Vesper

The through-hulls that were originally in the boat were gate valves, a big  no-no on a sailboat so they had to be replaced.   The big one is the exhaust.  The Yanmar exhaust is 2″, while the Volvo was 1.5″ (of course) so that had to be swapped out for a bigger one.

 

Started putting the deck hardware back on.  When I originally painted the deck this summer I foolishly thought I could get it painted and the hardware back on in one week.  HA!!  It’s been a couple of months of fitting and epoxy work to get here but it’s looking good.  If you click that image below you can zoom in and see how I modified the bow pulpit.

 

Just shot of the original arrangement of the bow pulpit feet before I modified it so that I can get an anchor roller (or two) on the bow.

 

A box just arrived at the house and this is what was inside. The old winches were okay, but not up to modern standards.  Since I plan on doing some offshore passages with this boat I wanted self-tailers for the jib sheets so I can singlehand the boat while Lorena is off watch.  These are the Practical Sailor top rated winches so they should do the job okay.

The cockpit lockers had 37 years of nasty mank in them so I cleaned them and painted them bright white.  Much nicer and you don’t feel like you’ll get tetanus rooting around in them now.

 

First coat of paint on the boat.  We used Interlux Brightsides.  Originally I wanted to use 2 part but after a phone discussion with one of the Interlux gurus he said that brightside is what they recommend for high traffic areas that may need occasional retouching and we also weren’t sure that the boat hadn’t been painted with another paint at some point.  The hull definitely has been painted.  The paint went on really well, roller only with no tipping required.  The leveling agents in this paint are amazing.  Looking forward to getting the second coat on and then painting the cockpit.

 

Picked up the new engine from the freight terminal yesterday.  Going to need some help getting it off the trailer.   The old engine had a hole in the head and wouldn’t start due to compression problems.  Bad compression in a diesel is the kiss of death, requiring a rebuild and volvo engines are ridiculously expensive.  I found this engine at a good price in Massachusetts and had it shipped out.

Actually I guess I still have a few pieces of hardware left, I’ll get those tonight.

I managed to clean the engine compartment area today with TSP and get it mostly dry and then lay down a thick coat of alkyd enamel paint.  I think it turned out pretty good.  It’s tough to find engine problems (leaks) if the engine compartment is nasty.  Hopefully I can keep it in this shape for a few minutes after installing the engine.