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.

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.

Metals, Meticulous Methodology and a Man Crush...

Why is this man smiling? He is similing because he got to have an "I told you so" moment. He loves those moments.

 While undertaking the rebedding of the portlights, Mark was of the opinion that while the stainless steel frames were in good shape, they were something less than pristine. I was of the opinion that so long as they were rust free and water tight they were functioning as intended and we should just get them rebedded because how much of a difference would laborously polishing every nook and cranny of the frames make? In 2 weeks time they would once again have water spots. Mark lives for perfection, so of course he carefully took all the frames apart and carefully polished and inspected every centimeter.

 Here we see him gleefully showing me that polishing by machine does in fact make a difference. Our boat might have plastic covering the holes where the portlights ought to be but man- are those portlights going to be shiny when they are bedded. For 2 days...

While Mark handles the hands on work, I am in charge of research. You'd think that with the hundreds of how to books on the market that every question you could possibly ask would have been answered. You would be wrong. This is where online sailing communities fill in the gaps. I'm in charge of online discussion/research for a couple of reasons. Firstly, Mark is not as quick a reader as I am. Secondly, and most importantly Mark finds the necessary online sorting of opinions to be impossibly tedious.

Here's the thing about online communities- for every one sailor/adventurer who has a clue you have to sort through 100 opinions from people who have no freaking grip on reality. Planning on going cruising with kids on a sailboat? You'll get 50 people who will tell you you will die a horrible, watery death (these people like to make sailing sound like a deathly proposition in order to thrill the guys at their local watering hole on Friday nights), 40 people who will say "Great! Just bring some duct tape", 9 people who will tell you your boat sucks (because they don't have one, nor have they ever) and then the 1 person who will say that yes, your plans while challenging are doable and you probably won't die or scar your children for life. It can be a task to find that one voice of reason.

I like to ask questions. This is how I learn best. When Mark and I are flummoxed by a needed repair, I can go and ask questions and I know which peeps are duffers and which ones have a good handle on what to do and how to do it. Usually, Mark will narrow his eyes suspicously because being such a Left Brain, it is rare that a person will conduct repairs  in a Mark like, laser precisie manner. Which brings me to Mark's Man Crush.

It started with a discussion as to how to properly bed deck hardware. I knew from time online, the one guy in all the world who does things the way Mark likes things to be done- carefully, with precision and do it over and over until it is perfect. His online nickname is MaineSail. Mark was suspicious until I showed him MaineSail's online how to galleries. It was love at first click for Mark. "Now that is how you do a proper job!". I was right. Thanks to me, Mark has found his online, refit soul mate. Since I will never, ever document how we effect repairs in as thorough a manner as MaineSail (being a Right brain and easily distracted by butterflies) I'll just post a link here. If you want to know how to do things 'properly" here is the place find out how. MaineSail's Boat Projects Mark puffy heart loves his galleries.

And now for some portlight polishing pictures...WHEEE!

Life in Fast Forward

I've been hesitant to start this blog until we had definitely found and purchased a boat. Since we have in fact, purchased a boat - all but the signing of titles- I feel I can safely give you an update on what we have been doing in order to get ready for the big adventure.

You know those video montages where the photos of a persons entire life is set on fast forward? That's a bit how the last 4 months have felt. Here is what we've accomplished this far: learn about sailboat construction and design, begin combing listings (over 1200) for a list of suitable candidates, educate ourselves about pointing ability, weather helm, sea kindliness, learn to asses boat safety and condition by eye, learn all about various sail rigs and the pros and cons of each, identify our list of must haves, plan a route for our travels, investigated sailing conditions for said route, shopped for boats for hours online, shopped for boats for days in person, looked long and hard for a great marine surveyor, put in offers on four other boats, have one boat hauled out and surveyed, sea trialed two different boats,dealt with brokers who were good, brokers who were bad and brokers who were just plain greedy, complete a weekend ASA course, complete additional ASA training, found a boat that works, made an offer, have boat hauled and surveyed, adjusted offer, visit the boat 4 times to inspect the handy work of mechanics who were doing repairs, sea trialed the winning boat, sea trialed the winning boat again, learned all there was to know about boat insurance, purchase insurance, learn more about hull blisters and the various repair techniques than I ever wanted to know, investigate Coast Guard Vessel documentation regs, find a documentation company to handle the Coast Guard regs because they are so meticulous and involved,find a marina, find a slip at the marina that will fit our big gal, look in vain for Mark's ancient RYA certifications in order to lower the insurance rate , give up on this,develop a list of must have safety items, develop a list of equipment, comparasion shop 50 different chandlers for each and every item because DAMN this gets expensive, get quotes on replacing the standing rigging, get quotes on blister repair and bottom painting, consider the merits of different manufacturers paint systems, schedule more sailing lessons... and there's more but I just can't stand to waste the bandwidth.

Suffice it to say, we've been busy. Once Ceol Mor is ours free and clear ( THIS MONDAY!) we get to move on to the far more exciting task of boat repair and finding a competent yard that isn't run by a pirate. I'm hoping that we can at least take off for a week trip down the coast to Corpus Christi before we have to have her hauled out to have her bottom taken care of and her standing rigging replaced.