Hello? Hello? Is this mic on? Hello?

Jeez, it’s been so long since I’ve posted I’ve forgotten how to do it.

Have I been beavering away on the refit project? Nope. Are things getting done on the boat? Yes. And no. Do I feel guilty about it or stressed? No.

To really hammer it all home I read the articles in Cruising World magazine by Onne Van Der Wal about purchasing an older Pearson 36, him hauling it into his driveway and spending less than a year doing exactly what I am doing. But really, what he did and the time frame that he completed it in is truly impressive. My new boat refit hero!

So, where was I? Oh yes, finished spraying the gloss topcoat on the decks just before winter shut the painting opportunities down. Nine months have gone by. Almost a year. I had high hopes that with heaters and moderate temperatures I would spend a good deal of time in the shed working on interior projects but that didn’t pan out. Some of it due to the fact that many of the projects involved having the deck hardware back in place. Which I couldn’t do because I had not finished the deck repaint task. The gloss was on and the boat taped in anticipation of applying the non-skid. Temperatures were too cold to apply the Awlcraft 2000 with non-skid so I just left the boat taped and spent the winter watching TV.

No, actually I don’t watch TV. Did go to Sarasota Florida and race in the Corsair Nationals. Trip to California to ride my Ducati with a good friend. Another off-road motorcycle riding week in Utah with my brother and friends. Did the Down the Bay race in May as the “Two" part of the Two-handed race on an Andrews 28 sport boat. We finished first, almost getting line honors but passed by a J-124 in the last mile. Fun in starting conditions of 25 knots, gusts over 30 knots. Back to Barcelona, Slovenia and Croatia for a month. Spent a week on a 54’ Jeanneau in the Adriatic. I wished I had been on our C&C 37, a much finer sailing machine.

One thing I did do last year was contact a local rigging company and get an estimate on replacing almost all the standing rigging and all of the running rigging and lifelines. We discussed replacing the original Navtec rod rigging with stranded wire, especially in light of the fact that Navtec had just gone out of business. I opted to stay with the rod rigging, especially given that I had already spent a good amount of money on the new tang fittings years ago. 

Pulling the rig apart.

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Old aluminum.

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Having all new rigging is going to give me a good bit of confidence in the safety of our boat. Worth the money and effort.

Next post: The trials of not being an expert spray painter. Or even a moderately good one...