Behold! A Spud!

While I have been sanding (pretty much non-stop) Mark has been hard at work refurbishing our turtle shell. This is the fiberglass piece that bolts to the deck protecting the companionway. It not only needed to be repainted, with new non skid applied but since we have decided to mount our instruments over the companionway for easy viewing, of course the project grew in scope. Now it needed to be set up to keep all that wiring that makes the instruments go BING! tidy and away from water. So Mark began the turtle shell refurbishment in earnest.

Mark carefully built custom nav pod mounts out of fiberglass and epoxy. This went just about perfectly. Anytime a small project goes "just about perfectly" we hold our breaths. The refit gods giveth and they taketh away. it's all about balance apparently.


As he started to install the conduit for the wiring, it became apparent that a standard  PVC elbow would not work. The turning radius was too tight and the wires needed to be neatly contained in a tapering conduit. This is not something you can just buy off the shelf and be done. Oh no, that would be too easy. As I sat nearby sanding ( that seems to be all I do these days), Mark informed me he needed to run to the market for a potato.What? A potato. Well, yeah of course.

Once the required tuber was acquired, Mark got busy whittling. Kitty asked if he was cooking. Nope, just  doing some boat work, nothing to see here.



After carefully checking the turn radius and matching the diameter to the PVC conduit, it was time to tightly wind plastic wrap around the potato.  To me, this seemed like a lot of effort on a potato that would not result in fries but I fully admit my opinion might have been influenced by the fact that it was getting close to dinner time. And I was hungry.

Once he had everything to size and tightly wrapped, Mark got busy with strips of fiberglass cloth and epoxy. After a night of curing, we had a custom elbow which would allow the nav pod wiring to be gently coaxed into position, kept watertight and tidy. Success. Now all that was left to do was to core out the potato and prepare it for installation.

Sadly, there were still no fries.

So while I find the whole potato as a refit tool amusing, I have to admit that it worked pretty darn well. Kind of weird, but it works. I wonder if the chandleries will start carrying produce.

With the conduit sized, built and ready for installation, Mark was ready to begin the painting of the turtle shell. Having dealt with an Awlgrip painted hull, we were determined to find a better paint. Paint that does not require a very expensive specialty soap which does nothing to improve the boat because hey, at some point a previous owner had the boat compounded and waxed and you can not compound Awlgrip. So after much thinking and research we decided to go with Awlcraft 2000 which has the enormous benefit of being buffable but- like everything comes with a tradeoff. Namely that it MUST be sprayed. No relatively easy to DIY rolling and tipping. No Awlcraft must be sprayed and spraying is a skill requiring a bit of technical finesse.

Mark carefully followed the manufacturers recs for mixing ratios. He installed a total of 3 inline filters to prevent any moisture from causing runs and orange peel and other painting atrocities. Mark wet down the painting area to prevent any dust from marring the finish. he suited up and put on his respirator and slowly, carefully and methodically began to paint.

The primer coat was looking pretty good. Buoyed by his initial success, Mark continued on the next coat. It looked horrible. Fish eyes all over the paint which means despite his best efforts, our ridiculously hot and humid climate was sneaking water in past the filters and completely jacking up the paint.

As Mark was sanding away the evidence of his painting debacle, he piped up "what we need is a heat exchanger". I made the mistake of asking why and then he went on to what I am sure would have been an enlightening lecture on thermodynamics had I been armed with a notebook and pen. Something about gasses and vapor and temperature fluctuations and "what's the upshot?" I asked. The upshot was we would be building our own heat exchanger. So $70, a few trips to Kemah Hardware and a couple of hours later we were now in possession of a heat exchanger to cool the air which should help reduce the moisture coming through and jacking up our paint job.

 Once again, Mark suited up and primed the turtle shell. Once again, he waited patiently for it to set up before he painted once again, this time with his custom heat exchanger. After careful application of two coats, he stepped back to admire his work. There was about a 95% improvement in the amount of fish eyes. Unfortunately, Mark is OCD enough for this to be unacceptable. After living so many years with the ARE, I got it and decided that yes indeed, we were still not quite there. Yay for more sanding.

A bit dejected, we packed up to have dinner at a get together with other sailors. One of the sailors is an experienced body shop owner. As Mark was relating his painting woes, this wise in the ways of painting let us in on a secret, "Oh, you just need an airless paint gun. You can rent them". While we are so grateful to have this bit of information, we can't help but chuckle. Of course this was a problem with an easy solution. Of COURSE Captain Perfecto had over thought it and over engineered it. This is just how this entire refitting process has been. *sigh*

I am still trying to remember all of the thermodynamic theory. My brain hurts.

The Universe wants to be sure that Mark and I are a unit, experiencing the same tribulations and trials. This means that my first round of varnishing it absolutely HORRID looking and will require a redo which means, more sanding. Ugh. Fortunately, Kitty loves to make videos and I have convinced her she is hosting a DIY refit show which means I can get her to sand for me by telling her we need another take for "her show". I might be a varnishing failure but I am a work load sharing GENIUS. Tom Sawyer has nothing on me...

P.S. Mark thinks that he can achieve that final 5% improvement in the paint job by adding ice to the heat exchanger water to further cool it, there fore making any airless gun rental or purchase unnecessary,. Help me. Someone, help me...

In High Cotton

We fired up the engine. This might seem like a non-momentous occasion until you realize that it has been over a year since it was last started. The fuel lines have been disconnected for a year as Mark began working on the big project marked "plumbing". The plumbing punch list includes not only replacing all of what you would normally consider plumbing- i.e. water lines, toilet lines, etc. but also the fuel lines which feed the engine and generator. It has been an enormous job. You don't realize how big a 42 foot boat is until you decide to totally redo the plumbing lines...or the electrical wiring.

As Mark finished hooking up the fuel lines after his massive over haul of the fuel filtration system, having just finished the seawater lines to the engine and generator, our fingers were crossed. The generator seawater impeller was replaced (more on this later), the engine flushed and the engine was primed using the new fuel pump. It was now or never.

Mark went up to the cockpit, turned the key and...it fired up the very first time. Only sailors who have previously dealt with a cantankerous old diesel engine (are there any other kind of engines?) will understand, but it turned over the first time. The exhaust was not overly smoky, the engine was not belchy, the vibration was noticeably lessened and the exhaust water was sputtering out of the stern as we had hoped. WINNING!!!

Marine diesel repair sounds so simple in the abstract but in reality, every tiny repair or modification is a giant pain in the butt. The simple sounding task of replacing the generator seawater impeller was made incredibly time consuming by just trying to find the right impeller. Our first attempt at ordering one online ended up in us having the absolute wrong one. Turns out we need an Oberdorfer impeller which as far as I can tell is made by one person who lives alone somewhere in the Alps and the parts are delivered to the post only once a month when the snows clear enough to allow the pack goats through. Also, Karl the impeller maker is getting pretty sick of making these so his production is dependent on whether he feels like it or not. So we ordered the right make and the right size, it was the bore diameter which was wrong. We managed to score one on our second attempt and you can bet that we are having Karl whip up another to carry as a spare.

Our dock neighbor Hugh stopped by. Hugh is sort of the Dock Daddy genius, experienced sailor and talented engineer of our dock. His boat, which he designed and had  custom built by Tashing is hands down the most perfect and beautiful vehicle for cruising I have ever seen. To say his boat is well thought out and absolutely beautiful would be a gross understatement. I do not covet many things, but his boat is the one thing I would give a kidney for. I say this so you understand how over the moon and chuffed Mark was when Hugh exclaimed that the fuel filtration Mark designed was the most functional, elegant, tidy and practical installation he had ever seen. What took 3 separate filters to do on Hugh's boat, Mark managed to do with only 2 and to retain every bit as much functionality as the 3 filter system Good on ya Mark. I told ya it was something to be proud of.

So now its time to take a moment to sit back and toast the work done on the engine. I say a moment because well, the generator is generating some consternation and difficulties of its own. Of course. Enough so that its going to get a post of its very own. Like I have said before- boats are really stupid.

 I have been anxiously awaiting 2 things to happen. One for late summer to get here so I could grab a photo of the local cotton crop ( I love cotton ) and 2. For something to go so well that I could use the phrase "In high cotton". I was worried these 2 requirements would not align, but this week they did.

Its Just Never Easy

Ever have one of those days where despite your best attempts, despite your careful attention to  precise execution, nothing seems to go as planned? We have a lot of those days on Ceol Mor.

Kitty's most recent frustration was do to her desire build a drum kit which kept slipping on the slick table causing her to drop her groove. Some days, we feel exactly the same way kid.

My most recent frustrations were due to the wind picking up after being dead calm as I laid out painted panels to dry and my never ending on going battle with my sewing machine which I am pretty convinced is intelligent, cognizant  and for some reason is very, very angry with me. Mark's frustration of the day (he gets daily ones) is the routing of hot and cold pressurized water lines.

It seems the industry standard for plumbing runs is to just shove the hose in any available space and call it good. Since we want to maximize the space in the boat, keeping everything tidy so we can utilize every single centimeter of space and since Mark is Captain Perfecto and therefore can not sleep until he manages to execute a complete redesign of all the systems to a level of perfection never before seen except on nuclear class subs, its slow going. Just planning out and beginning the install of the hot and cold pressurized lines ate up a good 2 days and its still ongoing.

Our pace is also slowing down a bit due to the heat. Whether you call it 32c or 94f its essentially the same thing. Freaking hot and its only going to get worse.In a vain attempt to keep the boat at a tolerable level while we work, we have installed our awesome boom tent. By awesome, I mean completely Red Neck fabulous. I would love to have one of these Ronstan Air Arch or one of these Shade Tree but at around $700 for either of them, our $50 TP version starts to look really good. If I just can learn to play Dueling Banjos on the banjo, I think I can convince the marina neighbors its a stylistic themed choice. All we lack are old tires for fenders and an old green sofa on the foredeck and we are good to go.

In other news of progress, the "varnish lady" has been hard at work applying the varnish to the new teak and holly sole in the master cabin. Due to that particular piece of mill work being on the spendy side, we opted to hire someone who does varnish every single day to finish it. Mark will let me varnish exterior stuff because it doesn't matter how perfect or imperfect it is, you are going to have to redo it sooner rather than later anyway but interior stuff requiring a bit more control and finesse? Best to hire it out. I figure I will post a photo when its done, instead of taking shot after shot as each layer is applied. That would be sort of like watching paint dry. No actually, it would be EXACTLY like watching paint dry.

You Say "Tomato" and I Say "Tomato"....Yeah, it kinda loses something written out

This weekend was all about pushing forward on the master cabin ourselves in an attempt to mitigate the financial hemorrhage caused by trying to hire the work out. Yes, we should be finishing up plumbing but that can wait as the unfinished cabin is so right in our faces so we have to get it done so we can put this debacle behind us.

Mark carefully made templates of the cabinetry so that he could cut the teak staves and install them. My job was much less sexy and despite my pleas to be allowed to use power tools, Mark relegated me to the relatively safe task of cutting what seemed like a thousand pieces of tape to mark the pieces in the order in which they needed to be installed. Gummy scissors are a pain the patookus and it seemed that every five cuts, the silly blades would gum up and require cleaning. I do not think a Sawzall would have been stymied by a tiny little thing like tape but my pleas to be given more power to accomplish the job fell on deaf ears.

While Mark was cutting staves, he stopped long enough to tell me his numbering plan. If you have been reading the blog, you know where this is going. I listened intently, expecting him to tell me that each piece of cabinetry would be given a single letter designation for the group and then numbered individually. That is how I would have done it.

It was at this moment that Mark's Left Brain kicked in while my Right Brain was wondering why on Earth he was making this more difficult than it had to be. It was also at this time that I realized while we both ostensibly spoke English, in reality we have only some vocabulary in common. We speak completely different languages.

Mark asked me to identify each group with a single letter- C for cabinet, D for Drawers and S for sides. He then further asked me to identify each stave over the large letter with a number 1,2, 3 and to further identify the top, middle and bottom of each piece with an A, B, C. Okay, I got this. I happily began marking tape on the staves confident that for once I kind of knew what he wanted and would be able to move things along more quickly.

Things were going well, until I came to the side cabinet template. This particular piece started with a piece that was at waist height as opposed to the one I had done previously which started at the cabin top. "What are you doing?" he asked. "Why, I am marking the tape as you requested" I replied cheerfully. He shook his head "No, No, you've put an A at the top of this piece!" he exclaimed. "Yes, its the top of the piece and the top pieces are A" I said innocently. "No, the A designation is for the first piece in the series. What would make you think it should be an A?" he quizzed. "I thought the A was for the roof line" I responded. "No, the middle length is the first piece and should be A". Okay, whatever I thought. As he went back to cutting more staves, I thought to myself "Self, I have no idea why A is now at the mid line of the wall but so be it. That means B is at the bottom which would make C the cabin top. I don't get it but its his project" and I continued to mark the staves.

Mark came over and took a peek "Why have you put a C here?!?!?!" he asked. "WHY!! What letter do you think should go here?". I could see his lips moving and I could hear what I thought were words I recognized. I had the realization that he is from Left Brania where nothing makes sense to anyone but other Left Brainia citizens and I am from Right Brain Land where nothing is perfect but everyone is pretty cheerful in their mess. I smiled a wide smile at him as he repeated his question "What letter should go here?" "Well" I replied "you could have a K for kiss my... or if that is not to your liking how about an F...".

We did manage to get the pieces all labeled and numbered. Mark managed to get the pieces installed. We learned that some things really are lost in translation. We learned that we should never do projects together where Mark comes up with a clever numbering scheme for me to follow. Most importantly, we were reminded that even though we speak different languages we still really like each other. So much so that we are compiling conversational Left Brain and Right Brain guides for each other. Coming soon to a bookstore near you...

And the head goes bye bye

Words can not adequately express my excitement at the interior destruction going on aboard Ceol Mor these days. Things might currently look to be in an absolute state of upheaval but its all for a very good cause.

 I love our boat. She is a great sailing boat, large enough for our family to cruise in relative comfort and has a beautiful teak interior. Since ANY boat has trade offs and no boat can ever be perfect, there are a few things that really annoy me. One of the biggest annoyances is the front cabin. Since the rear cabin is too small for Mark and I, we have opted to commandeer the v berth. The plus side has been awesome ventilation. The down side has definitely been the lack of floor space.

When Bob Perry designed the Nassau (Tatoosh, same boat. Really.) He designed it for the typical American sailing family who will typically feel that 2 heads are absolutely necessary. I guess we are not typical because we found the squeezing in of a forward head to be completely unnecessary and to make the front cabin feel cramped, stuffy and uncomfortable. So we are ripping that sucker out!

Mark has finally found a boatwright who can put up with his perfectionist tendencies and whose level of craftsmanship is on a level he is comfortable with- Rick. Rick is an artist and has a tendency to perhaps over embellish on the fit and finish but Mark has found a way to get on the same page with Rick. You guessed it- really, really detailed drawings of what he wants. Drawings that look a lot like this: 

You didn't really think Mark would be able to just do some rough sketches on a napkin did you? So with Mark's detailed instructions and plans and Rick's excellent craftsmanship, we should soon have a truly spectacular Master Cabin. WHOOPIE!! I can not tell you how very happy this makes me.

As to the naysayers who say "but what will you do when your only head breaks?!?!" The answer is- fix it.Quickly. And use a porta potty until such time as the repairs are affected. We are keeping the forward holding tank as the rear one is on the puny side and will have a secondary pump installed so that we have the one head plumbed to both holding tanks. I plan on being completely OCD on the head maintenance and preventative use so if you come visit us, be prepared. A small price to pay for a comfortable master cabin with additional usable storage.

I am so excited about this portion of the refit that the current state of the boat doesn't even phase me. Even though right now it looks a lot like this:

Its gonna be messy for a bit but oh it will be worth it!

Keep On Keeping On...

Kitty likes sparkly, fluffy crowns. And power tools and trucks. This girl contains multitudes....

There have been a flurry of projects going on around these parts. Maura has been working on increasing her social media presence which is why there is no photo of her. Also, my memory card with the photos of her is el corrupto. In all fairness, Maura has helped us tremendously by helping out a lot with household chores and watching the little one while we work. She has had some successes- YAY! She made dinner and cleaned up! And some failures. If you are babysitting and things get really quiet you need to assume your charge is off making mischief of some sort that will invariably end badly. Life lessons. All important life lessons.

Which brings me to Kitty's project. Kitty took it upon herself to trim her own hair. Remember how I mentioned how much she loved her scissors? Who knew that post contained foreshadowing. No, the photo does not show her hair parting over her ear. It shows where she hacked off a honking big chunk of hair leaving a gap over her ear. She doesn't have a whole lot of hair to begin with and now she has even less. She will be sporting more than her fair share of clips for a while. There is no reason for Mark's hair. It just is what it is.

While we are planning out the placement of our new clutches and winches and figuring out how to improve the run of lines to the cockpit, Mark took the traveler apart for a bit of maintenance on the traveler, the mounting plate and the deck beneath it all. We spent a good bit of time matching paint colors (why oh why did the PO use 3 different shades of white on one boat?) and hopefully once its all tidied up, perfected and painted it will look brand new. I had photos of it all but again with the corrupted card. They weren't terribly exciting photos anyway, so there.

Mark continues to work on the Most Splendid Fuel System Ever. I know that he is methodical in all that he does and I know the man does not possess a single slacker gene but I can't help but think that there has not been a tremendous amount of progress. Actually, there has been it just doesn't actually LOOK like it. He has all the parts he needs. Or so he thought. He originally planned to bend copper tubing using the tools he made to ensure that all the bends were exact and all the straight runs straight. He found out that by bending the copper himself, the foot print of the tubing runs was too large to install on the Star board plate for mounting. We either need to get another boat with a bigger engine room or he will have to order new copper elbows and what nots which have a tighter turning radius. These have to be ordered because of course, no one stocks these. No one. These are not exactly exotic but apparently no one does their own plumbing, except for us. So we are waiting on
the fittings to finish stage 2.

For those of you who geek out over wiring and plumbing diagrams, Here's an isometric for you. If you are planning on redoing your fuel system and you want to out geek your dock neighbors, go to my Flickr account where I've made all 3 of the schematics and isometrics public. Download and blow em up. We just saved you 2 weeks of work. Let your Nerd flag fly my friends, let it fly. Yes, we have similar paperwork for every single system Mark has touched. No, he really can not stop being an engineer for even a minute. Yes, I have learned to embrace his persnickety perfectionism. No, I have not adopted it for my own projects. Be serious.

Speaking of my projects, I got busy on my latest endeavor. There was a huge flock of vultures hanging around which can only mean one thing. I am about to begin a sewing project.

Seriously, flock of vultures and I am not even kidding

I began working on the salon port light curtains in earnest. I desperately want to try to make the boat interior just a wee bit more modern. Ok, I want to drag it kicking and screaming out of the 1980s. Not that I have anything against hunter green other than it induces a desire in me to wear high waisted acid washed jeans and to arrange my bangs to resemble a shrubbery on my forehead, but having the boat feel like a home makes me happy and I am all about being happy. So freshened up and modernized it must be.

This should be easy right? Wrong. Firstly, the fabric I chose to help in the de-80fying of the boat has a lovely geometric pattern. While I love the crispness of the design, I do not love the perfection required in cutting out said fabric. The boat will never heel over enough to cover up my wonky first attempt. In order to a have a peaceful existence, it is important to know yourself. I bought lots of extra fabric.

The second issue which makes things tricky is that our cabin sides slope. This means the readily available boat curtain rods won't work as the curtains would never hang down over the portlights. Also, our opening ports have dogs which protrude too much to allow us to use the commercially available curtain tracks. We need something that will attach at both the top and the bottom, will allow the panels to slide to open and close and with enough stretch to work around the port light dogs. I think I've come up with a solution with shock cord and pad eyes. We shall see how we get on.

 I did have a stroke of genius for the backing fabric. The heavily insulated, bubbly, shiny aluminum stuff you see on most boats is too bulky to allow the curtains to be slid open and closed on the shock cord. I am lining ours with aluminum coated ironing board fabric. Time will tell how well it holds up to mildew but during my initial most definitely NOT scientific explorations it did reflect the radiant heat much more than just a plain fabric liner. I'm sure the bubbly stuff is better at insulating but the ability to open and close the curtains easily outweighs the slight insulating advantage of the bulky stuff.

Fortunately, I have quite a bit of time before Mark will let me install the hardware for the curtains as he works in the boat so I can take my time and do the sewing in fits and spurts as a way to diminish my inevitable cursing of my trusty Singer. I will be sure to post photos of the salon once its all installed- whether it works beautifully or ends in tears.

And soon, very soon I shall begin the completely functionally unnecessary but oh so soul satisfying girlification of our head. Just need to brush up on my air brushing skills first. Ok, so I need to obtain some air brushing skills but that is all part of the plan...

I

Gross Understatements, Tacking Lessons and Glue

Shiny valve, pictured here cause its the closest thing to jewelry I'll be getting for a looong time

And so we move on to the plumbing refit. Since Mark has pretty much decided that anything involving hoses falls under the plumbing heading, we aren't just redoing lines to the holding tanks. Captain Perfecto has declared the entire system to be 'crap' due to the previous installation of hoses running every which way with no thought to judicious use of space, ease of access and conscientious routing. So while we will be eventually redoing the head intake, the lines to the holding tank, the entire fresh water system, the shower plumbing, the fresh and salt water lines from the sinks, the cooling water for the engine we are currently dealing with the fuel system.

Step one with Mark is always to look at the defects of a system. He can't help it, its the engineer in him. After carefully considering the current fuel system, he came up with a list of defects that I like to call 'Why This System is Crap'. Actually, he used the word 'mess' not crap but since after all these years together I still hear his Scottish accent and think "If its not Scottish its crap!" I, who am writing this will title his lists whatever I like. Here is his litany of complaints with our current fuel system-

• Existing system is a mess
• 8 separate hoses connected to the diesel fuel tanks- 4 hoses for the forward tank, 4 hoses for the aft tank/ engine supply and return and generator supply and return
• 4 poorly marked selector valves at the fuel tanks- engine supply forward and aft, engine return forward and aft, generator supply forward and aft, generator return forward and aft
• Separate diesel fuel filters for the engine and generator of different types requiring different fuel filters
• Each filter has a priming bulb that due to their geriatric state are no longer squeezable
• Fuel lines are poorly routed through the engine compartment

Mark sat down and after a few hours of creative thinking he came up with a plan. The new not crap system would be comprised of the following-

• A single 6 port fuel tank selector valve
• An electric fuel pump for priming and fuel polishing
• Parallel redundant fuel filters using Racor 500 FG (which will allow us to change the filter while the engine is running
• Selector valves for fuel filter selection and fuel polishing combinations
• Fuel supply and return manifolds to serve both engine and generators and simplify hose requirements

The plus side? We will soon have a fuel system that will not only do its intended job better but will be much easier to service. So much easier that even I, a simple minded soul should be able to manage basic routine maintenance. The down side? As Mark poured over parts catalogs obtain the necessary components of his far superior system, he let out an audible gasp as the parts list climbed upwards of $500 and we hadn't even finished. "I think I might be over thinking this' he said. No. Really? Greatest bit of understatement ever.

While Mark is probably over thinking this, I know that if I don't just cheerfully go along with his Rube Goldberg fuel system it will bug him every time we have to change a filter or polish fuel. (in actuality, his system DOES make perfect sense but I can't admit that without giving him some guff first) Given that, we will indeed have the most spectacularly engineered fuel system possible on our boat. There are other niceties on the refit list that can wait if need be. So long as Mark takes to heart my constant mantra "This boat is leaving in November 2013" if it means I have to deal with an ugly galley in order to enjoy a spectacular fuel system, so be it. Fuel system is just a wee bit more important than a pretty galley anyway.

As we sat at breakfast with our sleep heavy eyes, we took a break to get in some sailing lessons. With empty juice glasses filling in for winches and bits of discarded paper from Kitty's artistic endeavors serving as a Genoa, Mark and Maura worked on tacking techniques. Maura had pointed out that this was her first year as real crew and she needed a bit more explanation as to what was expected of her in order to lend a hand with sailing the boat. Starboard tack, port tack, which side is windward, etc. etc. By jove I think she's got it.

 While Maura and Mark worked on their tacking simulations, Kitty hummed as she played with her most favorite toys in all the world- colored paper, scissors and a glue stick. She entertained herself for a full hour and half with only an occasional assist from me. I know some people swear by an iPad to keep little ones entertained but I can't imagine Kitty ever being as thrilled with anything from Apple as she was by having her very own glue stick and the freedom to use it.