If you wait for everything to be perfect, you'll never go

Gill gave me that advice this morning, and it's good to keep in mind as I get the boat ready. The boat will be 40 years old next year, so there's always going to be something wrong. I was telling him that all my pumps are broken, even the manual bilge pump in the cockpit. He advised me to get a hand-held one and keep some buckets handy (I already have both, but still want all my pumps working).

I already have a few new pumps including a new fresh water one and submersible bilge pump, but just haven't installed them yet. I think the one in the cockpit is just clogged up, so I should be able to repair it without too much trouble. There's another large bilge pump, but I'm not sure if it's working either. I'm not ready to tackle any plumbing projects yet, but just needed to pump the bilge after cleaning the cockpit and and the lockers underneath it. I had to do that in order to climb down there and install my Windpilot wind vane.

If the weather cooperates today, I'll install it this afternoon. I drilled the holes in the transom and dry fitted everything yesterday, but didn't have the right calk, so Gill ordered it for me and it came in today. Now it's up to the weather.

I picked up an alcohol burner from West Marine this morning. I had to throw out the old stove after I got the boat -- it was completely rusted out used some sort of pressurized system. Can't remember if it was alcohol or kerosene, but the pressure systems are a pain and the surveyor recommended I replace it. I'd been looking for a non-pressurized kerosene one, but they've mostly stopped making them and the ones I did find were too expensive. Hopefully, the alcohol burner will work out. I'll try it out later, but the main question now, other than will it get hot enough, is how much fuel it consumes. Not only will I need to carry enough on board for however long it takes to make a voyage, I'll also want a bit more in case it's hard to find. I bought a gallon from Gill, so I'll see how long that lasts. I'll mainly be making coffee, rice, and heating up canned stuff, so I won't be using it a lot -- I'm not really much of a cook.

Finally, I'm still working on the portlights and portholes. I've got them all out and have cleaned up all but the last three. A few of the portholes are in really bad shape, but since they are so expensive to replace, I'll just have to do the best I can. I might have to seal one of them if I can't get it to stop leaking once I reinstall it, but I guess that's better that a leak. Whoever pulled them last time, used some sort of grease or plumbers putty to put them back in, so I have to use turpentine to clean them up. It's really nasty.

There's also some damage to the cork core around a few of the large portlights. Not sure how much I can do about it, but I'll try to clean them out and fill them with epoxy before I reinstall the portlights, and I won't do that until I've painted the deck. I've still got a lot of work to do, but I've only been at it a week and can already see progress. Removing the portlights was a big deal.

The best part about removing all of them is that now I can reach both sides of the all the deck hardware I need to remount. Can't believe I didn't think of this earlier, but it works out great. I still can't reach the stuff in the peak of the bow, but I may not try to remount that stuff right away. The only reason to remount anything is to seal the cork core properly -- I was in a hurry when I installed it all, so I didn't go to the trouble of doing it right, but that probably won't be a problem for a long time, so it may have to wait. Like Gill said, if I wait for everything to be perfect, I'll never go.