Bottom paint

It's been a busy few weekends around home with Ashley's craft shows, so we are behind schedule and a Memorial Day weekend launch is not going to happen. Oh well, no point in dwelling!

I got my new used compass, a Plastimo Olympic 185. I had to enlarge the opening in the binnacle for it to fit, but the size is perfect. I haven't screwed it down yet though because I am planning on replacing the red incandescent lighting with green led lighting.

I finally ordered bottom paint yesterday. I had been putting it off because the price made it hard to swallow, but waiting has paid off! I wasn't 100% sure that one gallon would be enough, but I didn't want to buy more than a gallon if I didn't need it. Lucky for me West Marine had one of their bottom paints (the hard kind, not the ablative) on sale for buy one, get one free. I got my extra if I need it, but I only had to buy one gallon!

We're also done with painting the mast. It's not as good as if I had stripped it to bare metal and primed it, but it is most definitely better than it was and should look good for at least a few years. This weekend my goal is to rewire it, run my new antenna wire, get it on the boat and hoisted. My plexiglass for the cabin windows should be here on Saturday, but I don't think I'll have time to get started on that. I also purchased a used vhf radio for it, a Uniden President LTD950. It's fairly old, 1990, but looks very good for its age and other than the internal speaker not working, it seems to function well. I could replace the internal speaker if I wanted, but I think I'll just opt for an external speaker. I may actually already own one.

Compass, mast, hatch

This weekend I got an acceptable amount of work done, though not as much as I would have liked. Ashley helped me get the first coat of paint on the mast. It's looking a lot better. Not as good as if I had stripped it to bare metal and had it painted by a pro, but still a big improvement over what it was. I could have done a second coat, but the threat of rain made me hold off. I also got a used Plastimo Olympic 135 off of eBay. I had to open the cutout in the binnacle for it to fit, but it's a perfect fit. The last thing I got done was resealing the glass in the hatch. I had to pull the glass, clean the whole thing, then use windshield urethane to reseal / glue it back in place. The glass was warped in the corners, so I'm not sure that it is going to fully seal. If not, I'll have to buy new Plexiglas for it.

A little more progress towards a Memorial Day re-launch!

So progress has been a little slow the past few weekends, but I am getting some stuff accomplished. Last weekend I worked in the cave and got the old onboard charger pulled out, one battery tray installed with the first battery in it, and the charger wired into the shore power. This weekend I started straightening the bent tabernacle. It's pretty much straight enough to satisfy me, but I think I can do a little better. I also started building a cradle system for the mast during trailering. The previous owner just lashed the mast to the pulpit rails, but I think I can do something more convenient for a one person mast stepping. This is the rear cradle. My plan was to put a bow roller at the stern so I put the base of the mast at the bow and the top of the mast at the stern and use the forestay, a gin pole and the trailed winch for stepping the mast, but I realized tonight that because of the proximity of the tabernacle to the companionway hatch, I think I'll need to step it the other direction. That means the roller goes at the bow as does the top of the mast. The problem that I now face is that I don't know how to winch the mast from the stern of the boat. I'm not worried, I'll figure something out.

Baby steps

Well it seemed like I worked all day on the boat on Sunday, but it doesn't seem like I accomplished that much. I cleaned a bunch of crud out of the bilges and installed a new bilge pump. Once that was done I dragged in the garden hose and washed the floor down between the settee and the aft berth. I broke a side window trying to measure the thickness of the Plexiglas, and that was about it. When I get home next weekend I should have battery trays and I can pull out the old battery charger and install the battery trays, secure the charger, and wire in the battery selector switch. 

Here is the access cover for the forward bilge. You can see the before cleaning and oiling on the right, after cleaning and oiling on the left.

 

 

Sorry the picture is out of focus. This is shortly after I stared cleaning the floor. The difference is amazing, especially if you go to an earlier post and see the before picture where you can see the whole floor. I'll get better pictures of the whole, clean floor this weekend.

 

We have power!

Today I picked up a battery and a Cabela's Pro 20 amp 2 bank charger. I was a little nervous about hooking power to the system since a previous owner had done some questionable wiring and I didn't know when the last time it had been powered up was. I hesitantly hooked up the battery expecting sparks to fly when I hooked up the negative battery cable, but there wasn't a single spark. This actually made me nervous because I thought there would be some sort of drain some where. I climbed out of the utility cave, went into the cabin and saw a reassuring green light on the electrical control panel next to the 12v master switch. I turned on the cabin lights and they came on,  I turned on the nav lights and the bow lights worked, the stern light didn't. I switched the bilge pump on and it came on. I'm pretty excited right now. I'm not done, it was just a trial run since I need a second battery, I need to secure the batteries and charger, wire the charger into the 120v shorepower system, and test the 120v side. Overall tonight is going down as a success!

A little progress

Ashley did some serious cleaning and got about 1/2 through the cabin and it's cleaning up nicely so far. I pressure washed the stern and the cockpit and it cleaned up pretty well. One thing is apparent though, the fiberglass of the deck and cockpit is stained. The prior owner had the boat parked under a tree for the last 13 years. Leaves and dirt had built up over the years and leached into the deck. I don't think any amount of scrubbing and pressure washing is going to bring the bad spots back to any shade of white.

Starting with a rough boat.

This is how the boat looked when we brought her home on 4/4/15

From the transom looking forward.

 

 Another view of the cockpit. Ashley is standing on one of the hatches for the utility space/ stern anchor locker. There is another hatch in the same place on the starboard side.

Aft berth.

Electrical panel. It has been removed and there are some loose wires behind there.

This is where the old radio was. You can see some water damage to the teak veneer from leaking windows.

The bottom of the companionway steps. Years of dirt and leaves have collected here. It appears that there were teak strips on the floor here, but they have all but disintegrated.

Cracked companionway hatch. Also, you can't see it, but one of the previous owners modified the hatch so there was a skylight with a solar panel underneath. I'm pretty sure that has been leaking too.

Looking forward from the cockpit to the bow. The tabernacle is bent and needs to be replaced, as well as the vent fan behind it, which is broken and leaking water into the cabin.

The display for the Signet depth finder is cracked and I'm guessing the whole unit is damaged by water. I could replace it with a cheaper unit, but it has a unique mounting size and a nicely flush mounted transducer on the bottom of the hull, so I'll probably spend the extra money and replace it with another Signet. Next to it is probably where the old ignition switch was mounted. The opening had wasp nests and leaves in there. Not sure what I'm going to do to repair this yet.

No compass. That's probably the easiest fix on the boat!

In the stern of the boat between the transom and the aft berth, underneath the cockpit is this sort of utility room where the batteries were, the fuel tanks is, and part of the steering mechanism. You can see some sort of battery isolator and what I believe is either a power inverter or something to do with the shore power system. I haven't actually been down there yet to inspect it. It's also where the stern anchor is stored.

Transom. It appears that there was a plate here between the old outboard and the hull. The bottom two holes are above the water line, but pass through the hull into the utility room.

Looking down the companion way into the cabin. Lots of dirt from years of not cleaning it or being used.

 

Looking down into the utility room / stern anchor locker. You can see the fuel tank below my feet.

We certainly have our work cut out for us, but a lot of what it needs is pretty minor. I got a new Honda 9.9 outboard which I will be installing. The hardest part is going to be the mast and figuring out the rigging for it. I've never seen another Lancer, and there are aren't a lot of pictures online to help me figure it out. The tabernacle is bent up and needs to be replaced. The bottom of the mast has been cut at a 45 degree angle on the front edge, probably to facilitate stepping the mast by laying it forward. I want to fold aft though so that I can use the trailer winch and a gin pole to step the mast singlehandedly. I think I am going to replace the tabernacle with a hinge plate, but I'm not sure how I'm going to attach the mast to the plate since it's already been cut and modified.