New Addition

Yesterday was an exciting day, the annual Fisheries Supply warehouse sale and swap meet.  This was the first year I have attended the event as a boat owner.  I once worked at Fisheries Supply for almost five years twenty years ago.  It has been a long time coming.  I went down there with a shopping list in hand and brought home an awesome tender for Blizzard.  Thanks to the Dinkins family!

I was not certain of the condition of the Zodiac. Once home we inflated it and it is absolutely perfect. Emily enjoyed trying out the seats.  This piece of equipment will make the summer a lot of fun and safe.  The Zodiac is 12' and the floor is inflatable so it will be comfortable with no pinch points or heavy boards.  Built in 2004 there is a lot of life left in it.  The seams are heavy duty, the transom bond and tie in is perfect, and no leaks.  We just need a pump with a pressure gage. When deflated I can lift the whole boat and it can fit tight under the cockpit.  I filled it with a shop vac and added some more pressure to the floor.

The warehouse sale was great as well.

Homemade Vacuum Sander

The interior has required some sanding and a few things I have learned to keep myself safe.  I buy only 3m products for both dust masks and carbon respirators.  The boat is tented to keep it both clean and dry.  I have the shop vac in the cockpit and I run an exhaust hose out the outboard motor well.  Over the outboard motor well I have cut a piece of foam board to fit against the back of the boat that way I can't fall through the well also any fine dust blown through the shop vac will exhaust away.

I made the below setup that works great.  This is a 25 dollar random orbital sander from harbor freight.  A short piece of hose (free) tightly secured with zip ties and sealed with some left over sikaflex.  Total cost 25 bucks.  As long as the sander is kept flat to the work piece this setup works well.  When I'm re-adjusting I unplug the shop vac and let the air siphon out of the boat.  I have been using a halogen work light and I can check the particles in the air to ensure the confined space and air remains clean.

Check the models at harbor freight before buying to make sure you will be able to attach a hose securely.  The interior is pretty much ready for paint.  I'm going to keep fine tuning the insides until its warm enough to paint.

Until next time......

Rope Clutches

Tonight is a fun night of cleaning rope clutches.  I've been cleaning up a lot of the sailboat hardware and becoming familiar with this equipment.  The fisheries swap meet is coming up and I've been making a shopping list.  Tomorrow I plan to use my new vacuum sander and finish the prep for painting the interior.  I'm hopeful for a warming trend and need to schedule a week at the ship yard.

The last few weeks have made me thankful for the blessings in my life.

Until next time.

Rudder Layers

I have spent this past week scraping down the layers of paint on the rudder.  It is sort of like going back in time realizing that each layer of bottom paint represented maybe a race season victory with perhaps a couple of summer vacations bouncing around the islands near Ketchikan Alaska.  What I can tell is she has been protected well.

The colors have been many, Black, Blue, Maroon, Blue Barrier coat?, and Silver with sparkles.

The paint is coming off easy and the rudder underneath it all is in great condition.  Hopefully I'm getting an idea of what the bottom is like and I'm hoping for no surprises there.

I need to figure out the haul out plan.  I'm new at this.

Outboard Ready

The outboard cleaned up well.  I removed all of the corrosion and primed with a zinc chromate primer.  Next I painted the primed areas with a match of the outboard paint.  I replaced the spark plugs, the cavitation plate zinc, and the charging fuse which was blown.  I changed the gear oil and lubed all zerk fittings.  I have not started the outboard yet.  I need to buy a fuel tank and some 2 stroke oil and I think I'll be good to go.

The outboard looks new now and the teak mount is close as well.  I hope it runs good.

Power plant, check.

Another post coming soon.

Yamaha Outboard

Since the weather is too cold I'm focusing on work that I can complete in the garage.  I have stripped down the outboard and there is a little corrosion I'm dealing with.  The paint is bubbled up in a few areas and I'm removing the white rust.  I have bought zinc chromate primer and the factory paint to touch it up.  I have not started the outboard yet but it should run great it looks to be in good condition.  The plan is to replace the spark plugs and replace the gear oil, grease all zerks and then paint.  The rest will be left for the spring time.

I'm excited to try this outboard out.  It has a charging output and at eight horses it should push the boat well.
The snow fell this weekend so it was snow angels this morning with Emily.

Emily truly enjoyed the snow this morning.  We ran around the back yard with our two Golden Retrievers Dory and Cutter.  Above a snow angel landed on our deck.

Wednesday this week we enjoyed the parade of the Seahawks through downtown with about 700,000 other fans.  We were able to work our way to the front and get close to all of the players.  Thank you Seahawks for a great season.

-Andrew

Super Bowl Sunday

Go Seahawks!  Today is a day of rest and celebration for the Seahawks!  This has been a great season.  It hasn't lent itself to productive progress on Blizzard on game day but it has been a perfect intermission.

Below is the sill step before and the new teak sill step after.  It appears like this trim piece had been in water for some time.  The old one has made a nice template for the new.  The old shows heavy signs of damage and it's fun replacing the old with new.  The bronze cap rail polished up nice.  I would like to keep most of the original where possible.

Right now the weather is a bit too cold to paint or do any glass work so the projects are limited to what I can do in the garage. I'm using a space heater to heat up the boat but the surface temperature is a bit too cold to do anything but prepwork. This week I hope to work on the outboard.