Back to the Water 2014

After spending a great summer at our home in Northern NY we returned to our winter abode in Jensen Beach FL on Oct 15th. After a quick bottom paint job Apres Ski is back at her slip at the Pellicans Nest within an easy walk from our home.

    Winter Boat Projects
    Paint deck- My main project this year has been to paint the deck, cabintop and stern.  As with almost any project on an old boat this turned out to be much more labor intensive than planned. After removing all the deck hardware and window trim the process of sanding, patching, priming and lots more sanding was followed by multiple coats of Interlux Perfection 2 part epoxy applied using foam rollers. I then masked off all the smooth areas and applied the same paint in light tan to the non skid areas. I must say the paint was much trickier to work with than anticipated as temps, humidity and wind all played a major role in the final finish. I am quite happy with the final result and now Chris says it came out so good that I need to paint the cockpit next year.

new paint job

  Repair Transmission-Following problems with the gearbox slipping at slow speeds last year I researched this problem and found it is common with this unit in that the metal on metal friction cup and cone setup gets glazed. The suggested solution was to dissamble gearbox and burnish the clutch surfaces. This was an easy fix and was amazed at the the info available on the web especially on utube.
  Upgrade Alternator-The addition of a larger alternator, 80 amp combined with an external 4 stage voltage regulator will hopefully cut down on the time spent running the engine to charge batteries.
    Replace freezer-The freezer we bought last year (Dometic cool freeze) was a major disappointment in that it failed to keep food in the bottom frozen while the upper portion stayed at 10 degrees.  After numerous call to the company they had us return unit and refunded our purchase price including all shipping costs. I replaced this freezer with a Norcold unit that is bigger than we wanted but was a good price. Time will tell but so far this has been a great unit.(runs on same danfoss compressor but has a much larger evaporator plate.
    Sun Shades-In past years when it got to hot at anchor we would use old bedsheets attached to our enclosure to block the sun. While this was functional it wasn't very convenient or very yachty looking. This winter I fashioned sunshades using white filtertex (screen like shade material that still lets you see out) that can be zipped and snapped in place as needed.
    Mast Steps- One of the chores I hate on the boat is going up the mast for repairs and maintenance. I have always considered a set of mast steps but their cost and appearance deterred me. This fall I came upon a fellow sailor selling a box of new steps he had bought years ago and was able to get them for a song. It was a project installing them hanging from the bosuns chair as each step is held with 6 rivets. You might know that with only the top 2 steps to install I ran out of rivets! Poor planning meant another trip to the top.