The adventures of Adagio - A tempo having slow movement; restful at ease.

[Bob23]

Is that a gas heater in the background? Please be careful...we want you around for the 2012 Barnegat Bay Bash!
bob23

[jthatcher]

what a thoughtful guy~    it is gas - vented outside, however,  so, hopefully totally safe!   the gas can is in the shed       looking forward to getting together in the spring - have you been to the new location of shut up and eat yet?   jt

[Bob23]

   Good...just checking. I haven't been to the new Shut Up yet.  We southern Ocean County folks don't make it to the 'big city" of Toms River too often.
   I too am looking forward to the Infamous Barnegat Bay Bash 2012, whatever that turns out to be. Once we turned the corner of the new year, I started thinking about spring and sailing. I guess I'd better work on Koinonia's winter list.
  Have a great winter. Looks like we get our first taste Tuesday night...19 degrees and wind.
Bob23
(oh, I do like the outboard stand. Nice to have it on wheels. I found a cheap (12 clams) lower unit fluid pump at the local boat shop a few years ago. Really makes changing the fluid easy and not messy.)

[jthatcher]

glad you like the stand. i had to tweak the design just a bit so that it would handle the extra long shaft - but so far so good..  the wheels are nice but i need to organize the basement  and clear out some junk so that i can move it to its winter home.     i have been thinking about how i will go about fabricating a new rudder.   a sailing friend is coming for a visit in a couple of weeks - maybe we will tackle that job when he gets here.     did you happen to read the article in the new maib  about the two week cruise in maine?    we used to spend a fair amount of time in that area, and i certainly expect to do some cruising on Adagio there at some point in the future.   maybe you will be retired by then and able to join us!   jt

[Bob23]

   I received just yesterday the new MAIB but haven't gotten to that article yet. The few times I've been in Maine, which was to attend the Maine Boat Builders Show, I fell in love with it.
  I'm sure your'e aware that there is plenty of info here at the site about foiled rudders. I have some templates that Doug142 sent me so if you need them, just holler. If I were to make mine again, I'd probably use foam and glass- much less time than my wood blade. Although I am a wood nut, and it looks and performs great, it was a lot of work. I'd also make mine shorter than the stock rudder but, as they say, it's all water under the keel.
   Bob23

[jthatcher]

well - what a productive weekend!   a friend visited this weekend, and we made progress on a number of different fronts.   first and foremost, we spend time catching up on life - it has probably been 10 years since we last saw each other.  The fact that we have boats and woodworking among other things in common ensured that we would not run out of topics to explore!  We took a look at Adagio's  jib, and he advised that it would be worth it to have a north sails shop look it over to determine if it was worth fixing or if it needed to be replaced.   And he graciously offered to drop it off at a shop near him in Annapolis.   Next we tackled  the tiller project..   making a new tiller for Adagio for the upcoming season
here is a picture of the blank that we glued up  - next to the old, cracked  tiller that we are now using for a pattern.  After removing the clamps, i scraped as much glue squeeze-out as i could with a hand scraper and then i sent it through the planer .


next i laid the old tiller on the blank, traced the critical points  and then did a rough cut with the saber saw..   a band saw would have been nice for this operation, but i don't have one of those right now..    the saber saw did an adequate job..   some work with a spokeshave and some sanding should get us to a point where it actually looks like the old one ..  not a spittin image, perhaps, but  close enough!



we then went on to working on projects around the house - enjoyed a wonderful international dinner at school on saturday evening ( always one of the highlights of the year)   and watched the patriots - broncos game - first football game that i have seen in years.. luckily we also caught the last 5 minutes of the  the giants -saints game - now that was a football game!   Unlike my friend, I have no stake in any of the games, but it was a little sad to see denver  get beat up so badly! 

more on the tiller later!  hopefully good news from the sail loft    by the way.. i just happened to check the kelly hanson site and saw that they are not taking any new orders.. anyone know what is up with that?    jt

[brackish]

JT, been there done that, but curious.  the wood is so light, what did you use?  What kind of glue did you use?  And what is that notch on the bottom for? 

mine was ash and walnut because that is what I had in the scrap pile.

[Shawn]

Nice work on the tiller.

" i just happened to check the kelly hanson site and saw that they are not taking any new orders.. anyone know what is up with that?"

Hopefully, they are going (and staying) out of business. They took a ton of orders and then delayed...delayed...delayed and only filled some of the orders. In my case I ordered 2 sails in Nov. of 2010. They finally got around to delivering two sails in July of 2011 after giving me excuse after excuse for months and months.

One sail was not what I ordered. They agreed that they built the sail wrong and said they would issue a call tag and a refund. Took them a month just to issue a call tag to pick the sail back up and they never refunded my money on that sail. I ended up having to put a claim in through my credit card company. It took National Sail supply less time to build and deliver my custom main sail then it did for Kelly Hanson to issue a call tag.

The BBB has a bunch of complains on Kelly Hanson and there are stories about them taking orders and never delivering at this point. It appears they are trying again with a new name..... buyer BEWARE.

Shawn

[jthatcher]

hi brack - it is ash - i would have liked to alternate the strips with a darker wood, but did not have any other hardwood on hand, so it is all ash.   the notch on the bottom is for the automatic tiller system.   the previous owner showed me how it worked, but i have yet to actually use it..  but i figured it made sense to keep the bracket on the new tiller..   i am sure that it will come in handy at some point.

i used water tight   wood glue.  i will probably go over it with thickened epoxy to be sure than any little gaps are filled in, and then i think that i will use cetol to finish it..     jt

[Bob23]

JT:
   Nice job. I used Cetol on the cabinside trims on my 23. I don't think it has much, if any, UV resistance as I've experienced very short life for the finish on that and other projects. Most of Koinonias teak has received Flagship varnish and it's very hard, has high UV resistance but it more labor intensive to apply. I've had very good life out of Flagship but here at the site, others have used a variety of other finishes with good results. If your'e doing it indoors in your shop, the time shouldn't be a factor. It's a very nice, high gloss finish which to my eye, looks great especially on the tiller.
   Spring's coming!
Bob23
   

[jthatcher]

thanks for the tip, bob -   i will look into it..    it sure did not feel like spring in the air this weekend!  but, what can we expect - we have had such a light winter so far..   jt

[jthatcher]

hello everyone -  stuck here doing duty in the dorm like every other tuesday night during the school year.. twelve years and counting..   but- the bright side is that it generally is a quiet time to catch up on what everyone has been doing, especially those in the south who still have boats in the water..    thanks for the friendly invitation to come down and go sailing -  we just might take you up on that over spring break one of these years!   as for this year, we are headed north to vermont -  no sailing up there - but time to see my kids and to introduce my step daughters to all that Burlington has to offer..

i got a little work done on the new tiller last weekend..  i am still not quite satisfied with the shape, so a little more planing and sanding is in order.   And, as i continue to dream of cruising beyond Adagio's home waters of Barnegat Bay,  I am constantly looking for inspiring blogs about cruising on a small boat.   Some of you may be familiar with this site..  not a compac, but a  kindred spirit, none-the-less at 23  feet -  this family of 3 spent 50 days on the boat last summer, cruising the Pacific northwest..   this is a really well done blog with lots of wonderful pics..   http://www.fivenineclimber.com/boats_sailing/cruising_main.htm

i have to write to this guy -  I am not a climber, but my son is, and  i have lots of other things in common-  cycling, boating ,  boat building and furniture building..    and cruising!    sounds like a neat family.   

I sent for the cruising guide to the erie canal and got that in the mail yesterday.     the best advice i got was to take the mast down and ship it to the other end..  makes for a much more comfortable trip..  but, the canal is supposed to be a great trip - lots of welcoming towns along the way with free or low rate docking .    sounds pretty cool.    anyone here have any experience on the canal that you would like to share?     jt

[jthatcher]

my wife and I just returned from our first trip to the boat in 2012.   We arrived at the marina to find that the job that we did covering the boat with a tarp last fall was less than adequate.   I guess we will need to pay a little better attention to details at the end of this summer.   the tarp was blown off of most of the boat, but, aside from a dirty cockpit, Adagio looked in pretty good shape.   

Our goal for the weekend was to get her cleaned up and waxed in preparation for launching.   I took the motor home over the winter, thinking that it might be better if it were kept indoors, but when i attempted to change the oil in the lower unit, I simply could not get the drain screws loose - never had that problem before with an engine.   I changed the plugs  and decided to let the guys at the marina deal with the oil..   

On the way down, we picked up the new head sail that I ordered back in February.   The one that came with the boat was shot,  and the folks at North Sails  said that a new sail would cost about the same as repairs for the old one..   But their new sail would be coming from half way around the world.. not necessarily a bad thing, but we elected to find a local shop instead..  I ordered the sail from Linthicum sailmakers..     the delivery was a month behind the projected date, but that was not an issue since we did not intend to use the boat in May.   I am anxious, however, to evaluate the performance of the sail!

we washed the boat, and then my wife did some errands as i began the process of waxing the hull.   I seemed to remember that the cove stripe and boot stripe were in rough shape in some areas, but,  they seemed to look a little worse than i recalled.  So, we decided to replace the cove strip - changing over to green  to match the new sail covers that we purchased last year.   it was not easy finding the correct color tape.. we had to travel up to the West Marine store in Brick to get the right size ( and actually had to compromise and move up to tape that is an inch wide - i hope that i don't regret that! )   while we were there, we decided to pick up the 2 inch tape for the boot stripe as well - the boat might have looked kind of funny with  different colored cove and boot striped, and the new cove stripe would have drawn attention to the old boot stripe!   So i spent a few hours scraping the old stuff off,  and i can't say that i am particularly proud of the job with the new stripe.. but the saving grace is that i did a better job on the port side - and that is the side that shows from the dock

So - even though the boat is on the hard,  we spent the night aboard..  does that count toward the tally of nights spent on the boat!      It is not quite the same, of course -  no sound of the water lapping against the hull..  no gentle rocking..   but we were too tired to notice..  after a full day in the sun  and a nice dinner at what is becoming one of our favorite restaurants ( shady rest on route 9)   we turned in for the night and quickly drifted off to sleep.    Neither one of us relished the idea of negotiating the climb down the ladder  in the middle of the night in the event that a bathroom run was necessary..  we resolved that issue by agreeing that we would move the porta potti into the main cabin ( or, as my wife describes it - the room with the little benches  -  i guess that we need to review some nautical vocabulary!  )     

We must have turned in a little after nine so we were ready for an early start on sunday.   we enjoyed our first cup of tea and then got right to work.    after a couple of hours we were ready for a walk.. we headed out to ocean gate and walked along the boardwalk..   a total of about 4 miles..   the weather was absolutely gorgeous..  bright sun, but not too warm.. and a very stiff breeze coming across the river..  it would have been a 2 reef sailing day for sure..   after the walk.. we showered and then headed into toms river to  Shut up and Eat  for breakfast.. i have mentioned this place before - what an experience..  great food and very friendly folks..     we have people at the marina to thank for pointing out good eating establishments!

While we were working this weekend, we met a couple who were prepping their boat for the season..  Loraine and Wally..  we enjoyed a few good conversations with them, and we exchanged email addresses..  they live in Toms River, and we look forward to seeing them again over the summer. 

All in all,  it was a great trip to Jersey..  we were productive - the boat will be launched by the middle of next week..  but, it was also a nice get away weekend..  just my wife and I -  enjoying time together..   with maybe just the right mix of boat related activities combined with enjoying the area..    A very nice start to what I expect will be an enjoyable 2012 season!   jt

[Bob23]

All in all, sounds like a great weekend. I hope to meet you up at Shut Up sometime soon.
For some reason, working on the boat is kinda theraputic...hard to describe. Looking forward to sailing with you this summer.
Bob23...on the hard in NJ!

[Salty19]

Glad to hear all is well in Adagio-land, JT.   I bet she can't wait to hit the water.