Finally warmed back up

Today was nice, but it's been pretty cold for the last few days. Not as cold as it was in Marion for the winter, but Monday night was around freezing if not below. Marion was much colder, but since I already removed most of the portlights and portholes, it's impossible to keep the boat much warmer than the air outside. Zoe even had to crawl inside my sleeping bag with me to keep warm -- she had to do that most of the winter in Marion as well, but that was when it was in the teens, this was barely freezing.

I finally rigged up my shore power cable, a really heavy one, and plugged in a small electric heater Rob, from West Marine, gave me back in Marion. I couldn't turn it up full blast because it would trip the circuit breaker, but it kept the boat about 10 degrees warmer than outside. That made it tolerable.

The cold weather also slowed me down a bit, but the rain was worse. Like I said, today was great, but it's been raining off and on for the last few days which makes it tough to get much done. I picked up a cold too, so I took it easy for a couple of days and just tried to stay warm. I did clean up and organize most of areas down below, so it probably won't cost me too much time in the long run.

I also managed to get all the portlights and portholes out and mostly cleaned up, and found a place online where I can order the square gaskets I need for the portholes. I still haven't been able to find the gasket I need for the portlights, but I may just have to seal them with a uv calk and hope for the best. I was thinking of maybe replacing them with surface mount tinted lexan, but would prefer not to go that route -- due both to cost and and the amount of extra work involved.

This afternoon, I removed the coamings from both sides of the cockpit. That was a bit of a pain, but they finally came out. I still need to clean the deck in and around the cockpit and remove a bunch of other stuff and repair the two holes the previous owner made in the deck -- one for the stern pole he used to mount the radar, and the other for a vent. Both of them were improperly installed and let water get into the cork core. I already replaced 16 square feet of cork coring on the foredeck a couple of years ago caused mainly by another vent he mounted in the peak, so I'm pretty familiar with the procedure. I think the reason he added the additional vents was because the boat had so many leaks. All of the portlights and portholes leaked, as well as a lot of the stanchions and the starboard toe rail. I should be able to fix all of them, but can't do the toe rail right now, so I may have to live with that leak for a while.

There are a bunch of other holes in the cockpit that need to be patched, mainly from stuff I removed or was removed before I got the boat. I'll take care of all of that tomorrow and get it ready to glass. I should be able to glass it all at the same time once the weather clears back up -- forecast calls for rain for the next few days. Once I've done all the glass work, it'll be ready to paint. Then I can add the non-skid and remount whatever I've taken off. I'm considering removing the stern pulpit and mainsail traveler as well, but haven't decided yet. Removing them would make it easier to repair and repaint the deck, but then I'd have to remount them as well. I'll decide tomorrow once I start the repairs. If it makes sense, I'll do it.

I still need to remove two more handrails from the coach roof, but it looks like the one that Barden's broke when they decommissioned the boat a couple of years ago will need to be custom made. I'll probably just glass over the existing holes and mount a temporary one for now and wait to have one made in the Caribbean or South America where it's cheaper. It's just too expensive up here.

Barden's claimed, after I'd gotten the bill and didn't see it listed, that they'd already figured the cost of the handrail into the bill, but I find that dubious since she initially said she didn't know anything about it. I was already in Manhattan at the time, and they still had the boat in Marion, so there wasn't much I could do. Someone in the yard also rifled through all my stuff and stole my computers while I was in the water on Barden's dock. I called the police and was out with them at the site examining footprints when one of the guys (the same one that later broke the handrail) came over to see what was going on -- his boots matched the footprints in the mud -- and later that day after the police left, the computers magically reappeared. At that point, I dropped the complaint, but it looks like a few other things, including a watch were also taken and not returned -- I didn't notice the watch until later.