Things that shift deadlines.

Well, it’s pretty clear that I view deadlines as movable moments.

I haven’t worked on the boat in any real fashion since last August. Even those work sessions were less than highly productive.

My wife took an apartment in Barcelona, Spain for a month starting the last week of August. I flew in on the 1st of September and proceeded to eat and drink my way through the city for the next three weeks. It was my second time there and it is still a wonderful city to visit. A young Marine friend of mine and I rented a couple of Ducati Scramblers and spent two days leaning into turns in the Pyrenees and the Costa Brava. A superb time and a great ride.

After all that I came back, spent four days making sure that things were in order and then took off for a week in Top Sail Beach, NC for my 45th high school reunion. No, I didn’t go to school in North Carolina. Canadian Academy in Kobe, Japan actually but one of the hosts of the reunion live in Top Sail Beach now and it became the destination for the class. Easier to drive to than Kobe...

Came back home from the reunion, checked on the house and cats and then my wife and I flew to Santiago, Dominican Republic for our annual medical mission work. Another week of no progress on “Ronin."

Now I’m getting back to work.

Last week I finished off sanding all the non-skid that was butting up to the base of the toe-rail as the final effort on the deck. Using the Fein Multitool with 80-grit sanding pads worked fairly well. As I was doing this I made a note to run a strip of gloss (non non-skid?) along that edge instead of running non-skid right up to the bottom edge of the toe-rail. Should be easier to shoot and a better look for the finished product. As part of the sanding process I noted that pretty much all deck surfaces were non-skid and I made a note to not re-apply it in areas that have bolts and sealant like I found under the chainplates and jib-track.

80-grit works quite well:

After that final bit of effort I spent close to a full day vacuuming and cleaning the decks and interior to remove copious amounts of gelcoat dust that was blown in. When I do my next boat refit project I’ll make sure to tape up the ports and openings. No, wait, what am I saying? I will never, ever do another refit….

A light dusting, that’s all really...

 

Today I loaded up the tool truck with my Makita compressor and a new Ingersoll-Rand 2”/3” high speed sander and drove to the boat.

After getting the air-hose led and tool attached I started grinding out the small, hairline cracks that were present on the deck. Most were around the stanchion bases and radiating out from the edges of the fixed ports. There were scratches and gouges from previous work that I had done. Edges and corners that had grooves work by halyards that had run directly across them without any edge protection had grooves down the glass. There were divots from old halyard winches on the deck that had been removed and given a quick fill by previous owners that needed a fairing prior to primer and paint.

Chicken pox.

The fixed ports required special attention. There were significant spider cracks radiating from the edges in addition to the inner surface that the port glues to that needing fairing compound.

Never looked nice from the day we got the boat.

It was messy and I was not doing my best work. The upside is that the AwlFair is easy to sand after setting up so the overall level of effort isn’t much. I tend to under-apply filling and fairing compound and then have to re-fair at least one more time, often several. I’m not efficient that way...

Mix Part A to equal amount of Part B...

The stern edge of the cockpit coaming had some fiberglass voids that needed work. A couple of passes with a very large amount of fairing compound was in order.

Before...

and semi-after….

When the fairing application work was done, I still had an hour to go for the day.  Last week I did some research on Lewmar opening ports and decided that I would go with a Lewmar Atlantic 30 port to replace the miserable old round screw-in port that ostensibly provided air to the quarter-berth. After making a template to insure that it would fix, I started in on readying that area for the new port. First thing is to glass in the old opening.

Bringing out my trusty DeWalt small grinder I worked out a rough 12:1 radius surface grind. Later this week I’ll glass it it.

More before and after.

Anyway, back to sanding. But only after I get back from taking one of our cats back to Maryland in the middle of the week for some vet work at my sister-in-law and brother’s veterinary practice. 

There goes that deadline again...

Also, too. Holiday snaps: