Rebuild nearly done

Dave and I spent another day working on the boat. Dave worked on the motor all day. We had a hard vibration at the engine speed we will be using going down river. He found it was out of alignment and when he started to line it up he found some of the bolts for the motor mount stripped out. He was able to reset everything so it is a lot tighter and straighter. We did take it out and ran it for about an hour.  It is a lot better, but still has a little vibration and should be just fine. Dave did find some more wood that we need to replace from around the motor near the galley. We brought it back to cut out a new piece.
I worked on the 12 volt electrical stystem most of the day till I ran out of parts and wire. I finished reinstalling the navagation station and mounted the GPS. Now we can use it both above and below deck. I started to get more cleaning done inside the boat. After all the work gets done, everything needs to be cleaned top to bottom.

In the next few weeks we should be able to wrap up most of the boat rebuild, we hope. Dave still has lots of work in order to make all new covers for all of the cushions and replace and add on to the biminey (cover over the cockpit area)

This coming weekend Lori and I plan to spend the weekend on the boat. The following weekend my mom and Scott will be driving through and we are planning a day on the boat with them, Dave and Noelle, Jane and Lori, and myself.  It will be a full boat, but should be fun. Later in the weekend we have another set of friends coming down to camp with us and do some motorcycle riding, and boating.

another day of work on the boat

Dave and I spent another day on the boat today, but no sailing. Dave spent all day working on leaks from the rain. We found two more problem areas so he took both of them apart and resealed them. I worked on electrical all day. The stereo is in now and I finished all but the last 110 outlet. Next time I should be able to wrap up most of the electrical  work.

I am starting to look at what time we have left before we head South. The summer is flying by already. So right now we are just over 4 months from when we plan to sail. It is going to be very busy the next 6 months. Part of me is looking forward to the 2 weeks after we get to Belize when I will have NOTHING TO DO. It has been over 40 years since I have had more than a few days off in a row with no schedule. I will be able to just relax and do nothing if I want to.

don't fall asleep with blog open

I slept  about 10 hours last night, normally only 6-7 hours. Part of what i did not finish last night was that both Dave and myself successfully did man over board drills single handedly, so on the trip if one of us happens to fall off, the other person has a chance to be able to get the other one out of the water. So hopefully Noelle and Lori can rest a little better that we might be able to rescue the other person.

Passed the ASA 103 class today

Dave an I both passed the 103 class. Now we only have the 104 class that will be on Lake Superior on the great lakes 2 days and 2 nights on the boat in mid July. The 103 class hands-on part the we did today is about handling the boat docking, anchoring and more sailing. I am sure the Marina was thinking what are those two doing now coming in the the harbor backwards a few times, in and out docking for a few minutes then back out on the lake, turning the boat in circles in front of the fuel dock for most of the day. One of the marina owners asked me if I was that scared of the water because we had to wear some type of personal flotation device: Dave and the instructor wore ones that looked like fanny packs, which left me with the big orange life jacket. They are hard to work on the boat and are hot to wear.  Dave  is going to order inflatable / safety harness for the trip. They will be a lot easier to wear while running the boat than wearing the big orange one.

Lori says: Donavan fell asleep in bed writing this blog, so I took the liberty of cleaning up the writing a bit and making the decision to post this as is. He didn't sleep much last night, and has been ridiculously busy over the past 2-3 months, so I think both the sailor boy and blog should be done for the night.

First Sailing Weekend

Lori, Jane, and myself camped Friday through Sunday a couple of miles from the boat, at Frontenac State Park. Dave went to the boat on Thursday and finished up the riggings. We found that there were some parts missing for the front sail (the roller furling) and part of it was broken. So before we leave for Belize a new roller furling will have to be installed. We thought the marina was going to adjust all of the riggings for us, and after finding out that the cost of the bottom paint was more than twice what the estimate was, Dave and I opted to finish up the work ourselves. He has a tensioning guage coming next week, so we can correctly tension all of the cables. We got both of the sails put on and they are in really good shape. The main sail has two reefing points like we were hoping it did.

After spending the better part of the afternoon on Friday we fired up the boat and took it out on the lake for a little ways to see how the prop and boat ran. The engine speed that the manufacturer recommends is about 2900 rpms. At that speed we have a little bit of a vibration going on because of the way the shaft and the engine are set up. Through the weekend the engine started to run a little bit smoother, and were able to run it a couple of hours. Docking Dave's boat in this particular marina is really easy. The marina is set down inside of burms so we have no wind and no currents to deal with, unlike the docking that we did for the sailing class on Lake Minnetonka. None of the four times we docked the boat, did Dave and I consider them successful.

After a really long night on yet another leaky air mattress (this must be at least the 8th one in a few years) we opted for breakfast at the Whitle Stop Cafe in Frontenac Station, and then left for the boat. We headed up river to near Maiden Rock before returning back to the marina. It's going to be doable to sail with just the two of us and maneuver the boat as needed.  As soon as we docked, Jane, Lori's 7-year-old daughter, announced "Well, nobody fell off the boat today!"

On Sunday after pancakes at the campsite, we packed up everything and Jane and Lori went for a hike and came across a caterpillar. Now Jane has a pet caterpillar in her room. Her "pet" snail Gary didn't fare too well on Friday, and there was a funeral at the campsite on Saturday afternoon. Sunday we decided to head down to the river, and I ended up being at the helm most of the day. After a few miscalculations, I brought us safely back to the dock.

All in all, it was a great weekend to be on the boat. Little rain, light winds, clouds and a sunburn here and there. We all enjoyed the weekend. Jane is ready to get back on the boat right away.

On Wednesday night, Dave and I will do the second half of the classroom part of the 103 class, and then Thursday we'll be on the boat to finish up the 103 class.

The boat is in the water

I talked to Dave tonight the boat is in the water. The mast is not up yet but will be by Friday when we get back to the boat.  We start the 103 class tomorrow then Fri- Sunday camping  about a mile from the boat.

Passed the 101 class

Both dave and I passed the ASA 101 class tonight. We start the 103 next week.

boat we took 101 class on