And if you look at in JUST the right light, it kinda looks like a sailboat

We are getting super excited around these parts. It's not due to the holidays, although Kitty was very happy to find that Santa could indeed visit a house, or a boat even if it has no chimney...

... and it definitely isn't due to the fact that our departure has been delayed by a good 6 months.  Nobody is excited about that particular development but clean cup, move down.
Nope. The reason for the excitement around Ceol Mor is that she is starting to look like a sailboat again.

The beautifully varnished hand rails have been installed and bedded on their oh so nice raised bases. The time and effort Mark put into getting the fiberglass bases perfect and the effort in getting the deck painted has been time well spent.  The mountings look as if they came from the factory this way.There are now installed clutches and deck organizers installed after much effort in getting the layout just so to maximize efficiency. Splendid.

The navpod Mark built with an assist from an Idaho potato has been installed. ( If you are going to use a potato to mold conduit, it must be from Idaho. Brand's matter you know). Even more exciting, electronics are being installed. We had long ago decided we would wait until we were just about ready to start sailing again to install any electronics. I can now operate the windlass from the cockpit, This must mean we are going to soon have a need to drop our anchor. That would only happen when we are sailing. Happy development indeed!



The old Lewmar 44's which used to handle the genoa sheets have been moved up to replace the sadly undersized and inadequate 30 somethings that handled the main. I can only assume what ever previous owner replaced the Bob Perry specified winches with these cute little ones was a masochist. No other reason I can think of for making raising the main harder than it has to be.

The moving of the 44s up to handle the main means the spot they previously occupied is now free and clear to accept the lovely little bit of hardware Santa left beneath the tree.



Seriously, no Christmas gift for me other than a set of Lewmar 55s. I am both thrilled by this and appalled, Thrilled because it means I will be able to handle the genny myself without the comedic efforts I previously had to employ. Appalled because I can't let Mark get off that easy. I feel that I have to register a bit of indignation. The upside is I can use this Christmas for leverage when needed for years and years to come. It's the gift that keeps on giving. (Truthfully, I don't want or need anything as we are downsizing but I can't tell him that. So let's keep this fact just between us.)



 Ceol Mor is undergoing a huge transformation, Boat plans are being pulled out as we try to work out the best place and way to rig a preventer. Also exciting because a boat does not need a preventer at the dock. This means she should be leaving the dock soon, if only for a bit of local sailing to see how the installs are working.

In other news, Ceol Mor won the marina boat of the month award for "most improved" boat in the marina. And it only took 4 years to win it.

We are moving forward, moving forward. Soon it will be time to put the interior back together and to do a bit of interior cosmetic refreshing. And then.., and then....we sail.
Merry Christmas everyone and here's to a healthy, happy new year to you and yours.

Eyes On The Prize

In the midst of everyone in the US getting ready for Christmas and Santa, while everyone seems to be decking their halls (and walls and lawns and cars) with festive decorations, I am trying my darnedest not to succumb to a fit of schmoopiness. While I might not be feeling very merry, I refuse to have a Blue Christmas and will instead focus on the positive.

 See, we had planned to be leaving NOW. Head the boat  for New Orleans, spend Christmas in my favorite US city and perhaps pal around with Dani and Tate ( who are such great peeps and unlike us, they are leaving soon so if you need to read about a boat underway, see their blog!) and then head east and south for the Caribbean. There was a fatal flaw in this plan. We had not adequately allowed for Captain Perfecto's need to complete the final bits of boat work with his requisite painstakingly, glacially slow but never the less absolutely gorgeous workmanship. Entire Pacific islands were created out of lava at a faster pace...

Everyone admires a perfectly restored boat which has been completely refit/rebuilt  with functionality, safety, structural integrity and beauty in mind. Not so many have the stomach to actually do the work required. I am certainly not going to fault those with a "go now" philosophy who will settle for "good enough" because if left to my own devices I think I would absolutely fall into this camp. But I am not a solo sailor. (which is good because I am still NOT confident in my docking abilities) I am 1/2 of a sailing couple and the needs of all must be considered. Mark NEEDS the boat to be finished to a level he is comfortable with. The difficulty is what he is comfortable with is, well, perfect. It's an obsession really. I have walked this path with him before at various times and I have found it best to just give him the latitude and space to do what he needs to do, cheer him on his successes, commiserate on the failures and be patient. The results have always been worth it in the end but I am not going to lie, it is not always easy to await the finished product.

So what work is being completed? A whole lot of varnishing. After having hit upon an application method that gives consistent results with Interlux Perfection Plus Varnish Clear Quart Kit , we thought we would try the same with Bristol Finish  . We have a friend who had excellent results with Bristol Finish and since we had some on hand, why not do a bit of experimenting? The good news? Bristol Finish does in fact provide a harder finish than Interlux. The bad news? It is really, really persnickety. We had such a time trying to get a good result with each coat and it just never happened. Basically, it just looked worse with each and every coat despite our painstakingly precise application. Bottom line for us is we will be an Interlux boat. Yes, we might have to sand and reapply a few coats a bit more frequently than we would with Bristol but this is offset by the fact that we can manage to get a really nice finish with the Perfection Plus.

The turtle shell should be reinstalled in the next couple of days and then we can start thinking about installing our rigid boom vang. Progress people, this is progress.

In the mean time, we've managed to sneak in the baking of a few batches of Christmas cookies which Kitty delivered to her "friends" at "her favorite store in the world"- Kemah Hardware. Kitty performed with her preschool class at the Christmas spectacular. We ran into Santa Claus at the Kemah Christmas parade. One of the benefits of catching the tail end of the parade, Santa has time to really listen to what you would like for Christmas. Santa even took the time to sit down and have a long chat with our wee girl and even wrote down what she wanted for Christmas " a pink truck. Not a pretend one but a REALLY real one". Santa then told her she might have to wait a few years but that he wrote it down so he would not forget and then asked her for another option to which she replied "it's all on the letter I wrote you".





So maybe we aren't leaving in a few weeks as planned. Things happen and you can either fight it or go with it. We are going with it, keeping on keeping on and keeping our eyes firmly on the prize. Soon. Very, very soon.

Deck Hardware Mounts Are Sexy

No, really. I am serious. If you've ever had to recore a soft spot in a deck or had to try to work around a winch handle that continually fouls itself on the bimini frame, or man handle genoa sheets that run along the deck in an undulating fashion you will agree with me. Custom deck hardware mounts are DEAD sexy.

I know a lot of people bag on newer production boats, but they do seem to come up with some ideas that make things easier. Things like deck hardware mounts that are molded in, keep the running rigging nice and tidy and with a clean run through the sheaves to the winches and fewer leaks. I love my old, sturdy Nassau but it had the old school method of mounting deck hardware. Namely, putting a teak base under the winches with screws that will inevitably leak and will require maintenance and varnish to keep looking spiffy. Molded in deck mounts are a big improvement. We like big improvements around here.

Planning the new layout

So Mark spent what seemed like forever carefully planning out the deck hardware. Checking the angle of the organizers,clutches and winches. After drawing it up in CAD, redrawing it, moving the winches, adjusting the angle of the clutches, redrawing it again he had The Plan.

With the plan in hand he carefully checked the layout with a mock up of all the deck hardware in scale. Once he was satisfied with the hardware he had chosen and the layout, he began working on the mounts.

Each mount was cut from fiberglass, carefully mounted and epoxied with West System. I got to sand and sand and resand. Every tiny air bubble on the outer side of the epoxy was filled and resanded and resanded again. I am getting pretty darned good with the Dremel though my taping skills leave something to be desired (In Captain Perfecto's OCD world, anyone else would appreciate my attention to detail even if I did choose to lay the tape horizontally as opposed to vertically. :P )

These things are taking a long long time to get perfect but the prospect of having all the running rigging actually RUN unimpeded is pretty exciting. It's exciting because it means that Ceol Mor will be a whole lot easier to handle while under sail. In my heart of hearts, I am a lazy sailor and will take a easy over an old school tug of war any day.

Oh yes, the hand rails are getting new mounts too!

It's time to sand the prime coat again as we work on our painting skills, then its time to paint with Awl Craft and then DEAD SEXY HARDWARE INSTALLATION BEGINS. New red hot deck organizers, new luscious oversized winches and some foxy sheaves.

I call this all DEAD SEXY because the reality is we are working our butts off in late July in the subtropics. We are sweaty, smelly and tired. Quite the opposite of anything remotely resembling sexy but soon, very soon we will be sailing once again and I want to remember how rotten it was sailing with the old deck layout and to remember to appreciate all the long weeks that went into making Ceol Mor the easy to sail boat that she soon will be. Sexy indeed.

Let's talk about things that suck

Last weekend, all of the Kemah/Clear Lake area was in a tizzy. Boats lined up and down the channel and major traffic routes were shut down to await the barge carrying the space shuttle to make its way to Space Center Houston at Nasa. In reality, it wasn't a space shuttle, but a life size replica. Houston, who has definitely played a major role in the US space program was deemed to not be a 'tourist destination' and therefore undeserving of a real shuttle. So there was a whole bunch of hullabaloo to welcome what appeared at close examination to be a 7th grade science fair project made of paper mache with a limp and falling off tail section. The fact that we don't get a real shuttle, that we were given a sad likeness and all of the traffic snarls sucks.

While we are on the subject of things that suck, lets talk boat equipment. Our Rule bilge pump float switch also sucks. Actually, Mark referred to said switch as a "poorly engineered and constructed piece of s#*t" but since this is a family friendly blog, we'll just say it sucks.

When we first installed it, 6 months ago we had a bit of foreshadowing as Mark commented on how flimsy the construction of this small $50 part seemed to be, along with the other Rule pumps we had purchased. Upon close inspection, I too thought they seemed to be on the cheap side but what do I know? Due to the fact that Rule products dominate the market, we pushed our thoughts of inadequate construction aside and hoped that we were just being overly critical.

The folly of our ways was made clear to us yesterday morning. We were not hooked up to shore power over night and as Mark went aboard to install yet more fans and lights, he was greeted with the sound of the bilge pump running. We had a thunder storm in the early hours and our mast still lets in some water in a deluge(we are working on that) and we still get a bit of water from the air conditioner (working on that one as well). The bilge was dry, but was still running as the Rule float switch had stuck in the up position. Great.

Rule switch removed and still stuck in the up position

The Rule switch that had been in use MAYBE 4 minutes total in the past 6 months had failed to switch off as it was designed to do. When you think about the cost per minute of operation, this becomes a very expensive part indeed. This meant that the bilge pump was sucking air, which is not a good thing for the pump and also it put our new $2000 battery it was running off of in danger of failure. The hour indicator stated that the pump had been running for 3 hours. Had we been gone from the boat for a few days the bilge pump would have continued to run until the battery was totally drained at which point it would have been rendered useless. A crappy $50 part could have cost us $2000 to replace the battery we had JUST replaced.

Yup, 3 hours

The switch comes with a 2 year warranty, so conceivably we could trade in the crappy Rule float switch for another crappy Rule float switch with the same design flaws for free. Umm, thanks but no. I think we will be looking for another option and just chalk this up to some valuable lessons learned. 1. We need to trust our instincts. Mark is at times maddeningly meticulous but 9 times out of 10, his initial opinion is proven to be correct. 2. Just because a company dominates the market doesn't mean their product is any good, just that they have a great PR and distribution team.

Let the countdown commence

No time to be schmoopy about the fact that we are STILL in refit mode when we had planned to have a year of cruising under our belt at this point in time. Its time to start getting excited because we are heading out in 17 months. 17 months might seem an arbitrary number to get excited about but it is less than a year and a half. As the heat creeps up and the progress slows a bit due to this, the fact that we are less than a year and half from heading out just gives me such a lift.

Mark installed the fore cabin reading lights and fans. I can tell you that while the CCF reading lamps are adequate if not spectacular, those Caframo fans put out some serious windage. This should make me happier when sleeping as I am like a golden retriever in that I like a breeze strong enough to make my face flap- even while sleeping.

Our generator was giving us fits. It was causing consternation by not firing up. Should be easy, right? Just grab the serial numbers off the thing and find the manual. Well since our Onan generator is about 100 years old, we could no longer discern the serial numbers. Mark started plugging in random numbers onto the part of the number we could actually make out and after a bit of time we had success. He was able to down load the manual and figure out that the problem was probably a clogged filter and it was- the second filter to be exact. Which is why our previous attempt at cleaning the first filter resulted in no change. A bit of elbow grease to remove, clean and reinstall and VOILA! The old Onan is running once again. Now we not only have a functional generator we know what to check first when it dies again- check the SECOND filter as well.

We are still in a very heated debate over the galley refit. I'm still firmly in the go with the easy, inexpensive, fast Origo stove option. Mark is still firmly in the meticulous, expensive, time consuming, space eating propane camp. We will have to reach a decision soon but its looking as if my dreams of just dropping in a Origo and calling it done are fading away. *sigh* I'd just like to have one thing on Ceol Mor be easy, fast, inexpensive and straight forward but alas, it seems it might not be meant to be. I'm choosing my battles though. In the end, I will cook badly on whatever we come up with so if going with a new propane system makes Mark happy I can't get excited about it.

We are planning on having the boat hauled next week to change out the zincs, check the bottom and service the prop. Not terribly exciting, but necessary none the less.

We went out for a sail on Sunday. We were just under genoa alone as this was all about me becoming more skilled and we didn't need the extra push from the main (and we got to avoid dealing with the less than adequate main set up). I'm still not able to dock the beast but I can solidly keep the wind at different points of sail, take a bearing to a fixed point and sail to it, trim the gen to a reasonable level, keep a course heading and I've gotten much better at tacking. I can say I've gotten better at tacking smoothly because there was only one way to go and that was up.

While we trudge along, continuing the work on the boat and improving our sailing skills, we get little bits of happy. On our way to the boat, we walk past crepe myrtles in bloom. The sun is shining, Kitty is singing and Maura, Mark and I smile when we think of what's to come- in only 17 months!

Light and Air- 2 very useful things to have

Palm trees, cause sometimes refit photos are just too boring

It took us a few weeks to finally decide on the interior lighting. Actually, it took Mark a few weeks. His engineer's left brain kicked in on him and he began to over think the various options available. He spent hours checking out the lighting on friend's boats and pouring over technical specifications weighing power consumption against luminosity and output and considering the aesthetics of the fixtures.

LED lights are a popular choice but Mark just thinks the technology is not quite there yet. (Here's a link to an article by Nigel Calder if you really want to know some of the issues, how far the technology has come and how far it has to go.) We don't know a single person who has had them on their boat without some issues, usually a failure and since these lights aren't exactly cheap and aren't in ready stock in many places we were hesitant to use LED for the interior lighting. I just want to turn on a light when needed and have it work and not be a blindingly blue white color. We are putting LED nav lights on Ceol Mor but that is because there really isn't any other power efficient option at this time.

So we began to look into other options. Halogen and incandescent lighting, along with not being terribly power efficient produces a lot of heat. When you are living your life in a wee box, a small amount of heat can quickly make things unbearable. Traditional fluorescent lighting has drawbacks as well and we did not want to be revisiting this topic again in 2 years. We want to to be done with this.

After seeing the CCF lights on our friend Tim's boat and looking at the technical data, Mark became convinced that what we need is cold cathode fluorescent lighting for the general lighting and reading lamps. Easy peasy, right? WRONG.

Our order-except one fan which was out for testing and 9
linear CCF lights which have yet to arrive.

After 4 emails and one or two phone calls to Taylor Made to ensure that all of the lights we needed were available, we put in our order ( 7 chrome Futura reading lamps, 4 bicolor linear lights and 9 linear lights) and waited.  Instead of our order, what we got was an email letting us know that the bicolor CCF lights were no longer available. Even though we had assurances from Taylor that the were, turns out the were kidding. They aren't available. Apparently Taylor Made is phasing out its CCF lighting. We would have to instead go with 4 bicolor LED lights which were not only NOT CCF but were round. Round lamps interspersed with linear lights. This would be fine with me, but Mark has issues with things not matching and being exact. Its an engineer thing, you wouldn't understand.

After agonizing over whether to change all the lights to matching LEDs or just let it go, Mark decided to let it go. So we have dome lights in the head, galley and chart table which do not match the other general lighting and that is ok. (but if you want to wind him up, come aboard and point it out ;) )
I am so proud of him.*sniff* He has come so far from the man I first met with the white house-white walls, white floors, white furniture etc. Done sometimes is as good as perfect.

Now its on to fans. We live in the subtropics and have endured 100+ Fahrenheit days in the summer. A boat can get stupid hot. Since we are planning to spend time in the even hotter tropics, fans are something a bit more important than just a nicety. Steve on Siempre Sabado is in Baja, Mexico which is really stupid hot so when he sang the praises of the small Caframo fans, I paid attention. I even went so far as to dutifully stand in front of the fan display at West Marine seeing which model produced a stiff breeze and was impressed by the windage of the small and unobtrusive looking Caframos. These things are great. So when Mark asked me what my preference for fans was I told him.

When our shipment arrived I was surprised at how enormous the box was. When we opened it, I was greeted not by boxes full of the small but mighty Caframos but by seemingly huge Caframo Sirocco fans. 9 of em. The lack of a cage on the smaller Caframos apparently bugged Mark's sense of aesthetics and he thought that these much larger fans were an even better choice. I know from my trials at West Marine that these were in fact good fans but man oh man are they big. HUGE. I suppose the good news is that if we ever encounter no wind we can just open the hatches, use the gimbal feature to point the fans at the sail and begin to sail with the gale force winds generated in our saloon. I also no longer need to worry about the decor in the boat, our decor theme is now fans.

We have quite a bit of installing to do in the next week or so and we are still awaiting the arrival of our linear lights. I'll post photos of the installed lights and fans as soon as we've completed the installation.

Playing Sit and Spin

While we are still toying with the deck layout (more on that later) Operation Make Ceol Mor A Home continues. We installed yet more task lighting into the cabinets. We are using good old fashioned, unflattering fluorescent lighting because what we require is a rugged fixture and abundant light when we are digging through a cabinet or locker. I'm sure Mark knows exactly what the amp draw is but since these lights will only ever be used momentarily and not for a constant light source it shouldn't matter that much. They are fluorescent- low amp draw in exchange for making your face look green. Everything is a trade off. The galley cabinet work lights are now installed and its just a matter of tidying up the wiring and replacing the teak cabinet facing.

We took the boat out for a little chug on Saturday. I like to joke that if something happened to Mark, I could absolutely sail the boat well enough on my own to get to my desired location. I just can't dock the thing and so would be forced to sail in circles in the harbor until docking help arrived. I'm working on it. We headed out to the bay- where there is a lot of room for screw ups to work on my docking technique.

We had a nice breeze going, enough so that everyone seemed to be out on the bay with all their canvas up enjoying the day. Not us. Under my command Ceol Mor was playing sit and spin. I'm getting used to pivoting on the keel so basically it looked like I was doing doughnuts in a parking lot. I am sure all the sailors zipping by thought "what is that idiot doing?". Never mind. It will not be the last time I look like an idiot to be sure. In the end, I got a good feel for pivoting and understanding prop walk and prop wash . I'm still not the greatest at backing the boat and can only do so for about 50 feet before I screw that up. Its ok, we've got time. Someday I hope to be able to back the boat into our slip as elegantly and smoothly as Mark. Scratch that. Someday I hope to be able to dock without my stomach in my throat from fear of hitting someone else's boat. Boat owners everywhere should sigh with relief at my unwillingness to dock until I am absolutely sure I'm not going to bash into someone else's boat.

I should probably mention that while I am an outstanding car driver- as in a really great, safe, tireless long distance driver, I am crap at parallel parking. I think perhaps I am just 'parking challenged' and everyone should offer me understanding. Everyone lauds Danica Patrick and Ellen MacArthur but have you even seen either one of them park? I rest my case. So long as I can dock without damaging anything we will consider it a win.

Now about that rigging...

For those of you who read the last post and though "Get back to the boat already." this post should make you happy. For those of you who who could not care less about the rigging of a sail boat and only read this blog to hear about my jacked up craft projects, you can skip this one. It is by its very nature on the dry and technical side. We try to have something for everyone. ;)

Ceol Mor was either set up to look salty while tied permanently to the docks or she was rigged by a masochist. We've known for quite some time that we need to move just about all of the deck hardware to make it easier to handle the lines and sails. We got confirmation of this fact when we went sailing with Salty Gene who commented that while our boat is a solid, surprisingly nimble boat the hoisting and adjusting of the sails was "just too hard". This is what happens when people buy a boat and don't actually sail it- you get awkward block placement, undersized winches, etc. Fair play to the previous owners though. While the deck layout and rigging might not be conducive to actual sailing they did take immaculate care of the interior teak.

Since Mark and I do sail the boat and we've got a departure date to REALLY sail the boat, we've known for sometime that we would be redoing the entire deck layout. Since we've had so many other issues to address, we moved it down the list and planned to take a hard look at every piece of deck hardware one by one and figure out what's wrong and what we can do to make it right and most importantly- make it easier to sail. We like easy.

The first issue we are addressing is the pain in the butt job that is hauling in the main sheet. Ceol Mor is only a 42 foot boat, it shouldn't be this hard. As it turns out, the main sheet and vang lines are both routed through a double block at the front of the boom. The location of the double block causes the main sheet to draw across the vang fiddle when the lines are under tension. Fantastic. As if the undersized winches weren't providing enough of a work out, now we've got unwanted friction to make things just that much more difficult and to chew through our lines. Good for keeping rope suppliers in business, not so good for us our our wallet or our desire to make things easier.

The long term, permanent solution is to replace the boom vang with a rigid vang, install a new block for the main sheet on the pad eye currently being used for the boom vang fiddle. Then we will route the main sheet directly from this point to a block at the base of the mast and avoid the clash with the vang because the only clash we want on our boat is 'London Calling'.

What we are doing as a temporary fix is to replace the double block with two single blocks to ease the passage of the main sheet across the vang fiddle. We chose Schaefer M100-02 blocks for this. We chose them because they retail for $345 and Mark found them on clearance for $112.  That is one sweet deal. If there had been more than 2 in stock, we would have grabbed all of them. We know the sheets will still rub on the fiddle with this temporary fix, but hopefully much less so than before and the fact that the new blocks are much larger than the old ones should help us to more easily trim the sails into a shape that will make all of the brilliant sail trimmers weep at our lack of finesse.

The blocks attach with soft shackles which you can purchase for around $100 a piece or, if you have been hemorrhaging money like we have you can buy some Amsteel line and jolly well learn to splice it yourself. Mark did a good job for a first attempt, I need a bit more practice (okay a LOT of practice.). The finished shackles aren't perfect but fine for just now until our splicing skill gets a bit better. The blocks aren't going to live where they are just now anyway. I imagine those 2 blocks are going to be moved around quite a bit as we figure out all the ins and outs of the deck layout and what we can do to improve it.

Never mind the soft shackles, look at that beautifully varnished table.

Sailing with Salty Gene.

We affectionately refer to our main sail as Baggy MacBaggerton

One of Mark's favorite dock buddies is Salty Gene. His name is actually just Gene but we've benefited so much from his knowledge gained during his 6+ years spent cruising the Caribbean on the boat he built himself, his years sailing the US and added with the fact that he manages to wear a fisherman's hat without looking the least bit twee that I feel calling him Salty Gene just fits better. And this is my blog so there ya go...Salty Gene it is.

Anyway, we had the opportunity to take the boat out with Salty Gene aboard to get an idea of what we want to add and more importantly, where the screw ups on the deck lay out and running rigging are so we can address them while we refit. We had plenty of wind at around 20-22 knots. Enough that we were able to get moving along at a well heeled over clip even though our main sail is the more akin to a sleeping bag then a sail. We managed to lose a batten due to me not tying up the end well. Fortunately, with such a  badly blown out sail I don't think a batten or the lack there of would make any difference at all. Mark asked me if I felt humbled by the loss of our batten due to my mistake. I told him no, I did not feel humbled because in order to feel humbled I had to first be feeling a bit superior about my skills. I just assume all the time that I will bumble my way through ignorance, make lots of mistakes but get through it all somehow. Besides, all the other battens remained intact so I must have done some of them correctly.

Salty Gene at the helm

It was a very good sail. The suggestions Salty Gene made were for the most part already on our list so at least we got confirmation that we are on the right track. We also had it illustrated to us just how crappy the deck layout is. Mark has been thinking things out carefully and this should be the next big project once we tidy up the plumbing. Rigid boom vang, jammers, increasing the size of winches, new clutches, organizers, etc should keep us busy for a while as the current configuration has been declared to be "Crap. Absolute crap" by Mark and after getting the jib sheets hung up on various parts of the rigging, me cranking a winch for a heck of a lot longer than I would like to, dealing with far too much friction on the lines. etc I have to agree. Salty Gene agreed that our current set up "is too damned hard". So we are going to do what we need to make it easy because I am all about easy.( Mark, I say if you really want those 54 winches by all means go for it!)

Salty Gene declared the boat to be a good, solid and dependable sailor. We know a bit more about what we want to do to the boat especially  for when sailing with a bit of wind. The sun was shining, the girls were happy and all in all I have to say it was a very good day. After we got the boat docked and tucked away, it was time for some birthday cake (Kitty is 2!) and to make plans for some overnight sails this summer.

Kitchen...galley..either way it needs some work

Mark has asked me to come up with a plan for our galley. While we both cook (well, I do things in the kitchen/galley that could be called cooking if you are being kind) since the galley is exposed it sort of falls into the aesthetic realm which is my area so I get to design it. Mark told me I should have a wish list and while some items on my list won't happen due to space constraints, I decided to dream big.

The following photo is not mine, nor is it a photo of Ceol Mor but if Mark could manage to build the same galley for me I should say I would be well pleased. Yes. I think this would do nicely.

 Never mind that this isn't even a galley on a monohull, it is the galley of Blue Guru, a luxury 70 foot catamaran available for charter from Charterworld for the bargain price of $29,000 per week. Still, I think this galley set up would work nicely for me. I still wouldn't be able to whip up gourmet meals unless you count grilled cheese as an epicurean masterpiece but I would look really good making messes in this. I might even be inspired to wear a cute and tidy apron. You told me to dream big Mark...

And now, back to reality. Here is a shot looking into the galley from the saloon. Yes, it looks like a bomb went off. A boat in refit often looks like what it is- a construction site. You'll notice that there isn't even room enough for the stove from Blue Guru in our galley. So I shall have to keep the beautiful galley of Blue Guru in my head and work with what I've got.

Now back to reality, its time to dream up a teeny, tiny dream galley. I would like Corian countertops. I've lived with them in the house and I really like them. They are easy to keep clean, are heat resistant and light in weight- very light in weight which is good not only for sailing but because a boat galley means you will have to lift up panels in the countertop to access storage. A lighter panel to lift while rocking and rolling in the sea is a good thing and since I guarantee that at some point I will drop said panel on my foot, my poor toes will appreciate the lighter weight. Ideally I'd have Corian fiddles with handholds cut in but if sticking with teak fiddles means we are done sooner and with a few more pennies in our pocket by all means- keep the teak.

We currently have a double bowl shallow sink. I want to scrap that for a deeper single basin. If I need to have a double basin for one bowl of salt water and one for fresh water for washing up, I can always drop in a plastic basin. Having the deeper single bowl means I will have a handy spot to clean the grime off of Kitty. She's a wee thing so I imagine it will serve her well as a bathtub for a few more years. I want to keep the fresh water and salt water foot pumps, but I want to ditch the horrible, impossible to fill a pot under faucet we currently have for a goose neck faucet with an attached spray hose. This means we have to have a pressurized water system which is at the top of my list of wants.

Ceol Mor has a gimballed 2 burner propane stove and oven. Due to the fact that there is no real room for a proper propane locker on our boat ( we have a tank on the stern rail) I want to get rid of the huge and heavy and very expensive to bring to ABYC safety standards stove in favor of a simple, inexpensive, lightweight and easy to install Origo 3000. It will be easier to build a locker to store alcohol. It will be easier to transport cans of fuel via the dinghy as opposed to schlepping a big and heavy propane tank. I've done dry runs cooking in my Dutch oven on a stove top and feel very sure that we can forgo the Origo 6000 which has an oven. I'd rather use the space where the oven would fit for storage. Especially because for some reason Mark is very attached to bringing a bread machine on board. Well you'll need a spot to store that huge machine and this is the only spot that it will fit in.

We currently have an old microwave installed and with my fantastic cooking abilities *cough cough* the microwave and the inverter that allows it to function get a workout on the boat. We've found a compact microwave/convection oven combo and I am hoping that the footprint will work on Ceol Mor. That will take care of any oven needs that can not be met with either the Dutch oven or a solar oven. I do not expect to use the oven all that much but it would be nice to have from time to time.

We have an antiquated holding plate in a reefer box just now. It pretty much sucks. I WISH we had the room and amp hours for THIS sweet set up but we don't have either. Womp. Womp. My goal here is to have me climbing up on the counters, throwing my upper body down into a small, dark hole and trying to extricate food stuffs as little as possible. My first choice would be a 2 drawer refrigerator/freezer. my second choice would be a small refrigerator drawer for day to say stuff and a well insulated ice box with holding plate for long term storage. What I will probably end up with is an Engel portable model. So long as we figure out a way to store it out of the way, I'll deal with it and just pretend that it is a gorgeous drawer model.

The one thing I dreamed up that I really want and that Mark is applying his Mr. Wizard skills too is a lifting storage system. We have a reefer box wedged between the sink and bulkhead for food storage. it is difficult to access, deep and again requires far too much acrobatic talent for me to ever be happy about. What I want is to build in a removable, locking lid into the countertop which when removed will allow access to a shelving system that raises up and locks into position. When you are done getting your  needed items out, you can lower it, replace the lid and never once have to engage in contortionism. I initally though about gas lifts but Mark insists this would not support the weight of canned goods. He has a better idea. Since we are still in the design and engineering process of this project and are probably about 6 months from installation you'll just have to stay tuned to see how this one pans out. I do know that if we are successful, short sailors everywhere will sing our praises.

So that is how I see the galley of Ceol Mor in my minds eye. It will be a heck of a lot of work but if we've had to delay departure to get the boat finished, it would be silly to skimp on the design of the galley, something we will use constantly to save a few weeks work. Make it so Mark, make it so.

Its The Plumber I've Come to Fix The Sink

Baby feet are much cuter than bilge pumps

As we finish the last bit of wiring until such time as we add new electronics, we are now moving on to the next theme on our list- plumbing. We are planning on redoing the whole shebang and have been figuring out what we have, what doesn't work and what can be improved.

First item up are the bilge pumps. We had 2- one electric pump and one manual. Since Mark is a big fan of redundancy, we need more pumps. Our bilge is very narrow and very deep so of course the standard off the shelf variety won't fit without major reconstruction. The current plan is to have 2 automatic bilge pumps- one deep in the bilge and one higher up that should only run if the water gets really high inthe bilge. I hope we never have reason to use that secondary pump!

As Mark was taking apart the manual bilge pump for refurbishment he noticed that our pump doesn't empty out completely. This means that we had a bit of salt encrustation from the one time we had to use the manual pump 2 years ago. Lesson learned- flush that pump with fresh water! We also discovered that our manual bilge pump is what we would use to discharge black water from the head holding tanks. We haven't had reason to use this as we've only been in protected waters and therefore have pumped out when necessary.

Remember how I told you our manual pump never completely dries out? That means if we kept what we have at some point we would have sewage left in our manual pump. That my friends means we would carry a bit of poop with us and not in the holding tank where it beklongs. Eww. I've got a toddler in diapers who refuses to use the toilet. I do not need any more extra poop in my life. This obvious-to-everyone-but-clueless-peeps-like- Mark-and-I-info means we are reconfiguring our head discharge system. We will be adding a dedicated manual pump for offshore discharge. This also means we will be able to remove about 20 feet of sanitation hose which will not only free up a large bit of space but will remove 20 feet of hose that can/will eventually become permeated and smelly. We've also long thought that 2 heads, while nice removes quite a bit of storage space. We plan on reconfiguring the 2 holding tanks so that they both service the rear head. We want to remove the forward head and use it for storage. We plan on not tearing down the forward head, but just removing the toilet and rearranging the plumbing. This will give us the option to reinstall the forward head should we ever decide to sell the boat.

While Mark and I make plans for plumbing, the girls are enjoying the beautiful sunny weather which is the hallmark of spring time in Texas. The verbena and roses are blooming and Kitty and Maura spend their afternoons in the garden. $2 buys a bunch of sidewalk chalk and a large container of bubbles which gives us weeks of fun. Its time to kick off the shoes, scribble in the sun and listen to the birds singing. Time to daydream and imagine and just enjoy the here and now. Now about that plumbing, lets talk about pressurized water...

Up, down, up down, once more for good measure

One of the issues we've had is water collecting in the bilge. This meant a trip up the mast for Mark to suss out the reason since we've checked out all the possible deck leaks. Yup, there are 2 mounting holes at the top of the mast that are open. So down Mark came to purchase the necessary stuff to close it up. Up he went again to install the plugs, down again once he realized he needed a different size. Up once more for good measure with the proper sized plugs and now hopefully we've stopped the water ingress. We really appreciate our ugly mast steps just now. they might not be pretty but they certainly made this job a whole lot easier than it would have been without them.

While he was up the mast, Mark did a bit of investigation to determine why our steaming light comes on when we power up the anchor light. Seems we have a short circuit in the wiring. The question is- is it at the fixture or deep within the mast? We are hoping its at the fixture and the installation of our LED tricolor will cure it. Of course, with our luck it will be the wiring which is toast. The good news is we have an unused wire for a strobe within the mast we can swap out for the wire currently in use. The bad news is this will still be a pain in the butt when we were hoping we just had to have a new tricolor mounting fabricated. We've got to get this sorted as we have a quickly approaching deadline...

While Mark slaved away at the top of the mast, Maura had her favorite cousin over for a sleepover. What do 12 year old girls want to do on perfectly warm, sunny Spring days? Join the madness that is the Kemah boardwalk in Spring. $20 for a ride the roller coaster and spinny rides until you puke wrist band makes for some seriously happy kids. They returned giggling and breathless and full of giddy exuberance. We have to put up with traffic, crowds and noise at the marina but sometimes having a mini amusement park right next to the boat is a pretty sweet deal. If we didn't have a tween it would be something less than awesome but since we do, it works.

While the big girls ran around the boardwalk, Kitty and I stopped by to check on the progress of the wiring. Kitty likes to answer her own questions. "Where Daddy? Daddy on he boat". Kitty looks forward to these little visits through out the day. I do worry about her coming up with some weird associations though.

Currently, her favorite video is the Backyardigans Pirate Adventure and she has used this to form her own association boat=pirate. While we were driving, Kitty piped up from her seat with important information for me- "Daddy on he boat. Daddy a pirate. Daddy say 'arrrgh'". I suppose if you are almost 2 it makes sense, pirates have boats and say 'argh'. Daddy is always on his boat so that must mean he is a pirate although he indulges in far more colorful terms while dealing with the boat than 'argh'. I should probably take this opportunity to tell her that pirates are actually the bad guys and explain the socio-economic and political reasons piracy exists but she is not yet 2 and its just too cute when she says "arrgh" so we will just  skip this opportunity to educate her. I'm sure there are saltier than thou types who will feel I am allowing her to glorify piracy but they can deride me as they please. I promise I won't buy her a little plastic AK 47, at least until she is 3. ;-)

Let There Be Light

There are times when my desire to just get going conflicts with Mark's desire to get going when the boat is just as he would like it.  Some times he comes up with improvements he would like to do that I argue are just a time sink. Then there are times when he finishes these project and I have to admit that the functionality we gain was well worth the extra time he spent. Never the less, there is a self imposed time limit so we have to pick and choose which projects will give the most functionality knowing we can not do all of them.

Wiring in engine compartment lights might seem like not a big deal unless you are having to sort out Old Perky in a space that previously would have made an excellent mushroom farm. Now instead of fumbling around with a flashlight or trying to find an out of the way area to hang a utility lamp we can  flip a switch and VOILA! Let there be light! This will make a huge difference in making engine trouble shooting and maintenance a bit less of a pain in the rump. Well it will still be a pain but it will be a well illuminated pain.

In other news, Salty Gene came aboard to inspect Mark's wiring. A former marine electrician, he has specific ideas of what constitutes proper wiring. He declared the new wiring on Ceol Mor as "first class". Mark was absolutely chuffed with this pronouncement. Its nice every once in a while to get a little validation.

So work continues. The autopilot computer is being relocated so that all the electrical components are in one area. We are finishing up the new plumbing plan and I'm coming up with my galley wish list. Best of all, we are just days away from taking the boat out to check all of our work thus far and to actually shake out the sails I am so excited to leave the dock, if even for a few hours. That means we are back to an unfinished item on the list- learn how to sail the boat.

Meanwhile, back on the boat

While we thoroughly enjoyed our vacation, there has been no rest for the weary- or wicked. Or something. The day after we returned from the UK it was back to business.

Mark started to sort out the wiring from the mast. Either the builder or a previous owner thought it would be a good idea to run all the wires from the mast under the sole of the boat. Good in theory but perhaps lacking a bit in execution. What do you do with a drunken sailor? Let him route wiring apparently. Instead of running the wiring through conduit neatly in as direct a manner as possible, the unnamed person responsible for wiring just put them any old place. This meant our bilge and under sole area looked like this:

Not only did this mean tracking down any problems would take three times as long as it should but it meant that we could not use the area for storage and with 4 peeps aboard we need every inch of storage we can squeak out. The chaos and disorder also caused Capt. Perfecto's left eye to twtich funny.

Mark has been painstakingly repairing crappy splicing (if you find your wires are too short, just take a stab at splicing with an exacto knife and duct tape. Still too short? Do it again! Measuring cable is for girlie men!) and routing the wiring neatly under the sole. Thanks to a combo of expandable braid and cable conduit it now looks like this:

All the cabling now is decently spliced, labeled and running through conduit which is neatly tucked away. Now we have a place for storage (we are designing a sliding tray system to hold canned goods) once we move on to the plumbing which has been routed in a similar haphazard manner. Oh and now that I can actually SEE the bilges I think I will be painting them in the very near future. Fantastic! Another project. Whee.

And now that the wiring is nearly done and the plans for the plumbing refit are being finalized we are getting to the fun part. I'm figuring out exactly what I want to do with the galley while Mark and Kitty continue to research our options for electronics. ELECTRONICS! Once we start installing them it means we are really on the down hill side and getting to the bottom of the refit list and I for one will be really, really glad to take that list with every little box ticked and set it on FIYAH! I may or may not dance nekkid around the burning refit list. If I do, I sure as heck won't be posting photos of that on the blog. Somethings are better left to the imagination.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

 In 2 short weeks Texas went from its winter state of dead and brown to full on, sprouting, blooming springtime madness. Weeds have been reproducing with wild abandon in the garden, the grass spouted well past ankle height to the dismay of our HOA and the roses have utterly taken over. I spent 3 days just trying to tidy up the grass, weed the beds, trim the crepe myrtles that have arisen from their slumber with a jolt and cut back the roses which have formed a hedge worthy of Maleficient. I did have some pretty cute helpers, although Kitty prefers to pluck roses and throw the petals like confetti at a parade more than anything else. Maura is an ace weeder though- with a bit of prodding that is. Our reward at the end of the gardening marathons were beautiful, big as saucer blooms through out the house. Nice.