stainless countertops...

This weekend, I spent Saturday pouring still more epoxy and sanding the deck fair. It takes so long for it to cure in this weather! It looks pretty good to me at this point and it will probably be all set for fiberglass. I can still fair it some more later if I think needs it.

On Sunday, I set about working on the counter tops. I ended up calling around to see if anyone knew where I could get some 316 Stainless sheeting. Steve had some left over from a project and after a few hours of cutting and grinding, the sink and faucet look great with the stainless counter tops...They're just dry fitted at this point and the stainless still needs to be bedded to to the plywood base. When that's done, I'll trim them out with teak molding and I guess it'll be time to check the sink through hull before plumbing it.

I finished in a hurry because the weather was starting to turn for the worse and I wanted to get the boat closed up so I didn't take any pictures. Maya and I will take a look at it tomorrow after work/school.

St. Lucia

New Gourd from a local.

Under the heading "other boats", I have to mention our recent trip to St. Lucia last month. We usualy go to spanish or british islands down there but were invited to connect with Maki's folks on St. Lucia, a small now independent island that changed from french to spanish about 14 times. their down in the islands again this winter on their Waquiez 40 named Mojito. A really nice spacious boat thats fast enough to make ever encounter with another boat into a small racing match. Even if theother boat doesnt know theyve been challenged.

Lee cloth up...rough nite but she never stirred.

Besides the fact that St. Lucia is new for us, it also appealed to us because of the hills. there are a couple on the island that reach a couple thousand feet, which seems much taller when they rise straight up out of the sea. The two most popular hills (or Pitons as there called there) are both climbable. The small one is harder and more technical but doable and the larger one is easier but you are required to use a guide (30 buck per person).

My girls...

Beba and Ba, our hosts

Tarp off for good?

So, the deck is just about ready for the fiberglass. I have to still level a spot here and there with epoxy/filler/sanding before doing anything else. It looks good and I’m kicking myself for taking so long to do it.


This is the first time that the tarp has been off the boat. I had made a replacement for the frame that the previous owner had made for it. This created a nice “room” to work in whenever the weather wasn't so dry. Even in the summers, I've had the tarp on the boat if there was over a 30% chance of rain. Now, with the decks watertight, I took of the tarp and as long as the companionway, port lights and forward hatch are closed tight or covered then everything should be dry…


A couple of shots of the boat without the tarp and the frame that has since been burned in the bonfire……


We’ll see. (I'm still expecting a few leaks)

Still prepping the deck...

Spring is on its way and the weather is starting to turn. The NH seacoast had a long dry spell of increasing warm weather and I started in on the decks again.


For a while, I've been trying to decide how to handle the deck. Originally, the boat came with a plywood underlayment with a teak deck. The previous owners might have ben planning to re-do the teak decking but I couldn't justify spending that much money on this when a fiberglass deck would be less of a hassle and less likely to leak. The plywood decking thats there now is appox 3/8" or so. Which leaves about a 1/8" of a difference between the deck and the hieght of the hull sides. I had read in a few sources that the thing to do would have been to make up the diference with another layer of ply before fairing it and putting on the cloth. I started down this road last fall i think and had all the pieces cut and coated with epoxy. But then of course I read a few opinons the other way saying that a deck that think was unnessisray and overkill. It seemed that plenty of larger boats have a deck of 3/8ths with fiberglass that have been more that strong enough for decades so I decided to go that way. Even though I had prepped all the pieces to go, I still thought it better to have the thinner deck and save weight of all that wood and epoxy. The next thought was how to handle the differenece in hieght between the hull side and the deck. I considered shaving the sides down with a grinder but decided to use microballons in the west system to fair out a nice smooth camber from the cabin sides to the rails (not too flat that it wont drain out the scuppers), rather than the steeper grade it would have been.
So in the interest in doing things right the first time, I have been spending a lot of time fairing out that area from cabin sides to the rails so that its smooth and even from side to side. I had enough light to get most of the epoxy down I wanted to but ran out of warm weather, dry weather and sun light to think about laying any cloth.

Me, sanding some epoxy and running out of day light.....
(note the no longer needed blue dress sock being used as a dust bag)

Decks started

We had a couple of 50 degree days here in NH, so I finally got around to the decks. I scratched and patched the ply that was down and then skim coated everything with West/microballon powder. I'll do this a couple times then sand it fair. The next couple of 50 degree days and I'll be able to lay the fiberglass down.
No pictures yet.