Labor Day

There are lots of people on the water, but the boat yard is completely deserted, which is fine with me. Zoe and I walked down to the town dock this morning and watched the boats for a while, but since I've still got so much to do, we didn't hang out too long.

Boat watch:

Still working on the deck, but it's getting really close. I need to sand the last bit of fairing I did yesterday, but depending on how it looks, I might be ready to paint. I'm also going to fill the areas on the bow today. I want it to be ready so I can roll on the primer when I start painting the deck. I'll need to get a small amount of blue paint to match the rest of the topsides, but don't have time to redo the whole thing right now.

In fact, I've been thinking about changing the color, maybe even back to the original robin's egg blue -- it's dark blue right now. However, I'm not sure if I want a dark hull or a light one. If I spend most of my time in warm/hot climes, then a light color, either the original light blue or white, would make sense, but I'm not sure where I'll be or how much it matters. Most boats are white, which is a little boring. I'm going to make my decks all white, even the non-skid which was a cream color originally, but I'm not sure I want white topsides too.

There is a really nice 40 something foot ketch in the harbor with dark red topsides, which looks really good. Red's one of my favorite colors, so we'll see. Maybe I'll finish up soon enough to go ahead and do it this season. Also, I need to get her in the water to see where the water line's going to be once she's loaded. Until then, I won't know where the boot strip needs to go. I think it's a little low right now.

Sewing watch:

My other sandal broke the day after I wrote about fixing the first one, so I fixed it as well, and did a much better job of sewing the second time. In fact, I had to redo the first one a couple days later, but didn't need a needle the second time; I just had to tighten it up and tie it better.

The only other sewing I've had to do was on the boat cover. One of the seams at the bow had come loose, and with the hurricane coming, I figured I'd better go ahead and fix it. I had to pull back the cover and stand in the peak of the bow and sew it up by hand. It was only about a foot and a half, but it took a lot longer than I would have thought. The first few stitches looked pretty bad, but after a while I got the hang of it. I had to use a sewing palm to get the needle through some of the thicker sections with seams, but other than that, it wasn't bad.

Zoe watch:

She's all dusted off and sleeping under the boat. She played tug on her leach most of the way back -- she's the happiest dog I've ever seen.