Monday, April 6, 2015

spring work begins

Safety first! Sanding is a very boring and hard job. That's the worst combination. Donavan did most of it.
Over the past few weeks and the next few weeks we will be getting the boat ready to go in the water. We hope to be in around the 18th of this month. The biggest project is stripping off all of the old bottom paint and changing to a different paint, which will be better for the boat since it will be sitting in the water all Summer. The new paint will also be smoother, making for faster racing. When done, there will be from 8 to 11 coats of  Primer, epoxy barrier coat and Vc17 bottom paint. This week is  going to be cold and wet but hope to have the bottom mostly done by the end of the week.  We used our MeetUp group to get help to take down the mast a week or so ago.
first day of sanding


the boat flying

the keel sanded to bare metal

new triducer port for temp speed and depth

primer going on the keel 

Tight squeeze to get those bolts out.

Guess who got to do the squeezing.

Since I was inside the belly of the boat, took some shots of the battery charger (right) and charge controller for the solar panels (left).

Taping...sanding...taping...sanding...

fixing chips

Who knew??!! A caulk that holds your life together! A small tube only costs $16.95, what a bargain.

Monday, October 13, 2014

Fall update


The sailing season is almost done. I have not blogged as much as I would have like to, so here is an overview.   We sailed some in April and May in Afton.  In June we only made the trip to lake Pepin and back.  The rest of June and half of July we did not sail, mainly due to high water and high winds. Mid-July we took the boat to Lake Superior  for two weeks. When we returned home with the boat, we had it on lake Minnetonka for 5 weeks before trailering it back to Afton for the rest of the season. After spending some time sailing at Lake Minnetonka, we considered the pros and cons of keeping a boat at Lake Minnetonka next Summer, and recently decided to go for it. Next Summer we'll be on a mooring ball in Wayzata Bay, with the Wayzata Yacht Club . We will be racing, or trying to anyway.
I also spent three days sailing on Jeff Owens' boat on Lake Superior, a trip that included another boat, with a total of 6 sailors. I have been racing at Wayzata the whole Summer with maybe a few races yet this year. Most of this racing has been done with Wayzata Yacht Club members Fred and Nancy on their boat Stinger. I have been learning a lot from the racing.

We have been able to upgrade the main sail and get a new larger jib, and also rig the boat with a spinnaker. The spinnaker still needs some modifications in order to work right. The new jib is untested as of today, but hope to do so next weekend. Earlier this year we added an autopilot to the boat and a bigger solar panel.

We have not sailed as much as we would have liked, but have had lots of great days on the boat with friends and family. In the coming weeks we will close it back up for another winter.

Sailing on Jeff's boat on the big lake



Going fast on the trailer kinda
The weather is nice up here


using the crane for the first time



Sunday, September 14, 2014

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Saturday, September 6, 2014

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Friday, September 5, 2014

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