A lot of people have asked over the years why we approached this rebuild in the order that we did. Meaning, why did we redo all of the interior first, and the electrical second etc. Basically why didn’t we do it in a different order. There are a couple of reasons, firstly, the inside of Akupara was a complete disaster. She was packed full of all kinds of spare parts and old dirty things and we had to see what kind of state she was in. So we gutted her to expose as much of the inside of the hull as we could. Knowing that this was a gigantic project, and knowing that it was going to take forever we needed to feel like we were accomplishing something and so we (the Admiral did the majority of the sanding) sanded every piece and stained every piece and we painted inside all of the lockers etc etc so that Akupara felt clean again and at the same time we had a huge sense of accomplishment. Sandpaper and Cetol are also relatively cheap.
We left the engine room for last because I knew it was going to be the worst job and eventually one of the most expensive. Check some older posts and you can see how bad it actually was, standing up to my knees inside an old fuel tank that had rotten diesel and seawater in it. I can still taste it. Anyway, the big question I am sure everyone has is why did we leave the paint to almost the last.
Well, if you have ever been to this work/boat yard, you know that there are a lot of unsavoury characters that hang around there. Where Akupara sat for a long time is affectionately known as Crack Alley. There is also a lot of action in the yard with boats being moved around and all kinds of work happening. The last thing I wanted was to draw any attention to Akupara at all. If it looks like money, people will take note. If it looks like just another old wreck, people will ignore it. Just bringing new items down to her, we could feel eyes on us, so we actually hid a lot of what we were doing as much as possible. For example when I brought the new electronics and electrical panel down, I hid them in a green plastic tote with old wood sticking out of the top. Urban Camouflage 🙂 I mean seriously, the old rotten cushions were tossed overboard in the rain, landed in a huge chemical soup puddle, were dragged across the yard to a dumpster, and as sure as I am sitting here, I swear to you, they were gone within minutes. What’s that saying, your trash is somebody else’s gold?
We have been lucky and as far as I know, we have been spared from having anything stolen so far. If I add up everything we have down there it would, I would probably choke. I am sure my tools alone would cost me at least $8000 to replace. I don’t want to have to do that.
I have seen posters around the yard in front of different boats explicitly stating that if the owner finds out who stole “X” they will ensure that said individual spends a good portion of the rest of their lives in a body cast. I can completely understand this sentiment.
Anyway, as I said, we have been lucky so far! I am pretty sure Akupara will remain in the large shed until we are almost ready to launch and I prefer it that way. The less time we spend out in the open, the less attention she will attract. Especially now that she looks like a new boat!
So to answer my question, I would have to say that we approached the entire project from 3 angles. We did everything we could do ourselves first to save money for the large costs at the end. Second, we wanted to reduce the amount of exposure her new paint had to the yard and third, we hid as much as we possibly could to avoid any unwanted attention. Hopefully this explains our approach.
April 2011
From the best that I can tell, Akupara has not been afloat on her own bottom since April 2011. The previous owners last sailing post is from April 11, 2011 and describes the preparations they were making to be hauled out in 2 days time.
If all goes well, and we launch in June of this year as is planned, Akupara will have been out of the water on the hard for close to 7 years 2.5 months!!
If boats actually have a soul, as is said they do, she must be getting pretty excited as we draw closer to returning her to her natural intended environment!
We are going to have a launch party and we are going to christen her at that point. Not because we are changing her name, but because in a lot of ways she is being re-born. She will have undergone a serious amount of work from refinishing all of the interior, to a new engine and fuel tanks, to a new hull colour and an whole bucket of other things!
This is the last picture the previous owners posted, taken somewhere down in Mexico. When we launch, I will use this picture in the before and after gallery!
Why a Whitby 42?
Thank you David for asking this question!
So why did we chose a Whitby 42? There are a myriad of choices out there that would have met our requirements in one form or another and at one time or another we have seriously considered most of them. I will try my best to outline how and why we arrived at the choice of a Whitby 42. A lot of what follows may or may not be 100% accurate in that all of the choices you make are based on your experiences and your desires and personal taste has a habit of clouding ones judgement at times.
The first time I seriously decided we were going to become blow boaters I remember quite well as the Admiral does I am sure. It was during the middle of the night as we were adrift in the North Channel of Lake Huron in our first boat, a 14′ runabout, after the engine had caught fire. We were cold, the wind was howling, I almost lost Andrea overboard, the waves were gigantic compared to our little boat to the point that we had to lay down on the sole in order to lower our center of gravity and keep the boat from capsizing. As I was laying there I said to myself, never again. The next time something like this happens we will have a proper head so that we won’t lose anyone overboard as they hang off the side in order to relieve their bladder. We will have proper berths that we can lie down in. We will have a galley where we can at least make a pot of coffee and for heavens sake, people have travelled the globe under sail, if we had a sailboat now, we could still get to our destination despite not having an engine. And so it began.
Once we made it out of that ordeal, the research began. Hours upon hours upon hours of searching the internet. Reading everything I possibly could about sailing and sailboats. I had piles of printouts of specs on different boats and I started to learn quite a bit about them, the different characteristics of fin versus full keels, capsize ratios, theoretical hull speed, design elements, and on and on. I read every book that the library and all of the surrounding libraries had on sailing. The only one that I never made it completely through was Sail Power by Wallace Ross. So I bought a copy and promised myself I would finish it. Not to brag or sound boastful but I was starting to learn a hell of a lot and I was applying that knowledge to my selection process.
Now reality is always a bitch of course and as a young family we didn’t have unlimited funds to go out and buy our dream boat so in that first year I probably travelled to see over 100 used sailboats on the weekends. I looked at everything from Hughes 29’s a block a way from where we lived to Alberg 35’s just outside of Chicago. Every boat I looked at I took a lot of pictures and I added these to my ever growing stack of research material.
During all of my research one boat in particular kept rising to the top of the pile as I evaluated from different angles and no matter how I approached the subject, the Alberg 30 was always at the top. In those days the market was strong and a used Alberg 30 in good shape was in the $30000 price range. This was my ultimate, end of all ends, never to be replaced gold standard. I could taste it. I spent every night going over every square inch of the Alberg 30 in my mind. I printed out a picture of a nice A30 with a dark blue hull and I taped it onto the back of our bedroom door. Every morning and every night it would be the last thing I saw and I promised myself we would own one. The Alberg 30 by the way was one of the boats I had never been on in all of my searching. By the way, $30000 might as well have been $300000000 as we did not have it and in all likelihood in those days never would have it.
So as luck would have it we stumbled across our first sailboat on a trailer on the side of the highway with a for sale sign on it. We could just scrape together enough money to buy it and so we did. It was a British made Halcyon 23. Great little boat although very small. We spent every weekend on it as a family including the dog. You could not stand up inside but it had everything on my list. A coleman stove inside. A porta potty under the v berth and 4 berths to lay down in. Okay guys, here is the key. Pay attention now if you are at this point in your boating life. The Admiral hit her head inside. Not once, but every bloody time she went below in a crouched position. After one particularly good encounter with the cabin top, she uttered the words “we need a bigger boat!” There it was. Our fate was sealed. I was adamant that Sea Gypsy was all we needed and we would be perfectly fine but once she had let it slip, she could not back down. Anyway at the same time there were 2 boats in the marina that I was falling in live with. Carillon, a beautiful Alberg 30 and Moonshine, a CT 41 that the owner had crossed the North Atlantic with. There was also ButtonCap, a Mirage 29 I think that I became good friends with the owner of. Bruce and I spent many an hour talking about the merits of different types of boats and their intended usage and my choices were continually being narrowed.
Okay, skip ahead 12 years and back to my explanation now that you have a bit of the background as to how my decision process started. As mentioned, we could not afford an Alberg 30 let alone a Whitby 42 in those days but sometimes in life things change for the better I guess.
So here is a list of our requirements for our last boat and a brief explanation for each in no particular order:
Full keel with internal ballast- better tracking, safer when you run aground, protected propeller
Internal diesel – no more drowned outboards
Ketch – easier to handle the sails as we grow older, more sail combinations for varying weather conditions
Full galley – self explanatory
Full head – self explanatory
Spacious interior (not to the point of being dangerous) – we need the space if it is a liveaboard
Lots of internal handholds – some of the modern “offshore yachts” do not have any handholds and are 15′ wide
Separate cabins – The Admiral insists that although we get along just fine, there is no way she will be trapped in one cabin with me for any period of time.
Roller furling headsail
Windvane self steering and electric backup
Moderate draft – the Caribbean can be shallow and we like to tuck into tight spaces
Big enough to comfortably have guests – the second head on the Whitby makes this even more practical
Large enough displacement to handle all of the gear and provisions for extensive periods away from the dock
Low maintenance exterior – read this as NO exterior wood. We do love the look but have learnt our lesson, we do not want to spend all of our last days sanding and varnishing
Electric windlass that can be operated manually
Solar panels
Proven offshore boat – Whitby 42’s are all over the planet for a reason
Proven resale value – in 1976 the asking price for a Whitby 42 was just over $100000. A 1976 Whitby 42 in mint condition can still fetch upwards of $100000 today.
Large Owners group – for help and education on issues with the boat
An aft cabin – to provide the distance the Admiral insists on – this also led to a center cockpit otherwise the aft cabin is typically very small and hard to stand up in
Affordable – it needed to be a project boat that we could regain some of the cost through sweat equity and learn all of the systems intimately
Small opening cabin ports, and lots of them to allow for a lot of light – large ones can be dangerous in large seas
Keel stepped mast – I have had issues with other boats with compression post problems
Roomy cockpit – we like to entertain
Refrigeration – we like cold beer 😉
Big – but small enough that either one of us can still handle it by ourselves
Good sea berths – closest to the center of motion as possible, the king sized bed in the aft cabin will be nice at anchor but I think pretty much useless while underway
Quality build – After owning an Alberg 30 we are intimate with the build quality of Whitby Yachts
Wooden interior – we are traditional when it comes to boats and mirrored ceilings and neon countertops just don’t do it for us
Simple systems – manual flushing heads – when the batteries go flat, I still want to be able to flush
Lots of storage – Remember my chart collection of over 400 charts?
Lots of fuel and water storage – we plan on being away from the dock as much as possible
Water Maker – same reason as above, and concerns over poor water quality in some of our planned cruising grounds
Dedicated try sail track – I still believe in storm sails
Inner forestay for hank on sails and storm jib – This will need to be added to Akupara as she currently does not have one
I can continue on but I think you can get the major ideas of why we chose the Whitby 42. And of course ultimately, the right boat came along at the right price at the right time. I am sure every point above can be argued 15 ways to Sunday but it also comes down to personal choice eventually. We love the look of the Whitby 42, we love the size and the creature comforts, others may think she looks like a big old turd and they would only be happy with a 65′ Macgregor. More power to them, and in the end, it does not matter if you are in a 23′ sailboat or a 123′ motoryacht, if you are both in the same anchorage and you are both comfortable and enjoying the scenery than you both win. Of course I will scream at you to turn your damn neon name boards, and 55″ flat screen TV off…
By the way, the Admiral has already hit her head inside! No bloody way am I falling for that again! 42 is the largest we will ever need, until of course the grandchildren….no, no, no – 42 is all we will ever need!
I hope that answers the question, why did we chose a Whitby 42. If not, let me know and I will continue to ramble 🙂
Has it really been 6 months???
https://youtu.be/swel19Kn4_o
A photo look back at 6 months of craziness! And yes it feels as fast as the video and just as confusing!! 🙂
A special thanks to all the crew for persevering thus far!
The tide has turned!
Hope everyone enjoys a look into our crazy little world! Thank heavens for the odd comedian to make it more interesting!
Cheers!
Counting Stars
Last night we visited Denis and Rosario aboard Counting Stars for a few cocktails and dinner. What a fantastic evening, thank you so much! Counting Stars is in beautiful condition and it is hard to comprehend that Akupara will someday resemble the same, but having the opportunity to visit a Whitby in such fine condition has refreshed the drive to get Akupara completed. Just as soon as the cobwebs from last night clear a bit anyway 😉
This was actually the first time Andrea and I have been aboard a Whitby 42 while it is afloat, and we were not disappointed! Counting Stars is as solid as we expected and barely nods “Hello” to you when you come aboard, which is exactly what we had read in all of our research.
Andrea and I spotted many similarities and also a few differences between Akupara and Counting Stars, and we also saw a lot of great ideas that we will steal and incorporate into Akupara, up to and including the hard dodger, I think.
There were 2 other guests as well last night and with 6 people aboard, there was still lots of room for all of us both in the cockpit and in the main salon! This is exactly why we went with a Whitby 42, but it is always different, actually experiencing it, as opposed to just thinking about it!
We shared a lot of good stories, a lot of laughs, I think more than a few bottles of wine, and as the night grew longer, I think the length of some of the tall tails grew in unison, which ended in a few calls of “BS” from some of us! But it was all in good fun and always ended in more laughs!
We can’t wait to return the invitation and have Denis and Rosario over for dinner on Akupara, but it will be a little while yet! 😉
Weird going to a boat directly from work in nice clothes and leaving just as clean as when you arrived. After a while you begin to think that all boats require dedicated dirty work clothes just to visit! 😉
As we made our way home, we spoke about how this is what it is going to be like in the future when we are actually out cruising, and why we are working so hard now to make it happen.
Great boats, great people, great laughter, and great anchorages, and maybe a tall tale or two thrown in for good measure!
Thanks again guys, the break was truly appreciated!!
Whoops! Forgot to mention one more cost.
This past Saturday the captain headed to Akupara early in the morning and I stayed behind. That afternoon I had a dental appointment scheduled and figured I should stay back to prepare.
Prepare. For an afternoon dental appointment. That is ridiculous. Even more ridiculous is I was actually looking forward to going to the dentist. What I realized is that one cost we did not mention about restoring Akupara is the cost of personal time.
Owning a boat or being committed to any extra-curricular activity comes with a cost, an investment of personal time or “me” time. It also comes the price tag guilt, which is synonymous in my case with a dental appointment, better known as getting out of work.
Akupara is a joint effort and will require some re-thinking about what personal time looks like for me. Weekends will be taken up with restoration projects, week nights will be taken up with discussion of The Boat and a balance will develop between “me” time and Akupara time.
Completing tearing out the sticky anti-slip stuff in the cockpit on Sunday felt great. It was an accomplishment among many to come and I was able to redefine to some degree what personal time meant to me during the hours I spent with a heat gun and scraper. I had time to reflect on the weeks events, unplug through physical labour and find focus while learning a new skill–Heat Gun/Scraper Pro.
Personal time is a commodity that some of us do not give up readily, it is something we guard carefully. Akupara is now a piece of my personal time as for only “me” time, well, I have scheduled another dental appointment in three months. I can hardly wait!
30 days and counting…
Okay so I have been fighting with embedding a video player so bare with me as I try this again…lets see how long before youtube takes it down…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ui8nbKROj5A&feature=youtu.be
Under wraps
And Akupara is ready to begin her transformation!!
Finally the shrink wrap is on. Prodigy Marine had to wait until the rain stopped of course and until the temperature was steady long enough to complete it.
They did a great job, and will be going back to add vents so that the condensation does not get too bad.
Wow, the decks sure do show their age when compared against the nice white of the plastic, and man 42′ is a lot longer than you think. I took this picture from the bow, with the admiral at the stern, going to have to get voice activated headsets just to communicate.
I opened all of the ports to start to let Akupara breath after being closed tight for a long time. We will have to get a dehumidifier to keep the moisture down I think.
Stuff
Not a lot happened on Akupara yesterday, we managed to get everything out of our vehicles
and into the basement and we went to Walmart to look for a certain type of case that I like to sort all of the small stuff, but I guess it is the wrong time of year as they didn’t have any.
So instead I thought I would add some pictures of some of the more interesting “stuff” that we discovered in Akupara.
Books
About 30 of these came off of Akupara.
Survival Watermaker
For the ditch kit.
Windlass
Blocks and blocks and more blocks…
Flags
An anchor chain scrub brush.
A brand new 10 year old GPS
A Harkin Bosun’s chair
EPIRB
Brass stuff
ST2000 Tiller Pilot with Remote Control (not in picture)
A canvas sticher
And I also started preparing my tools and parts containers to be brought down to Akupara, almost as big of a job as emptying her out 😉
So all in all the day was still productive, and besides, it was pouring down rain and we were tired after 3 good days of work.
Books
After sorting through all of the books on Akupara I find I have a few duplicates. First person to send me an email can have the following books. If you are not in Vancouver you will need to cover postage but other than that they are free.
Celestial navigation for yachtsman by Mary Blewitt
World Cruising Routes 5th edition by Jimmy Cornell
How to Sail around the World by Hal Roth
Boatowners Mechanical and Electrical Manual 2nd edition by Nigel Calder
Seems my library has outgrown itself…
UPDATE: Books have been spoken for, thanks.
We did it!
We have now successfully removed all of the “stuff” from Akupara!
There are 2 things left to take out, but I am not counting them as they are attached 😉 The stove and the aft head.
But I did at least get the stove off of the gimbals!
So how exactly did we get all of this stuff off of Akupara you might ask, well, let me explain. It involves old rope and old milk crates. Anything of any importance whatsoever that we decided to keep (which at this point does involve a fair amount of unknown stuff), was carefully lowered down over the side of Akupara inside a milk crate. When I was by myself this necessitated climbing up and down the ladder countless times. When the admiral was helping, it was a lot easier as she was below and would empty the “stuff” into our vehicles. Today we managed to fill both vehicles!
The items that we left on board are electrical wire, chemicals that we may need during the upcoming process and some of the tools that the previous owner had left behind, as well as all spare engine parts.
We spent another 5 hours today. Which puts our running total at 53 hours just to clean Akupara out in order to start the refit. We are also not counting the time it takes to unload the vehicles after each trip. This is just the time spent on Akupara.
We also had out first guest on board today! A good friend of ours came by for a visit. He was graciously positive, although his eyes betrayed his utter amazement at the thought of a project this big and he is no stranger to boats and the work involved in restoring them. He brought us fresh hot coffee at the perfect time that we needed a break! I think we also somehow guilted him into coming to our Sanding Party! Invitations will be sent out soon so anyone who is interested, speak up, pack your sander, and we will supply the beer and sandpaper! 😉 42′ times a ballpark average of 8′ equals approximately 336 square feet of sanding surface to practice your sanding skills on!! 🙂
The end is in sight, of the initial cleaning that is.
Another 4 hours spent today sorting out all of the remaining stuff. There was a massive amount of random wire that I went through and I disposed of anything that was not marine grade. I did keep one piece of what appears to be welding cable that I will use to ground the main mast in the event of a lightening strike.
I brought another load of stuff home, but the weather was not cooperating so I wasn’t able to bring a lot.
The new work lights that we purchased sure made a big difference and for $15 each, I think we need to get at least 2 more. We are heading back today to try to finish emptying out Akupara.
I am excited to get my tools to Akupara and to start the removal of all of the wood. Up until now I feel like we really have not accomplished a lot, which is not exactly true. We have cleaned, identified, sorted and removed a lot of stuff which will make the actual word a lot easier.
We have finally decided that this will be a complete rebuild/refit. Up until now, I have not been completely sure as to what extent we would take this, but based on what we have seen it is now a certainty that it needs to be complete. The shore power although functioning has a strange way of heating up and when you start to look at the masses of wires running in all directions, it only makes sense to completely gut it all and start from scratch. We would lose way too much time trying to trace wiring, as opposed to just replacing it. As well, the 110 volt wiring is all original, and probably does not comply with current ABYC electrical standards. A lot of the plumbing has already been removed when they changed to a composting head in the forward head, so we will just continue that and remove it all. As well, the original holding tank, that I gather from the Whitby Brewer website was located below the main companionway, was converted a long time ago to battery storage. Our thoughts so far are to have two completely independent systems for a couple of reasons. Sanitation hose as it gets older begins to develop a smell, so having 30 feet of it all connected to one big tank worries me a bit. And by having 2 separate systems, if one develops an issue and needs repair, we will still have the other. And if both some how develop an issue at the same time, we can always revert to the bucket and chuck it system. Redundancy, that’s what I like!
This image stolen without permission from www.
A good start to the new year
We managed to spend about 2.5 hours on Akupara today, despite the Admiral being a little worse for wear, and of course another large pile of stuff developed on the ground,
However this pile was destined for places other than the dumpster.
Jeepers there is a lot of lines on a 42′ Ketch! Filled the back of our Pilot.
We did some measuring of the countertops to try and get an idea of what we were looking at cost wise to replace them with Corian and off to Home Depot we went. The nice lady at Home Depot kindly advised us the they only sell Corian countertops as a package that includes installation and that unfortunately they would not install them on a boat. Apparently installing a top on a box is different on a boat than it is in a house. Not quite sure I understand but we still managed to get an estimate of about $85 a foot installed. She says that most companies will be about the same price.
In any case we started the year off on the right foot by being on Akupara and although we didn’t get a lot completed, we did free up some more interior space. Of course the other side of the coin is that we are running out of basement space. I estimate one more trip with both vehicles and we should have Akupara completely empty, and then we can start bringing down my tools to really get the work started!
Natures Call
We have decided to replace the Natures head composting toilet. From the research I have done, these things retail for over $1000. I will list it on Craigslist.org and try to sell it for $500 which should be about the cost for 2 new full sized bowl marine heads. 
Of course I will need to find a spot for 2 new holding tanks and all of the associated plumbing as well as budget for it, but the admiral is totally in line with this idea. We have had head smell issues in the past on other used boats, and the thought of not 1, but 2, smelly heads is just not appealing! We will go brand new for both systems and build them right. (Add 2 marine heads, hoses, holding tanks etc to costs page)
UPDATE: December 31, Natures Head is Sold!! Now we have a big empty space….and more holes to fill…
Rust
When we first went to see Akupara I climbed into the vberth and had a quick look inside the chain locker. I knew it was in pretty rough shape but once I started really investigating, the truth became more and more evident.
Since we have a soft spot on the foredeck, I decided to drop the anchor so that I would have access to the deck from underneath. The primary anchor is a big old rusty bruce, and the secondary a big old (not as bad) rusty CQR. After about 15 minutes of trying to free up the windlass (add a windlass rebuild to the project page) down went the bruce with a mighty crash. Good thing the marina yard cats weren’t sitting on the pallet I had placed there. The majority of the chain came out, with the occasional bit of encouragement but there was a lot of rust flakes on the deck. Next I let go the secondary chain.
This time I was not so lucky. about 1/4 of it did come out but then it came to an abrupt stop. Nothing I did would make it come out any more. I went back inside, climbed into the vberth and the reason became quickly obvious.
The majority of the rest of the chain is a giant rust ball. I will need to return with my grinder to cut it up and dispose of it. (Add a quote for 500 feet of new chain to the costs page.)
I made some progress today in other areas. I finally managed to track down where the auto tuner for the SSB is. It is behind the panel in the aft cabin.
I completed removing all of the stuff from the aft cabin, the nav station, and the vberth as well as both heads. Unfortunately I now have a small mountain of stuff to remove from Akupara so that we can begin to work.
Fortunately I think we have come to the end of throwing things out as well. I forgot to take a picture, but I had another mountain of stuff outside destined for the dumpster.
Too much turkey…
It seems I may have overindulged yesterday on turkey and all of the associated holiday goodies. That mixed with a rather long nap, led to heartburn and insomnia. So rather than waster the extra found hours, I started polishing the boat jewellery. It is all in pretty bad condition, or rather I should say it has a lot of patina. We prefer our brass to be shiny, and over the course of an hour, a little progress was made with the help of 3M Marine Metal Restorer and Polish.
It’s Christmas already.
Wow, it’s Christmas already!
The admiral keeps asking what I want for Christmas and I keep telling her, we already exchanged our present, a Whitby 42! Last night she told me that I could not put that on my Christmas Wish List because it would not fit under the tree. I begged to differ. I am entirely certain that if I brought the Christmas tree to Akupara, that I would be able to put it on deck and thereby have our Whitby 42 under the tree! 😉
Merry Christmas everyone and have a fantastic New Year!
The Cleaning Continues…
Well we managed to completely empty the master cabin today and the admiral wiped the entire room including the master head down with a javex/water mix. Due to all of the leaks, there was mould starting to grow and needed to be dealt with asap. We have all of our fingers crossed for a sunny warm day so that they can get the shrink wrap on and we can start to repair the decks.
At some point in time, one of the previous owners removed the teak
from the cockpit and covered all of the cockpit with some type of non skid, rubberized, plastic stuff. Well, this stuff has seen better days and is bubbling and peeling and basically looks like hell. In amongst all of the stuff, is a nice big 2 handed scraper with a razor blade on the end and the admiral started in on removing it. She cut away all of the bubbles and eventually will have it all gone. The glue has obviously failed in a lot of places but where it has not, it is about 1/16th of an inch thick. Nothing a belt sander won’t take care of. We are thinking that we will replace it with one of the fake teak products that are on the market.
In order to make more room onboard, we decided to bring all of the sails home, as well as the brass “boat jewellery” all of which needs to be polished and restored. This will give us something to do during the week.
Removing all of the sails from the v-berth, also allowed me to gain access to the forward water tank. The screws were all removed from the inspection plate and low and behold, guess what? Yup, more stuff!! The entire forward water tank was stuffed with extra material, canvas, Sunbrella and some kind of netting material similar to what was on the old lawn chairs that we all had as kids.
I also tested the shore power briefly to see what would happen. No fires or hot smelling metal so at least when we are there we will be able to use the outlets for the time being.
The Cocoon
Well sometime after we completed the frame last Sunday, the crew from Prodigy Marine http://www.prodigymarine.ca/aboutus.html followed up by lacing the entire thing together with a type of webbing. This will prevent the shrink wrap from concaving in any of the wider sections between the frames. They are currently waiting for a nice day to perform the actual shrink wrap as it cannot be completed in the rain. It is kind of hard to see in the picture.
The Dinghy
For Sale! ! Aquapro 10′ aluminum rib, with launching wheels and an 8hp Mercury outboard motor. We have no use for this dinghy or outboard as in the beginning of the year we purchased a bran new dinghy and outboard. This one that is now for sale, came with Akupara as part of the package.