September 19, 2010.

Since my last post pretty much centered on jobs let me expound a bit on Christy’s employment situation. She’s been working for a small "company" that is amazingly successful, all things considered.

She works for a woman who I’ll call Maggie, who has been doing brightwork for close to 20 years. Maggie has worked alone for the majority of those years but she has employed someone here and there at various times. This year Christy just happened to be lucky enough to be here when Maggie was considering hiring a helper again. Christy has always done all the brightwork on our boat so she has a bunch of experience.

Maggie’s business has no name, no business cards, no letterhead or work vehicle emblazoned with slogans, promises or the nonexistent company name. Maggie gets all her work through repeat customers and word of mouth. And she's as busy as she wants to be.

Maggie pays Christy well and keeps her busy. The work is physically difficult but Christy has been learning a bunch. In fact Maggie has encouraged Christy to take on side jobs
of her own.

On Friday Christy used a heat gun and stripped all the existing finish off a Caliber 40. The old finish was past its prime and the wood was starting to look seriously neglected.

On Saturday she spent the day sanding the wood with progressively finer sandpaper.

The owner wanted to use Cetol so after the sanding was completed she taped and cleaned the teak and the applied the first coat of finish.

The difference is already amazing and it will look even better after several coats of finish.

September 16, 2010.

Things here are in a state of flux, so to speak. My boss “Bob” has run away to Florida. This is the third extended trip that “Bob” has taken to Florida since we’ve been back this year. You see, he’s got a giiirrrllfriend there and as a result of his absence my paycheck has been suffering. So while he was gone I caught up on the backlog of work and then….nothing. Nobody here to beat the bushes = no work. Crap.

As a result I’ve had to scramble a bit to keep earning money to pay for extravagances like the dodger. There was the potential for depression but things just seem to have a way of working out. I was actually offered 3 jobs within a 30 hour period. So I took em’ all. It’ll mean some juggling but it could work out pretty well or I could die, we’ll see.

I spent some time this morning working on a boat that’s had some issues. The boat would run fine and then just die. One of my new bosses “Patrick” tried several things which included adding an electric fuel pump and eliminating the rest of the fuel system, but still the engine was starving for fuel. They finally realized that the owner had just commissioned a new fuel tank which was exactly when the problems started.

It seems that the fuel pickup tube doesn’t come close to reaching the bottom of the tank. So even though there are several gallons in the tank, it sucks air depending on where you’re standing. The boat heels one way or the other and the boat either runs fine or it dies. Sometimes it’s just enough to make you insane.

Now that the problem had been solved, I was charged with reinstalling the fuel system properly. The problem for me was the access. I’m not the biggest guy in the world but I can fill a jacket. I had to put one extended arm and shoulder into the cabinet door under the sink and then twist and wriggle the other arm and shoulder in. This left me with the sink drain pressed firmly against my face with an outstretched arm on either side. I had everything mounted and plumbed together with only the last and most distant connection left to go.

I had to press the fuel hose from the electric fuel pump onto the barb of the Algae-X fuel treatment system. Try as I might, I just could not get both hands involved. It was just barely within reach of one hand. So I got a good grip with one hand on the hose and wriggled and wormed the fuel line down onto the barb.

It was an extremely tight fit and it was very satisfying when the hose finally popped firmly into place. I was a sweaty mess but feeling elated until I realized that the hose clamp I should have placed on the hose was still clutched firmly in my left hand. I almost cried. F@#k me.

Try as I might I could not pull the damned hose back off the barb. Shit. I ended up having to open the clamp up and slip it over the hose. This left me with having to hold the clamp in the tips of my fingers while trying to tighten it with a foot long screw driver in my left hand. Of course, I couldn’t see the damn screw driver slot without my glasses so let’s just add another level of difficulty. The sink drain pressed against my face skewed my glasses off to the side so I was trying to see outta the right lens with my left eye, with the other eye closed while trying to apply a lot of left handed pressure with a foot long flathead screwdriver on a god damned hose clamp that I was barely able to hold with my right fingertips. But I got it done and went home a satisfied lad. I will NEVER forget the hose clamp again.

Once home, I received an interesting phone call. You see there was a 18 foot trimarran powerboat that “Bob” had rebuilt an engine for. We installed it in the boat and he left for Giiirrrllfriend Land while I did a bottom job on the boat. Once the boat was ready to go back in the water it was left to me to do the last minute finishing touches and to time the engine and get it running good.

That went pretty well for me and after I was done I took the boat out Back Creek and over to Spa Creek. The boat ran great and I left it tied to a dock where it was supposed to sit until it would be ferried down to Deale, Maryland.

Stupidly, I thought that the boat would sit there until a perfect day presented itself, since this piece of shit micro tiny powerboat was going to be asked to navigate the 22 miles from Annapolis down to Deale on the open bay. Ya know, the bay where the freighters roam, the tide flows and the wind blows. The Chesapeake can be scarier than the ocean at times and this boat is a half step below a pontoon boat. It would be a lot like skydiving with a bed sheet, you might survive but it would take a lot of luck.

When I awoke this morning I checked the weather as I always do and saw the forecast for a deteriorating day. 10 knots outta the south with 20 knots, gusting to 30 with rain coming this afternoon. I’m sure that Dullard also checked the weather before he decided it would be the perfect day to head south on the bay in this skateboard of a boat.

So when I received Dullards call it was with rapt fascination that I listened to his tale of delivering the boat south. I had no idea he was going and I couldn’t believe that he went. By his estimation they were taking random waves over the bow that were depositing 50 to 100 gallons of water into the cockpit at a time. In the infinite wisdom of micro tiny piece of shit powerboat architects it seems that all the cockpit scuppers drain directly into the bilge rather than overboard.

This left the miniscule bilge pump in the micro tiny powerboat fighting for its life to keep the boat afloat. Fortunately (bizarrely) so much water made its way below that the engine was semi-submerged to the point of stalling which left Dullard and the micro tiny piece of shit powerboat bobbing on the surface of the waves rather than plunging headlong into them. This gave the pitiful little bilge pump the chance to catch up so they could move along and repeat the process.

Bottom line- Dullard says that now the boat won’t idle at less than 2000 RPM’s. I’m thinking it doesn’t idle at all and all he can do to keep it running is to race the shit out of it. Wish I had a crystal ball to see how this shit is gonna play out…..

September 6, 2010.

Holy shit, what a weekend! Christy & I labored our asses off on this beautiful Labor Day weekend while getting the new hard dodger and bimini installed on the boat. Before I get started I really have to thank all the people who helped with the physical act of actually maneuvering the dodger and then a day later the bimini into place. I won’t list all the names because I’d forget someone and then I’d feel like a turd. So its better this way, Thank You to everyone involved. And if you weren’t involved, thank you for not getting in the way.

On Friday when I left work I tied the dodger to the top of the truck and brought it home so I could get an early start on Saturday. In the morning it took us a little less than an hour to strip away the old sunbrella dodger. This is what my baby looks like when she’s topless. Once the old dodger was off, it became readily apparent that the coamings crown at the front of the cockpit was a LOT more than I had estimated. Crap. I’d figured on a half inch or so and it turned out to be closer to 2 full freaking inches. F#%k me. The old dodger was so flimsy I was afraid to move it to get an accurate measurement and figured that when the time came I’d resort to the builder’s friend, the shim.

So, the tiny spacer I had envisioned suddenly became much thicker. The spacers weren’t the problem, it was how to finish the whole thing up so it didn’t look like some cobbled together piece of shit.



I decided to make up some tapered spacers and we mounted the dodger. At just about that moment Ron from Dawntreader walked by and commented that a piece of trim along the bottom of the dodger would really enhance the lines of the dodger. An idea! A freaking idea was born and we were soon headed out to Home Depot to buy some material to use as trim.

With the mounting issue solved Christy and I went about finishing the dodger. We ran wires up through the coaming and up through integral tubes in the dodger for a light fixture and a fan for my sweaty sweetie.

On Sunday morning we again relied on an outpouring of help and succeeded in manhandling the bimini up into place. The local WM didn’t have the hardware that we needed, we had to order additional
mounting hardware, so we had to temporarily mount it. The front of the bimini support structure rests on top of the dodger. So with a new dodger that meant some re-engineering of the support tubing. Christy and I went to work and when we were done I was pleased to find that the radius I had built into the bimini was spot on.


Next it was on to the windows. They had all been fabricated and dry fit weeks ago. At this point we had to drill screw holes into the frames and apply sealant. I put a bead of caulk in every “h” channel and then pressed the channel back into place on its assigned piece of glass. Next was a liberal application of the same sealing compound (Dow Corning #791) was applied to the edges of the window openings. Then it was a simple matter of pressing the windows into their respective openings and screwing them in. That pretty much killed the second 10 hour day of our 3 day weekend.

On Monday I installed the trim at the base of the dodger. Then we “gooed” and installed the 2 hatches in the roof of the dodger. Then we finished the insides of the windows, we masked the frames and laid a cosmetic bead of caulk along the inside of all the window frames.


We still need the hardware to finish up the bimini mounting but that’ll go quickly. I also still have to mount the track to accept the top of our enclosure. Once the track is up there will be a
“bit” of sewing as we modify our old enclosure’s walls so we can use them with the new bimini.

So even though we’re still not “done”, Thank God we’re done, mostly……..

August 29, 2010.

Its official. The dodger and bimini are done. Completed. Over and done with. Finished. Well, not really but the remaining items needed to complete them are small piddling little things that I can do during the week after work so we should be in good shape to install them both on schedule next weekend. Unless Earl screws it all up.

On Friday night we finally decided on Awlgrip as our choice of paint. So when Saturday morning rolled around we did a little final sanding and then shot a coat of Awlgrips suggested primer. This of course highlighted some of the places where there were still divots and scratches in the finish. So that called for a little more glazing compound and then some more sanding.

We followed this with another coat of primer which of course led to the discovery of yet more areas needing attention. Finally after 3 coats of primer we were satisfied and headed home for the evening.

When we arrived back at the shop on
Sunday morning we looked at the project through fresh eyes and still weren’t satisfied. Christy puttied a few more spots while I laid out and cut the openings for the 2 hatches that we intend to install in the roof of the dodger. After that there was a bit more sanding before a final coat of primer.

After letting the primer dry we mixed up some paint and sprayed 3 full coats. This pretty much took the rest of the afternoon so we headed home pretty satisfied with the weekends progress. Now if it will all just fit into place.

August 23, 2010.

Life is good, but time is flying. We’ve been spending every extra minute working on the dodger and bimini. In the photos there doesn’t seem to be much progress being made, but there has been. I sprayed both units with Interprotect 2000 barrier coating. This will aid in sealing the fiberglass and adds another waterproof layer of protection before final paint.


Once the Interprotect was applied the added benefit was that several anomalies were readily apparent in the dodger’s finish. So on Sunday Christy and I applied some filler and spent several hours wet sanding in an effort to improve the surface’s finish. We ordered some special rubberized non skid paint for the top of the bimini so once that arrives, I can apply it and the bimini will be officially done. The weekend after next is our target installation date and we are SO ready to be done with this.

At work this week I had the opportunity to repower a customer’s sailboat. The old 18 horse diesel was taken out and replaced with a 29 horse, brand spankin’ new Yanmar diesel. I’ve pretty much had the project to myself and I have to say that I’m pretty proud as to how it’s going.


Once the old engine was removed I had to cut away a lot of the old engine bed to make room for some ½ inch aluminum “T” that will act as the mounting platform for the new engine. The new engine is 4 inches longer than the old one and I really had to rely on the old adage “measure 67 times, cut once”. The new engine fits like a glove. I had to send the prop shaft out to have 4 inches removed to accommodate the new, longer engine. There’s now less than an inch of shaft left between the dripless seal and the engine coupling. The engine was stripped in an effort to make getting it into its new home a little easier. It slipped in perfectly with loads of room to spare. It actually looked a little small in there for a while. Of course, now that the alternator, starter, exhaust manifold, primary fuel filter, electric fuel pump, water lift muffler, raw water strainer and associated hoses were all added the space is getting a little tight. But the important thing is that it all fit and is actually pretty user friendly so far as future servicing goes.

Back on our boat we made a bit of a discovery. The galley sink wasn’t draining so I thought it would be a simple matter to remedy the situation. I looked under the sink and was expecting to see the drain leave the sink and head straight down thru the hull. That would be normal, but evidently the Veranda is a little more special that we had realized.

I was surprised to find out that the drain made a 90 degree turn and headed for the engine room. WTF? I can’t believe in all these years I never noticed that before. I headed to the engine room and found that the drain was actually just over 12 feet long and traveled a slightly sloped path as it headed for a T in the drain line for a cockpit scupper. The entire sink drain was practically horizontal for over 10 feet. So, inanimate matter has been gradually building up in the entire length of the hose. Crap. Removing the drain hose and taking it outside and beating it on the dock would require a minimum of 4 hours. So I invented the Verand-o-Rooter. I took an electrical snake, put a heavy wrinkle in it, slipped on the spout from a silicon tube and bent the end of the snake over. I forced it up the drain line as far as I could and was pleased to find out that every time I withdrew it I was able to pull pieces of dead rodents or what ever disgusting shit was in the hose out into a bucket. The drain is now clear and the water disappears like it oughta.


While walking through one of the yards today I was struck by just how many cruising boats there are for sale here. Oversized anchors, wind generators, solar panels and dinghy davits are in evidence on

most of these boats. It’s ironic how 2 people can look at the same boat and while one person sees the end of a dream another person gazes and imagines the possibilities.

August 20, 2010.

I was driving along on my way to work the other day when I passed this parked work van. Hymen Restoration? Really? Is that even possible? What would the neighbors think if he was parked in front of your house? So I’m thinkin’ “Why would you wanna?” Does it really make a difference to anyone if your hymen isn’t in mint condition? I mean, they all break sooner or later, what’s the difference? While I’m thinking about it, what the hell does he do with the ladder?

August 8, 2010.

I believe that we’re officially half outta here. Our 5 month stay in Annapolis is just more than half gone. That said, Damn, I gotta get busy….like we’re not busy already.

The windlass does in fact work once again. So we can scratch one chore off the to-do list. After test driving it, it looks like we’ll be selling our current dink and buying Grants used one. Of course, this means that we’ll have to make a new set of dinghy chaps to protect the new one from the sun. Add another chore to the to-do list, crap.

On Saturday Christy & I worked on the bimini and dodger. She applied a final coat of fairing compound to the dodgers exterior while I fiberglassed the bottom of the inverted bimini.
After that there was just enough time for some food shopping before we headed home for the evening.

Today while Christy went and did a combo pool/ laundry day, I headed back over to the shop to flip the dodger upright and finish up the top. The 2 X 8’s that I used to form the bimini’s radius are now on top of the bimini. I followed the radius of the bimini and cut them away leaving only an inch and a half wide by one inch tall stringer. These stringers serve the dual purpose of helping to maintain the bimini’s shape and once the bimini is installed on the boat they will become the mounting location for our solar panels. On my first attempt I tried to do the cutting with a cordless circular saw. I’ve never used one before but I thought I’d give the Ryobi Gelding battery operated saw a shot. My patience with that plastic piece of shit lasted for about three minutes. The thing ran like a champ until you actually came in to contact with the wood. Talk about no balls. After they were cut to shape with a real circular saw I went about the business of adding a layer of fiberglass to the whole enchilada.

Of course there had to be just a little bit o’ drama. Theres a colony of small winged insects with stingers living in an underground hive right near my work surface. We’ve been peacefully coexisting until one of the little bastards decided to sting me right between the shoulder blades.

My first thought was “Oh no, Dullard showed up and he’s got an icepick”. Then I realized it was only one of the bees……and now he’s dead. I’m not sure what it was but something got them all pretty worked up. I grabbed a can of Wasp spray and sent a torrent of the lethal liquid down into their underground lair. After administering about 47 times the recommended dosage I once again found myself king of the foodchain.

August 4, 2010.

A quick recap of he last few days. The fridge seems to be up and running although I think there might be some reinsulating of the box in my near future.

I got to work on a few cool boats including this one, whose helm station was reminiscent of the Starship Enterprise. Yes, that is my cheat sheet on the dash.

The dodger is almost ready for paint with the first coat of fairing compound applied and sanded. A few touch ups, a bit more sanding and we’ll be ready.

I was also able to get the hard bimini started. It’s a lot simpler than the dodger so the construction should go a bit quicker. I want to have them both done before we start to install either one. I’d like to get both of them onto the boat in one weekend.

I also FINALLY got the part I’ve been waiting for to get the anchor windlass up and running. It was some bizarre, low profile, metric bearing. So it looks like after more than a year of pulling the hook by hand we will once again be amongst the upper crust and hoisting our anchor with the touch of a button.

Last but not least, the dinghy. We were at the shop working on the dodger when my company’s co owner who I’ll call “Grant” announced that he had decided to clean up and sell his dinghy. He’s had it sitting in the yard for a while now and he finally decided that the dink had to go.

He left and the next thing I knew, I looked over and Christy was sitting in the dink on the lawn. I know what’s running through her mind as I say “You want that dinghy, don’t cha?”. She answers with a half smirking ”what do you mean?” Yeah, like I was born yesterday. You see, we have a bare bones 9 foot Caribe dinghy. It’s an excellent quality dink but the short length really hurts performance. Christy and I can plane quite nicely but with any additional weight aboard we find ourselves plowing along.

“Grants” dinghy is a 10 footer of lesser quality. But it does have the one thing I know that Christy covets, a bow locker. It’s a little fiberglass cubby that you can stow your anchor, lifejackets and other necessities. I proposed a deal to “Grant” and the dinghy is now hanging from the stern of the Veranda as we wait for an opportunity to do some real world testing.

July 30, 2010.

Somebody asked me for a better picture of the material I’m using to make the frame for the windows in our dodger. It’s called “h” channel and we bought it in 8 foot lengths and cut them to size. The slot of the h comes in various widths. We bought the ¼ inch slot to accept our glass. When we install the assembled frames into the dodger we’ll glue and screw through the flange around the perimeter of the window.

This week at work was a little, read that as very little bit more pleasant as the temperatures finally started to ebb a bit. 88° beats the hell outta 98°anyday.

Late last week we had a guy call and beg us to get his boat going as he wanted to entertain business associates over the weekend, so “Bob” and I ran down there to have a little look see. It turned out that there was a little hole rotted through the exhaust system just before the mixing elbow.

This part of the exhaust is a cast 90° turn that lives between the turbo and the mixing elbow. We called the guy to report our findings and to tell him that the part is at least a week away. He responded with…please, please, please…I’ve got to be able to use the boat this weekend, is there anything you can do.

“Bob” finally succumbed to the pressure and told the guy that even though its against his better judgment we could probably jury rig it well enough that he could putt-putt around the river with his associates. BUT, and theres a big but, whatever happens don’t run it up high enough that the turbo charger spools up. At the time we didn’t realize that the guy and his buddies worked at Idiots R Us.

So the weekend has passed, the parts been ordered and the captain calls us on the phone. He thinks his turbo charger has shit the bed. When asked “why, what happened?” he responds with “Well, it was all going fine so on the way home I opened her up a bit and all of a sudden there black smoke coming from the engine room. It seemed to start when the turbo kicked in”

The turbo is fine but he blew the temporary repair all to hell and the hot exhaust gasses decided to take the newly opened shortcut as they were leaving the engine. So instead of going through the exhaust system the exhaust forced its way through the hole and into the engine room. The captain says he backed off it but the hole was open and he made the command decision to keep on driving the boat all the way back to the slip. The problem with that decision is that now everything in the entire engine room was coated with a fine patina of sooty black exhaust residue.

As a result Pablo and I spent almost 6 hours a piece scraping, vacuuming, spraying and wiping EVERY surface in the engine room. Every little stinking nook and cranny in the entire engine room. Both engines, the floor, the ceiling, the hot water heater, the generator, the batteries….everything. We had to clean our way in, do the ceiling and then work our way down and back out. I wore one of those head to toe tyvek suits and by the end of the day I could have passed for an anal swab at an elephant clinic.

We used a shop vac, some special high dollar soot gathering sponges (which sucked), Spray Nine, 409, Greased Lightning, Simple Green and 9 rolls of paper towels.

And joy upon joy, when I got home I found out that we’re having refrigeration issues……Crap.

July 25, 2010.

We spent the weekend working on the hard dodger. On Saturday we spent some time sanding the seam overlaps on the fiberglass covering. The outside is ready to have the fairing compound applied while the inside is ready for final paint.


It was at this point that we decided to cut the holes for the windows. While I held each piece of glass in its assigned spot Christy traced the outline onto the dodger. Then I used the circular saw when possible and the jigsaw when necessary to cut the panels out. After a bit of sanding, Christy mixed up a small amount of resin and painted it
on the exposed edges of the openings in an effort to seal the wood.

While we waited for the resin to dry we set about whittling up a few frames for the windows. After a little trial and error about exactly what tools and techniques we should be using things started to come together for us. By the time we went home on Saturday afternoon we had the 2 largest windows mocked up and resting in place. We got home just in time to head out for a bite with the crew of the Fine Lion, Kim & Steve.

On Sunday I headed out early while Christy did boat chores before heading over to a nearby pool. I refined my manufacturing technique and was pleased to find that I could fabricate and fit an entire frame in less than an hour a piece.


All the windows now have frames. All of the openings are sized correctly so I wrapped the windows up and put them away until we’re ready for final assembly on the boat.

It was time for me to start experimenting with the fairing compound and its application. I’ve used the West System Epoxy System enough that I’m comfortable with it. The fairing compound is new to me though. I consulted with a few self proclaimed experts with answers coming from every point of the compass. The official directions are semi vague and use phrases like “Do not use in areas subject to high heat”. What exactly does “high heat” mean? The engine room? The top of my dodger under the broiling Caribbean sun? The actual surface of the sun? They also use terms like “peanut butter consistency”. Which peanut butter, Skippy or Sears? How about giving me something radical like MEASUREMENTS….. On the bright side, I figured that if they could be so random with their instructions, it must not be too difficult. So I mixed up a batch of Skippy and smeared it as evenly as I could across a small section of the dodger. Tomorrow after its dry I’ll whack it with the sander and see how it goes.