air conditioning vents. This one is in the mid-berth beside the lower bed. Ideally it should be higher on the wall but, with the slight change in design of the room, we didn’t have the space. We can use small USB charged fans to move the air around a bit if needed.

Yes… Donald was working. Last week we put in the sliding door to make sure the new hardware would work but it still had to be adjusted. It was a bigger job than you might think. He got it working perfectly and then started finishing the details around the door.

The doors are going to be measured for the mirrored stainless trim on Tuesday so we are hoping to have this area done in about 3 weeks.

We heard on Saturday that our swim platform is done and are just waiting to hear back from the supplier to see when they can install it. Once that is in we can install the dinghy davit.

28 days and counting…