Last night the wind was howling. We are still portlight-less, using plastic to cover up our holes in the cabin and this flimsy plastic wasn't very quiet in the 30+ mph winds. The wind supposedly got up to 80 mph on top of West Hill in San Pedro, and was constant at about 20 down here. The owner of our marina had two boats come unmoored. One of them had gone out the gate and out of the breakwater and was heading to Hawaii. Luckily, a marina patron was out lobster fishing and saw the boat floating away and jumped on and tried to take control. However, the boat had been sitting for five years (almost free) without having its bottom cleaned once and he couldn't steer the damn thing because of the growth of marine life. So he ended up having to call the Coast Guard to tow him in.
Our protection from the wind:
One of our necessities for ocean-going is a dinghy. We need them to get to shore when we can't moor to a dock or if we just choose not to. While the main purpose of them is to be fuel, food, and water transportation, recreation is a consideration. We have acquired two dinghies (one for each of us). One being a Port-a-boat, and the other a hard fiberglass one, both about eight feet.
The lovely Port-a-boat folded up with the soon-to-be-worked-on hard dinghy in back:
The Port-a-boat, so named because it folds up rather thin for storage (very important on the seas) has been sanded and just needs a prime and paint. We also have to replace the the supportive boards on the inside with marine ply, as we had to nearly destroy them to get the corroded bolts out. The other one needs a bit more work though. Gifted to us by our friend David, it's a total fiberglass boat that's been rocked pretty hard in its past and not fixed up to par. So today we went to work on it. Dan cut out the inner-liner of it and we tossed it, being that it was full of holes and were left with the outer hull.
Our (soon to be trashed) inner-liner:
And what will soon become our catboat dinghy!:
From examining it, we'd found quite a few holes where it had been abused, most of which were fixed using glass over paint (never the right way). So Dan cooked up some fiberglass resin while I went to work on power sanding (yes, again!) the coats of paint away. We cleaned off the areas that needed to be patched with lacquer thinner and went to work on patching our holes.
Before, holes-a-plenty:
And freshly glassed:
The plan for this little dinghy is pretty big. We hope to rig up a catboat mast on it at some time (a rig with the mast being very near the bow) for some fun dinghy sailing adventures. But first we have to make her structurally sound. Since we've removed the inner-lining (about two-thirds the weight of the boat) the boat is very flimsy. Dan plans to ship some teak wood over and sandwich the edges with it, as well as adding seats with marine plywood. She'll be our super-fabulous fiberglass dinghy when we're done with her.
Well, we were just at the cafe waiting for the fiberglass to harden before going back and faring it down and finishing the sanding job, so we're off. I'll leave you guys with a picture of my quarter berth (with comfy new two-inch tempurpedic pad):
Our protection from the wind:
One of our necessities for ocean-going is a dinghy. We need them to get to shore when we can't moor to a dock or if we just choose not to. While the main purpose of them is to be fuel, food, and water transportation, recreation is a consideration. We have acquired two dinghies (one for each of us). One being a Port-a-boat, and the other a hard fiberglass one, both about eight feet.
The lovely Port-a-boat folded up with the soon-to-be-worked-on hard dinghy in back:
The Port-a-boat, so named because it folds up rather thin for storage (very important on the seas) has been sanded and just needs a prime and paint. We also have to replace the the supportive boards on the inside with marine ply, as we had to nearly destroy them to get the corroded bolts out. The other one needs a bit more work though. Gifted to us by our friend David, it's a total fiberglass boat that's been rocked pretty hard in its past and not fixed up to par. So today we went to work on it. Dan cut out the inner-liner of it and we tossed it, being that it was full of holes and were left with the outer hull.
Our (soon to be trashed) inner-liner:
And what will soon become our catboat dinghy!:
From examining it, we'd found quite a few holes where it had been abused, most of which were fixed using glass over paint (never the right way). So Dan cooked up some fiberglass resin while I went to work on power sanding (yes, again!) the coats of paint away. We cleaned off the areas that needed to be patched with lacquer thinner and went to work on patching our holes.
Before, holes-a-plenty:
And freshly glassed:
The plan for this little dinghy is pretty big. We hope to rig up a catboat mast on it at some time (a rig with the mast being very near the bow) for some fun dinghy sailing adventures. But first we have to make her structurally sound. Since we've removed the inner-lining (about two-thirds the weight of the boat) the boat is very flimsy. Dan plans to ship some teak wood over and sandwich the edges with it, as well as adding seats with marine plywood. She'll be our super-fabulous fiberglass dinghy when we're done with her.
Well, we were just at the cafe waiting for the fiberglass to harden before going back and faring it down and finishing the sanding job, so we're off. I'll leave you guys with a picture of my quarter berth (with comfy new two-inch tempurpedic pad):
so you sleep in the hammock and dan sleeps below on the bed?
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