The Countdown has begun!!!

The countdown has begun!!

Were just 2 weeks from our planned departure date and the projects are still madly underway!  We just got back the plexiglass for our replacement hatches. and I have to admit they turned out great!!

Aft cabin hatch
The original hatches were vacuum molded plexi and were probably really nice when originally built in the 70's! The biggest issue I had with them is the oddball size!  the aft hatch I could have cut off the moulding in coamings and done alot of glass work to make a regular hatch fit,  but that idea ( for now) seemed way to involved!  So we built new hatches from African mahogany with smoked plexiglas tops bedded in Sikaflex.


Forward cabin hatch! 
Turned out pretty good too!

We've spent the last 2 weeks getting the genoa luff tape replaced with the correct size for our new roller furling (oops)  buying a few engine spares (like the $120 water impeller!  Yikes!)  some extra filters,  connected the engine to the hot water tank so that we can make hot water while motoring!

Engine room with tools strapped down and ho twater tank!
We installed the hot water circuit by connecting to 2 designed for ports on the engine block and added a couple of valves so that we could isolate the hot water heater if there was a problem!  We also added an anti-siphon loop to the engine water exhaust!  


All we have left to do know is pick up the solar panels,  drop the car off at a friends house, pack the dinghy up and head out!  

Oh we've also picked up a delorme InReach satellite tracker as a safety item.  It track our position on an hourly basis ( while we're travelling) There's a link on our main page calle "where are we now"  that will take you to a map and show you our current position!  

fingers crossed,  the next post will be once the trip has started!! 




Comments

  1. polarpages9 September 2017 at 08:06

    Just saw your coordinates on the "where we are now" map and it looks like you've crossed the border. Safe travels, happy sailors!! Looking forward to reading all your posts! We'll miss you! -C

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Morgan Out Island 41 Pedestal Upgrade

Image
  Morgan Out Island 41 Pedestal Upgrade When we first bought our Morgan Out Island in 2015,  the Previous owner had started on a rudimentary console to hold sailing instruments that surrounded the existing binnacle compass.  As it was far from complete we discarded it and built a ply wood “pod” with the intention of housing the existing Raymarine ST60  trio of Speed, Depth and wind instruments.  Added to that I purchased a Garmin Echomap 7 inch plotter to give me some navigational data The original pod was functional but far too large and completely interfered with cockpit liveability.  If someone was sitting on the front cockpit seat (facing aft)  the pod was right in their face.  From the helm station, shorter users had difficulty seeing over it (originally designed for my viewing height).  The challenge was to keep the same analogue instruments, add switching and migrate to a larger 9 inch  MFD.  Some people now favour a single p...
Read more

Propane locker part 1

Image
When  we first installed our propane system on Never Monday we lashed our propane tanks to the stern pulpit.  While this worked for keeping the tanks "vented"  and i'd done the same on a previous boat (also with 10lb tanks).  the result was a bit ugly and in incident where the stern of the boat got hung up on some piles made us plainly aware of how vulnerable this also left the tanks  Original tank hanging from rail.  We decided that the tanks needed more protection, both from the elements and to move them inside the the life lines to give them some additional protection.  We looked at commerical options but at close to $1000 for a locker that would only hold one tank,we knew that there had to be a better option.  After all they are just a fiberglass box!  In looking around at my options I found this blog post: Pheonix's custom fiberglass propane locker So I set out to build my own.... Step 1  was to decide on the dimensions.  We ca...
Read more

Propane Locker (Part 2)

Image
Oh, glorious, glorious sanding.... (thanks Mads!!) We're back at it.  Working on the propane locker that is.  I try to limit my exposure to grinding fibreglass as i had a bad reaction to heavy fibreglass grinding when I was a teenager (allergic reaction,  my face swelled up like a chipmunk)     One of the problems with building anything with corners using a male plug mold is you tend to get a build up of fibreglass at the corners and a smooth finish on the inside and rough finish on the outside.  Most of the rough finish can be dealt with using a nice 7inch disc sander ( HF has a nice cheap one that has lasted me 5 years so far!!)  After demolding and initial grinding. I realised that there was substantial flare out the the bottom corner where sides wrapped around to the form the bottom and the bottom layers had wrapped up to the sides (rookie mistake I should have known this would happen).  Also because I used 1708 knitted fabric,  the ...
Read more