Kooky Dance Has a New Home

We moved into our new marina today.  We are at Bayland Marine in Baytown, TX.  It is very nice and QUIET....

The "sun cover" is mostly done....

One more step closer to the dream....The sun cover (a must have) is done, well the mid section (the hardest section) is set up and ready to provide us with an abundance of shade.  Scott came up the the design and we both worked on the sewing.  The front section will be pretty straight forward and should only take a couple of days to complete.

BTW - we ordered our Wind vane today...another big step forward.

More Cruising Prep

Right now every step seems like a huge leap forward toward our dreams.  This past week we got our Bimini supports, clocks and barometer.  That may not sound like a lot but each represents an item checked off the "to-do" list.  We attended Texas Mariners Cruisers Association's Spring Fling to take in several seminars including, Anchoring techniques, cruising medical and prep for coastal cruising.  We made a lot of plans for additional work on the boat including mast steps, ladders and miscellaneous installations.

The Bimini supports

Work continues on the sun cover but expect that to be done by June 1.  Speaking of June 1 - we are now planning on moving our boat to Bayland Marina - we will save almost 1,200.00 in slip fees and that is enough money to purchase a soft dinghy or a dinghy motor. 

After the book sort.....

I am very proud of Scott - he hung in there like a real trooper......90% of the books are either donated or recycled.

Down Sizing Part 2

We spent the day sorting books, photo's, CD's and tapes.....it was exhausting.  We are making progress toward our dream.

November 1st is our projected departure date.  Exciting and scary all bundled together.

Before the book sort.....

After the book sort.....

Coming soon.......

The Dinghy is Done!!

We put the last coat of paint on Dinghy Dance on Sunday and we are putting her in the water this weekend!  It took us 7 months to build her and she is a thing of beauty.  I will post photo's of the first launch soon.

Continued Work on Dighy Dance

We have made slow progress on the Dinghy due to good weather.  It has been really warm so we have to decide if we go sailing or stay at home and work on the dinghy.  We manage to do both and have made a few modifications that I hope will add functionality.

We have completed the foredeck construction and once again Russell (owner of PTW) has done an excellent job with the instructions in the manual.  As you can see there is an extra hole in the deck.

There is a space forward of the mast step bulkhead that once the deck is installed will be impossible to inspect.without cutting out some of the deck.  This bothered me a little.  I decided to add a small waterproof hatch and create a small anchor locker i the bow for a folding anchor.

When I cut out the opening for the large hatch I did not follow the directions exactly.  I know shame on me, but I used a vibratory saw on the strait sections and a jig saw in the corners.  In this way I was able to save the cutout plug entirely.  I used the cutout wood plug as a doubler for the small hatch.  In between the deck and the doubler is a layer of 4 oz. glass cloth for additional strength.  The edges were beveled because the top of the foredeck get a glass cloth cover.

The next step was the aft seats and again the instructions were thorough.  The seats constituted another area that could not be inspected so we did some thinking. 



We decided to add small hatches there as well and used the piece of oakum cut out of the aft bulk head as doubler material.  We debated whether to put the hatches (2 or 1 port and starboard) on the side or top.  While aesthetics voted for the side the top seemed to have more functionality.  Functionality won out.

 

 

Hatch top with doubler.  I taped the hole to keep from gluing the top to the table.  The holes for mounting the hatch hardware are drilled out oversized and will be filled with epoxy.

 

I had been thinking about strengthening the stern bulkhead around the rudder attachment but because the Stern is curve I had to be careful.  I used a piece of the scrap plywood supplied with the kit ad made a small doubler.  The edges were beveled because this area gets a layer of glass cloth later on in the manual. 

I used the existing tab holes for the seats and Russell's trick of small block of wood to draw the doubler down.  This will mean the fastening hardware supplied with the kit will not be long enough but a quick stop into the hardware store will fix that.  I wrapped the blocks of wood in tape to keep them from getting stuck to the doubler and I cleaned out the tab holes for the seat when the block were removed.

 

The weather is suppose to be bad this weekend so I predict some good progress on the dinghy. 

 

Later y'all