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.

Hatches, I've Got Your Hatches Right Here

The installation of the newly refurnished and revitalized hatches has begun in earnest. Boy oh boy does having shiny hatches make a difference. The refurbishment project was undertaken in an attempt to protect the frames from deterioration but is it okay to just be a bit shallow and admit that the fact they look beautiful makes me happy?

The fact that they are being installed on a freshly painted cabin top helps with the aesthetic appeal. The down side to this is that there is still painting to be done on the deck and bow so what we have now is a shiny cabin top which makes the rest of the decks look really, really tired. This means more taping (which takes a lot longer than you would think), more painting (again with the time sink) and yet more polishing and waxing of said paint. 

It is my secret fear that all of this obsessive spit and polish will result in a deck so slippery that we end up shooting crew members off the side of the boat like penguins on an iceberg,

 Oxidized paint is ugly but its also grippy. I do think we will be revisiting the nonskid sooner rather than later as with the rest of the deck so pristine and slick, I want the nonskid areas to REALLY be nonskid. 

The good news is that either way, the cabin top is just about ready to have the turtle shell and deck hardware installed and that is another milestone to tick off our list.

Meanwhile, Kitty likes to check up on the progress and tell us what she thinks of the work thus far. She also likes to provide commentary on her dad. She will proudly tell you that her daddy "is a worker". She holds workers in high esteem whether they be her family, or boat yard workers, road construction crews basically anyone who uses a tool in their daily work is a "worker" and she holds them in very high regard. Anytime she has a toy or household item which is damaged, she brushes it off and says it's okay because "Daddy can fix it, He is a good fixer. he can fix anything." Now to help her see that SHE can be a worker who fixes things too.

A Cure for The Varnish Blues

I've been thinking about changing the layout and design of the blog for a bit. I'm still thinking big blog design thoughts but I think I do really need to change the tag line. 'A little crew, a small boat and a great big world to see' will work perfectly when we cast off the lines (looking like late spring at this point) but until then, we are still- despite our heartfelt desires for it to be otherwise, a refit blog. In keeping with the way things have been going as of late, I have come up with a new tag line:

Our Life With Ceol Mor- we do the stupid so you don't have to.

The finish we achieved thus far on the varnish left much to be desired. Dragging, brush marks, runs, etc, etc. We could just call it good and live with the uneven, kind of gloopy (gloopy IS a technical term, At least now it is.) overly thick finish. A previous owner had made this choice at some point in the past which is why we were dealing with some fairly manky looking flaky, peeling varnish in the first place. Our thoughts were if we get the bright work to a really fine, immaculate finish then it would be easier to keep it up to a level we are happy with. Since neither one of us wants to ever have to take it down to bare wood again, we've spent the time to get it right.

Varnishing is one of those jobs that sounds fairly straight forward. If you follow the instructions in the refit Bible This Old Boat, Second Edition: Completely Revised and Expanded you thin the initial coat of varnish by 50%, then 20%, then 10% and continue on with sanding with specific varying sandpaper grits and you should have a beautiful finish after about 9 coats. Mr, Casey gives excellent advice but with one caveat. He should state that this works "Sometimes, Usually, Mostly. Unless you have crap brush skills".  We do in fact, have crap brush skills. Also,  Ceol Mor apparently likes being unique and quirky which means that despite our most careful adherence to the manufacturer's and Mr. Casey's instructions, our finished product looked well, crap.

Mark had a think about it and I am thrilled that after much sanding (MUCH sanding) and trial and error we have come up with a much more straight forward way of getting the level of finish we wanted. After applying an initial coat 2 coats of  Interlux Perfection Plus Varnish Clear Quart Kit thinned 75% with Interlux Reducing Solvent 2333N to really get it into the wood, we thinned EVERY coat 50% and applied it with a soft cloth, much like a French polish application.


YES! Success! Okay, so it's not a time saver as we applied 20 coats this far., (Yes. I really did say 20 coats. There are 10 more to go so a total of 30. Jinkies.) but the level of finish is one we are happy with and the results are very consistent. We are hoping that with regular maintenance every 6 months or so we can keep it looking tidy and pristine. A little sanding, a couple of new coats and fingers crossed it continues to look like shiny, happy bright work.. We could have saved SO much time and effort if Mark had just had the good sense to come up with this fix in the first place.

See? We do manage to muck it all up but come up with a fix that works. So if you are suffering the varnish blues, you might give this method a try. We just saved you a couple of weeks of frustration. We do the stupid so you don't have to,

Mark opted to mount the handrails on pvc pipe and then add counter balances to each end. 2 sawhorses, 'stops' mounted on each side to prevent the rails from rolling off and now we are able to rotate the rails to ensure a very even application. Best to do this now while the headliner is off.

Hit The Deck

We arrived home from the airport and were back at the boat within an hour. We had a bit of a breather but now it was time to address the last big topic on the refit- the deck layout.

Ceol Mor is a really great sailing boat. Bob Perry knows a thing or two about designing a boat which is balanced, comfortable and sure footed. Previous owners of Ceol Mor ostensibly purchased her because of the way she moves under sail. So why exactly did they undersize the winches then add a Bimini top whose frame fouls the winch handles constantly and, run lines so they aren't in the most direct line, have a track that does not allow the genoa cars to be adjusted without a set of power tools and a hammer and have a traveler that is pretty much inoperable? The only thing I can figure is they like a challenge. I like challenges too but fighting my boat just to adjust the sails is not one of them. Also, deck hardware options have a come along way since the 1980s and just the progress of line clutches alone warrants some redesign work on an old boat, Fortunately, Captain Perfecto feels the same and as a bonus he has mad engineer skills so after a long design process, it was time to get busy.

Painted and prepped and ready to go

With Mark's spudly wiring conduit and mounts installed to support the new NavPod, the turtle shell painted and polished, it was time to address the traveler. We removed the track and end blocks and had them re-anodized. Once we got them back, Mark began putting together his new design for the traveler car.

Stainless steel mounting plates made by Mark with, you guessed it- his beloved angle grinder.

 Being Captain Perfecto, he of course had to make his own part (which we will call a thingamabob) out of a stainless steel bolt. With an angle grinder. By hand. I am both proud of his design and craftsmanship abilities and terrified at his enjoyment of a successful outcome. No Mark, I do not want stainless steel davits hand crafted by you. I want to go sailing already. They would undoubtedly be beautiful and perfect and would take months to construct so...no.

From this, to this. No one can ever accuse Mark of not being patient.

In preparation for the installation for the deck hardware, we prepped the cabin top deck area for painting. No sense in mounting the hardware on a beat up deck that will have to be removed again soon for painting anyway, just get on with it bit by bit from the get go.

 We removed the hatches to have the frames bead blasted and re-anodized and started taping. It sounds like such an easy thing, taping. In actuality it took hours and hours to get it all done just so. The actual painting it self, using Awlcraft 2000 went fairly quickly. Thanks to the ability of Awlcraft to be sanded and buffed, we were able to get a finish we were happy with. Getting the spray gun to give a finish took a bit of time and patience but again, one of Mark's strong qualities is patience. We are giving it a bit of time to get a good cure on it before we get finicky with the paint line edges in preparation for painting the lower portion of the decks once we are ready to address the genoa tracks.


We had such a (ahem) good time spending countless hours taping, that we got to retape the deck in reverse to freshen up the non-skid areas. We used Awlgrip as that was there originally. We maybe aren't 100% happy with the amount of texture we got with the Awlgrip and Griptex. I think we made an error in going with the fine but we can make do for now. Just have to remember to wear proper shoes with grip until we can readdress this down the road. I think we are going to do a bit more research on Kiwigrip as we have friends who have used it with great success. The best is the enemy of good enough so we are moving on...

With the hatches out for refurbishment, it was time to address the hatch lenses. They were cloudy from UV damage, scratched from years of use and stained a bit from determined birds. It took a bit longer to get the lenses polished up, but polished up they are now. They look like new. Can't wait to get the newly anodized frames back, reassemble and rebed them. The difference in clarity and light through the lenses after attention is massive. Unfortunately, now the Sunbrella hatch covers are looking really sad so it's time for me to sew up some new ones.

We've gotten Kitty into a morning preschool twice a week and she is really liking it. When she isn't at preschool, she spends a lot of time on the boat with us. She spends a lot of time drawing pirate treasure maps. She gives them out to dock friends here and there, admonishing them to keep it secret. She's been through enough of a refit to wisely tell the potential treasure hunters that she will help them find the treasure by sailing with them on THEIR boat. Hang in there little one. We will be able to sail to find treasure with Ceol Mor very, very soon.



I can't see us having the boat back together in a month, but we are making steady progress and there is light at the end of a seriously long tunnel. I can see us having Ceol Mor back together, in tip top shape and ready to sail very soon indeed.

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.

Insert Clever Title Here

It seems as if every time I start to think that we are ready to really get into a routine and tick items off our list the Universe likes to throw a curve ball. If I were trying to divine a reason, it would be that we have yet to learn the lesson that there really is no such thing as a plan and schedules are like unicorns. Mythical, elusive and something that people have heard of but no one has actually seen.

I had planned to return from a week in Dallas with Maura and my mom to get the house packed up and moved in a few short days. What I did not plan on was a rare summertime outbreak of Influenza Type A at the Dallas hotel that felled so many people the CDC had to be notified. Who gets the flu in July? I do. That's who.

I managed to escape getting sick in Dallas only to return home and to cook up an impressive case for myself and Kitty. Maura apparently has an amazing immune system and escaped infection. I have been laid low for a solid week. So much for getting anything other than sleeping done. Kitty had the good sense to wait for me to begin recovering before succumbing herself. Fortunately we have some flexibility in our moving date so my viral induced slug like momentum was accommodated.  Mark wisely has avoided contagion by staying on the boat moving the refit forward.

Mark has been painstakingly going over every inch of the deck, seeking out any and all soft spots and crafting a raised base for all the winches. Lifting the winches and mast collar off the deck by just a few millimeters might seem like a whole lot of work for such a small measurement but we are really hoping that this along with bedding the hardware properly with butyl tape will ensure that this time, the deck core stays dry. I am hopeful because I never want to have to go through this again. Like Ever.

Yucky. Seriously yucky.

This week, it was chase down a leak at the mast, recore a soft spot in the deck and tidy up the mast collar. You can see in the photo below that attention to this area has been needed for sometime.

Since I have been holed up all week fighting the flu, Mark thoughtfully did a bit of content creation documenting the before and after of the mast collar project. A big thanks to him for taking the time to grab some short video for me.

So the word of the day is "Spartite" and the theme for the month is "Schedules and other mythical beings" and we continue onward...

Deck Deck WINCH!

Everyone should have a teen on board who is an ace boat washer

We have begun the final big project in earnest. The former layout of the deck hardware was...it was...well, it was crap. Our lines running into the deck organizers and clutches were just off a straight line just the perfect amount to ensure unnecessary friction. Friction is bad. Not just because it tears up your running rigging but also because it makes me have to work just a bit harder to sail the boat. And then there were the winches. Someone has decided that the original plan Bob Perry came up with was not good and they undersized the genoa winches. This once again means I am having to work harder than I actually have to. Again with the sailing being physical enough as it is, Project Rig It For Slackers is now in full force.

We got new Lewmar Evo 55 winches to handle the genoa sheets. This should make things much easier for me. We aren't so soft as to install electric winches but I am seriously excited about the extra oomph the new winches should provide.

We removed the ridiculously tiny main winches and moved the 44s that were previously handling the genoa sheets into their place. Before we reinstalled them, we sent them out for a bit of cosmetic surgery. They were functioning just fine, but time and the elements were beating them up more than we would like. When you start pricing winches, you understand why its in your best interest to protect what you have against corrosion to extend their life expectancy. We had our old winches rechromed by Speed and Sport Chrome and so far, we are very pleased. $270 for 2 winches and the chrome is thick, even and SHINY! Hopefully this will help keep corrosion at bay.

Now that's a shiny winch!

We are carefully checking our layout before installing and so far, it looks like this project is going to be a HUGE improvement in the functionality of the boat. We've got some cute almost miniature Antal deck organizers to route the lines into our new Lewmar clutches. We went with  Selden deck organizers to handle the lines off the mast. We still need to figure out what we are going to do to make the traveler more functional and we've got to get the rigid boom vang installed but I am getting excited. Once the deck is reorganized, we can put the cabin back together and then it's time to GO SAILING.

Yes, I am more than ready to try out the new deck layout.

So thankful Maura is handy with a boat brush and hose

Fishermen, Moisture Meters And Other Liars

Fishermen are known to be great liars. Its not widely known, but moisture meters are also great liars. They will tell you that there is only one small area of wet deck core but once you take the time to fix that one small area, you will discover other  small areas (all under deck hardware) that are wet and need attention. By attention I mean recoring and recoring is a pain in the butt. Anyone who tells you otherwise is also a great liar.

As part of the deck hardware redesign project, the old winches, organizers and clutches have been removed. Once these were removed,  we found wet areas of deck core under them so...remove old core, cut and install dry balsa. Sounds easy until you factor in the hardeners that don't want to play nice so we get to to remove and repeat. Finally get it to a workable state, then pull out those power tools and fair, fair, fair. Soon enough it will be time to start vacuum bagging which sounds straightforward until you remember this is all on the deck, which is the ceiling of the cabin and gravity is always on. Now add in the fact that this is a project lead by Captain Perfecto and so there is no "good enough", it has to be completed to a finish better than new and you see why I say recoring is a pain in the butt. Hopefully soon we have a perfectly dry and sound deck ready to accept the deck hardware. I will tell you that there will be LIBERAL use of butyl tape on all the insertion points so we never have to do this again.

The girls cabin looks like a haunted house right now. Or a work space draped in plastic to keep the dust down. Same thing.

Let me remind you all that we did not buy a project boat. Ours just needed a "little"bit of work. I say this because just today someone was asking whether or not they should take on a boat that the sellers have deemed a "project" boat. If a seller is calling it a project, run screaming in the other direction.

On a happier note, the front cabin now has an installed hand rail and cabinetry on the port side where once there was a cramped head.

Want to make Captain Perfecto's eye twitch? Point out that you can see the teak bungs covering the screws. He spent more time than you can imagine trying to get the grain to match perfectly so they would disappear. It confounds him that they are visible. I told him they were almost decorative and hey, its just craftsmanship on display. I have yet to convince him but he has accepted it somewhat due to other pressing projects.

Visible bungs or not, we have more storage and I LOVE storage.

As Mark was fighting with the fairing of the deck recore, I was washing the boat. It is becoming apparent that it's time to think about having the hull painted. The Awlgrip is just past its prime and is nearing the end of its life and dying a slow, chalky death. While trying to get the boat clean I had a couple of thoughts. One- Awlgrip is crap and I don't know why anyone even bothers with it. Two, even though painting the boat is definitely NOT something we need to do and its on the spendy side of things after all the time and money lavished on Ceol Mor, it would just make me happy to have the hull as beautiful as the interior. Gilding the lily? Yes but at this point why the heck not? It's only money (HA!) and since we have not been bleeding money but have apparently severed a major monetary artery what's a paint job and new canvas really? So I am looking at Awlcraft 2000 color charts and trying to convince Mark that new canvas and hull paint is justified after the huge amount of work that has been done. Stay tuned...

A Little Work Here, A Little Work There

It would be nice to just move from one area of the boat to another, but that's too simple, straight forward and linear. If we have learned anything its that nothing to do withe boats is straight forward and linear. You throw a boat into the equation and you get thrown in many directions at once. So it is with the refit. You get ready to complete a project and then you realize that you are at the mercy of shipping times for necessary equipment so while you wait on delivery, its best to move to another project rather than waste time.

Kitty still loves to "help" Give her tools, any tools and she will happily play for hours

One of the bigger projects is redoing the deck hardware layout. For some reason, a PO thought it would be fun to change up the layout so that every time you need to hoist or tweak a sail. it was an difficult as possible. Perhaps they wanted to make it hard in order to save money on a gym membership but it has not been working for us. The goal all along has been for each of us to be able to single hand the boat. I am a mighty girl RAWR! but not quite that mighty. For this to happen, I need a bit more assistance from our winches and a little less chafe on the sheets.

Armed with his CAD software, hardware catalogs and the original boat design drawings, Mark has been carefully mapping out the deck layout. First up was figuring out the new deck organizers.

 Originally after much research, Mark had really wanted to use Spinlock organizers and clutches so he emailed Spinlock to get more technical information and sizing information. The guy at Spinlock emailed Mark back and instead of answering his questions said " this is over specced for your boat". This REALLY annoyed Mark. Not only did Spinlock not answer his question but the one thing you do not do is tell an engineer that his carefully made choices are wrong. Oh Spinlock, have you not realized that EVERYTHING on our boat is overspecced? So, Mark made a solemn vow to have no Spinlock equipment what so ever on our boat because yeah, it annoyed him and an annoyed Mark can hold a grudge like you would not believe. Bye bye Spinlock, hello Antal, Selden and Lewmar.

We still can not understand why the PO removed the 55 winches specced by Bob Perry for genoa/jib sheets and replaced them with 44s and then really undersized the main sheet winches but this is being rectified. The 44s are being repurposed for the mains and we have shiny new Lewmar 55s on their way. These will be installed once we get the deck under the winches recored.

 That's right, another instance of the infallibility of moisture meters and more cursing at the PO for not bedding the hardware properly in the first place. If you are going to be bedding hardware, please please for the love of future refitters check out this how to from Compass Marine . Do it. Buy some butyl tape from them. Use it. Yes, it does matter because while soft spots can be recored, its a major pain in the butt to do it correctly and you can save yourself from curses being thrown at you from a future owner, a man up to his elbows in balsa and fiberglass.

While we wait for delivery of equipment, Mark milled a new hand rail for the front cabin. We laughingly call this turning dollars to dust because yeah, teak. Not cheap but functional, sturdy, perfectly sized and aesthetically beautiful. No sense in half measures when we have spent so much time and effort on the front cabin. If you want it done right, have Mark do it.

Some see a pile of sawdust, boat owners see money blowing in the wind.

Here's hoping we can get the all the equipment delivered  installed before it becomes unbearably hot around here. Working on the decks in July and August is cruel and unusual punishment so fingers crossed the rest of the shiny bits get here soon, the recoring (thankfully a small area) is straight forward and we can keep on keeping on.

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.