Log May 10th 7 Days a Week

Well as you would expect things went for a crap. Our Honda generator that had been bullet proof finally packed it up. We got up to work and Jake tried to start it . No way....

Just by luck Luven happened to drop by and after about 4 hours announced that he needed to go deeper into the engine.... in my language that means don't cross your fingers.... so I figured I better get the big Generator sorted out.

The big 8000 watt generator started up fine but one of the sensors or something was screwed up causing it to stop running soon after it started.... so I tried to problem solve it with my trusty multimeter. Well that's ok but no way can I get this somewhat wider body of mine around, or over top of the generator. Even Luven had had a hassle with it.... So I decided to move the damn thing... all 440 lbs. Well that sounds tough but not really. A small crowbar and a bad temper. No Problem.

So in the middle of this excitement Luven shows up with a 300' extension cord..... priorities change... We ran the cord from the boat to Dave and Kate's house and were back in business. I will hook the generator up when I really need it. Back to the windows!!

Jake had to take off to marine school for 2 weeks so we were on our own. Julie & I really wanted to replace a window to see how it went. What a pain in the butt. Lots of scraping to remove all the old silicone. And the fiberglass also had some structural damage. Well I managed to reinforce the whole frame with fiberglass but it took an extra day....

As the pictures show it all turned out ok.

Somewhere in here Dave and his wife Kate had to leave with their children because he was developing blood clots in his leg. He is a dive master and we hope his  problem was not related to his diving???

Anyway Julie & I were left in charge of the animals. 4PM was dinnertime at the zoo and what a blast.  It reminded me of when I was a kid. Big family.... Christ don't get between the food and the animals. You could lose a leg...

The weather gods decided finally to give us some rain. We filed our water tanks on Free Radical and had lots of water to wash down the dirty dusty deck of Spirit. We switched over to inside work for a couple of days. Julie had finished painting and varnishing the entire starboard side, and I got the floorboards put back down.

Then I switched gears and started working on the refrigeration. Julie faired up and painted the icebox, and now the compressor and evaporator plate had to be installed. Two days later we had cold beer! A real breakthrough - this was the first of the many sub systems to be installed.

Thinking ahead, I decided to reinforce the large center window structure in the salon. The deck is thin there and there is a lot of flex, so I made a couple of wooden struts and glassed these into place.

Meanwhile Julie was busy on the concrete dock pounding grommets into the trampolines. I had ordered 1/4" line to string them on with, and now we had everything we needed to get rid of the old ugly trampolines that came with the boat. Jake arrived for work and we showed him how to string them on and he went to it. Several of the old eye bolts were gone, and this was easier said than done to replace them - this took up half the day!

One windless, cloudless day we opened up the mainsail and Julie restitched one of the sail slugs that had broken near the bottom of the sail. We didn't get time to put it up the mast that day, so we covered it back up and planned on doing that another day.

Finally the wind was down and we took the time to run the main up the mast. Jake & I flaked it down and covered up with an old blue tarp to protect it from the sun . 

With Jake back at school for the week, I took the opportunity to get one of the electric heads hooked up. This involved not only the plumbing to provide a water supply, but also I had to start to figure out the wiring in the boat. So I cleaned up the nav area so I could get at the electrical panel and spent a day just figuring out how the boat was wired. Meanwhile Julie was busy sanding and fairing up the galley and salon area ready for painting.

Next day was toilet day. I hooked up the intake hose to a convenient through hull fitting, and got the wiring sorted out. Pushed the button and voila! A brand new electric head all working just fine. No more pumping. Now we had cold beer AND a place to put it afterwards!

By this time Julie had finished painting the galley and salon area. So, next was getting the kitchen sink in and working. The countertop was a write off, as was the old ugly yellow sink. Out they went and I built a new countertop and laminated it with white Formica. Cut out the hole for the sink and in went the new shiny stainless steel sink.....still have to do the plumbing, but the whole area looks much better. While I was at it with the Contact Cement, I Formica-ed the salon table top, ready for Julie to paint the underside.

Jake returned to work the next Monday after having passed his Merchant Marine introductory course. The final push was on to finish the installation of the new acrylic windows. It was brutal, dirty, itchy work in the hot sun. But you can see the results - the boat really looks great from the outside now. And no more leaks!

So as you can see Julie & I don't really have a life right now ...... we're 14hrsX7days a week building the cat. We expect to have it finished sometime in October. At that time we will be booking a few charters for the new season..... If you interested you can email us at svfreeradical@gmail.com