What are your plans for spring?
I have to bottom paint as I have decided to put my boat back into a slip this season after all. I have to install a new anchor light since mine was giving me a fit at the end of my last trip.
Not much else that I need to do for this year. It will be nice to get back on the water and have the boat ready to go.
After being sidelined a year as of last week (knee surgery and other things) I hope to just go sailing this spring before it gets hot hot ! Only item left is finishing the remote controls for the Tohatsu (already done the outboard kit part), and running the jacklines and netting to help keep me aboard should the gimpy knee attack me up forward.
Now, that being said, the work list for the last year included lines led aft with a cabin top blocks and a winch and rope clutch, a new loose footed main from National Sails, lazy jacks, shortening the bimini so it fit, repairing a punky area of port settee from a bad toerail leak that hid from me behind the trim and under the cushions, adding a Garmin 54DV chartplotter/depthmeter, cleaning up some funky/sloppy wiring...oh, and a Thetford Curve porta potti for the admiral.
I do want a tiller pilot to slave to the GPS, but can't settle on one at a price I like. Between showers and an upcoming family wedding I've got two open weekends in the next 2 months....then life slows down a bit !
Fixing up my yard trailer, pulling the boat, scraping the hull, try drysailing for awhile.
Get carb cleaned, change motor mount, add deckpipe.
Sail on some overnight cruises with the sailing club and other folks who want to go.
All good plans.
I am planning another Chesapeake Bay cruise for the May/June time frame.
First - get prepared for the trek home. 1300 miles of towing Off the Wind home to northern Illinois. I will strip virtually everything off the deck leaving only mast and boom. Add a strap to the stern and two bungees to let the mast float (from the mast to the bow pulpit. Once home I have some mold voids or pops in the gel coat to repair. I did some of them here in Florida but have many many more to do. Long distance towing seems to produce them as fast as I repair them. Horizontal ones are easy. It is the vertical ones that are a challenge. I want to put in the inside hull depth transducer too prior to launching for the summer. A coat of wax and all things back on deck and I will launch in Pistakee Lake, Illinois.
This is the summer that I will replace sails on my Eclipse. Looking at using Mack again as I was super pleased in the set they made for my Precision 21.
Sail On everyone - looking for a good summer sailing season. The winter sailing has been great!
Last year our lake levels were too low for sailing in Central Ga. Recently we have had plenty of rain and the levels are up!
So, I'll be sailing Ga.Gypsy and camping over the weekends when possible. It's packed and ready to go. Also, planning trips back to Pt. St. Joe Bay, Florida where the conditions are simply outstanding! If you are anywhere in the near the Florida Panhandle, I highly recommend St. Joe Bay where the barrier island of San Blas offers protection from the Gulf and there is never a crowd. Accommodations are across the street and there are plenty of great seafood available.
Fair winds to everyone for a safe season of chasing the wind!
Aux power upgrade, new mast, audio system. Summer sails to include Nantucket, Edgartown, Block island, black sea bass and fluke fishing (old school) and general gunkholing
I am not looking forward to the following, but have procrastinated too long:
1. clean, sand and paint the bottom.
2. remove all the hull striping, replace same with new tape.
3. clean and wax the hull, clean and use woody wax on the topside.
4. sand, prime with zinc chromate, and finish paint with satin black the rudder gudgeon and pintle brackets.
5. rebush the above mentioned components with new bronze bushings and bolts.
6. Wash and treat all sunbrella components with 3M 303.
7. Finish building the tiller to motor linkage for which I have had the components for about a year.
8. Finish stripping the Bristol off the woodwork, a job that was started and is well along, by the sun and weather, clean, brighten and seal with Semco sealer. You know how this works, you just keep trying something else, looking for wood finishing utopia.
9. Install flag halyards so I can actually fly those burgees I have.
10. get the lights on the trailer working so I can pull the boat to do all this stuff.
Hope to finish all this in April so I can go sailing and cruising before it gets too hot. I too look forward to going to Port St Joe/Mexico Beach area. I may possibly move the boat down there for an extended time this fall.
Woody Wax a/k/a Carnuba ROCKS
Brackish, that is one hell of a list. If I may add washing halyards and lubing the masthead sheaves if you'll have the mast down to your list. For a flag halyard, I tie a small block with good 1/8" dyneema line around the backstay pin/shackle at the masthead. The block hangs down about 8" from the mast, just to keep plenty of distance from the sail head. Then pass halyard through block. Flags are tied to the halyard with thin annealed stainless wire.
(http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z290/yamaholic_mcarp/Island%20Time/2199EEF6-345C-4858-B5D3-D35E3B277DC3_zpsxo2bpw4i.jpg)
Thanks for reminding me, I usually wash the halyards and sheets and soak them in fabric softener. Also coil up the 30 amp shore power cord in a bucket with plug ends out and soak it in a mixture of bleach and jomax (what is it about that cord, does mold and mildew like to be close to flowing current?) then dump the fenders in the same bucket.
Interesting about the SS wire for attaching the flags. Do you thread it through the halyard to hold position?
You Captains are making me feel guilty!
My plans: no projects!
I've been working on various improvements right through the harsh (cough, cough) winter of Washington state. And sailing once/twice a week. Now that I'm in my sophomore year of sailing, my Spring plans are to venture farther:
. Out into the Straight of Juan de Fuca
. Around Protection Island
. Into Discovery Bay, and
. Off Dungeness Lighthouse
Sail on!
Man, I wish I didn't have projects.
I HATE doing bottom paint! I am going to do the whole damn thing this year too.
WestMarine had bottom paint on sale too.
Oh my gosh, seeing all the projects out there makes me feel like i should be doing something! On Mas, other than putting on her new sail cover and rudder blade, she mostly needs nothing except to get back to the Bay. Was gunna set up oarlocks but much work on Interlude this winter, and still this spring, has said a no to further not needed to sail projects, well other than finding a couple 16's for some fine members here and a certain Flicka! (you know who you are!)
On a side note but related: i cannot imagine how folks are able to handle the costs on those large vessels you see sitting at the marinas. Interlude (PSC 31) is the smallest of the Pacific Seacraft line, (though actually more space below decks and cockpit than the 34) came with quality construction and gear, well maintained by her previous owner, but still an antique (1989), so needed some work (most of which we knew before purchase, some a surprise but anticipated). It cost us more to recover her dodger and bimini than it did to buy Mas. So many forget it is not a ratio of length to cost, Interlude is twice the length of Mas but her displacement is 12 times as much. We are fortunate that her sails just needed a little cleaning and a batten pocket restitched as they are 8 times the cost of a replacement set for Mas. Glad we also understood that reality of larger boats in advance. So many get a boat then find out they cannot afford to keep her. We love them both, but truly one of the most appreciated qualities of Mas is her simplicity in cost, maintenance and operation.
Quote from: brackish on March 17, 2017, 09:57:24 PM
Interesting about the SS wire for attaching the flags. Do you thread it through the halyard to hold position?
Yep!
Quote from: Mas on March 18, 2017, 11:22:55 AM
(...snip!)
On a side note but related: i cannot imagine how folks are able to handle the costs on those large vessels you see sitting at the marinas.
Many of your larger craft are kept afloat at least partly through various tax fiddles. They might be bought and depreciated and maintained as "business expenses"...for entertaining potential clients, you understand (wink-wink) or financed, with attendant mortgage interest and other deductions, as "2nd homes (http://www.boatus.com/pressroom/release.asp?id=760#.WM4JJrgpowE)"...or both in succession. For this to work well either way, you'll want her leveraged and financed to the gunwales. Only peasants like us own their boats outright...or even a substantial part thereof.
Yep....I can buy a full suite of sails for Saga, including an asymmetrical spinnaker, for the price of 1 sail on my old Catalina 30. I do miss the space though!!!!
Quote from: Bilgemaster on March 19, 2017, 12:38:16 AM
Many of your larger craft are kept afloat at least partly through various tax fiddles. They might be bought and depreciated and maintained as "business expenses"...for entertaining potential clients, you understand (wink-wink) or financed, with attendant mortgage interest and other deductions, as "2nd homes (http://www.boatus.com/pressroom/release.asp?id=760#.WM4JJrgpowE)"...or both in succession. For this to work well either way, you'll want her leveraged and financed to the gunwales. Only peasants like us own their boats outright...or even a substantial part thereof.
Yup, it was the only way we could afford Interlude. She is our home there. The mortgages are very reasonable with zero closing costs and it makes the vessel a stand alone deal rather than using home equity and thus potentially placing your home at risk. We could have rented a place down there but it is a fact that you can sleep on your boat but you can't sail an apartment! Thus the floataminium! A sweet one at that. :)
Mas on the other hand is all ours!
Weather looks to break for spring finally so it'll be wash and wax time before we splash Interlude. Gotta reseat the screws holding the companionway slide guides on Mas as they leaked a little. Was simply going to remove one at a time and put sealant in the hole and screw it back in, clean up the residual and call it done. (hopefully!) Looking forward to the improved handling of her with her new foiled rudder blade that everyone has talked about. Sure there will be other spring projects that creep up, boats right?
Wow! I'm already over my head. I'm sitting here in front of the computer just trying to figure out how to put my life together. The Com-Pac 19 sits in the back yard. I did manage to get the snow and ice off the cover that came with the ice storm we had last week. The cover will not do for next year and I've got to find a way to unload the Parker-Dawson 25 which sits behind it in a better shed structure so I can use that next winter. #2 is to invest in a new cover for the better structure since the one on it will soon blow away in a stiff breeze. After that I'll have to look into reassembling the rudder which Brad got rebuilt last fall. We got the bottom paint and the waxing done but didn't get the boat in the water. There is a beautiful new arch to support the mast which replaced the center compression post. That will make sleeping in the forward birth a lot more comfortable. The new engineering will have to be tested and I'll have to decide whether a kick away strut is called for during heavy weather sailing. I'm not planning on any heavy weather sailing in the foreseeable future but you never know. Next I need to do some more research on a Torqeedo 1003C probably and then spend the money to get one. After that I'll need to convince the neighborhood guys that they aren't going to be in jeopardy for helping me get the boat in the water and probably convince my son-in-law that he won't be signing his life away to help me with the mast. After that everything is easy peasy kInd of. I'll let you know how it goes....Mrs. Elk
A little over a year and half ago we returned to sailing and a lost world opened up again. Many new friends, many of whom I've felt like Ive known my entire life, the frustration of work that cost us much, new tasks that must be done, and the knowledge that time is not my friend, has left me grateful for the quiet and meditative quality that sailing provides. All the work melts away when the sails fill, at least for a while anyway.
Spring signals rebirth. (along with the chores, glad i have them as it gives me purpose along with experience) Don't get me wrong, one less task is good unless it means can't sail. :)
Just finished building the shopping cart at Defender:
1. new pawl springs for the winches. Previous owner wasn't into maintenance or cleaning.
2. New cotter rings for the turnbuckles
3. new spreader boots
4. Schaefer wind indicator
5. Teak plugs (Someone removed the handrails at some point and didn't replace the plugs.)
Already purchased:
1. All new halyard & sheet lines. Need to cut and splice. Went with Cajun Ropes.
2. new mailsail (went with National per many recommendations)
3. Interlux Brightside Sapphire Blue to cover the faded brown cove stripe
4. Varnish Remover and Te-Ka Cleaner. Teak needs to have the varnish removed on a few pieces then all of it needs a good cleaning and oil. Boat came with the deck grate so that should come out really nice.
5. Pick-up new 4hp Yamaha and see if she fits ok on the modified board the previous owner built.
Might do list(Waiting on accountant for final refund $, or so I hope):
Whisker pole
New Genoa (the one that came with the boat is fine but it's Green, Orange, and Yellow. Not sure if I can take looking at that all summer. Though the family will be able to spot me anywhere on the bay with it.
I need a beer just typing all of this work.