Captain Bob's Adventures

Sanding, sanding, sanding.  No easy way to say it other than this is a hard, dirty, nasty job.  I used an orbital sander, attached a shop vac, and even so, came out looking like a blue smurf.  If you decide to do this, take my advice and go ahead and purchase a disposable throw away clean room type suite and wear it.  Glasses, mask, gloves, the works.  You will get this stuff all over you in every crack and crevice and it is difficult to get off. After sanding for a couple of days, I had to figure out how I was going to paint under the bunks, and in the areas around the keel.  The seaward group over at Trailer Sailor was a great help with ideas they had used.  So I got a some 2x6's and my ratchet straps out and went to it.  All in all it worked fine.  I went with Pettit Hydrocoat SR in blue and ordered it from Defender.  It was $200 for a gallon, so pricey stuff.  They aren't joking when folks talk about spending some time ...

I'd been reading many different internet sites on the methods of cleaning up gel coat and found one I particularly liked at the sailboat owners forum. From reading, I have some respect for the poster in his approach on many different things, so I decided to following his method. Here's the link to his post: Maine Sail's Tips For a Great Buff Wax  I did the wet sand, used his recommended products for buffing, buffer pads, wax, and wax methods. It took me a good three days of on and off work to get this completed, but the results speak for themselves I think.   Before After It certainly is by no means perfect and I can see as he said you can really spend hours and hours continuing to perfect it if you so desire, but Overall, I was happy with the outcome.

Crutches for the boat, not me :). I needed to build some mast crutches to support the mast when the boat is being trailered.  I saw a couple things online to give me some clues on how to build something out of wood to accomplish what I wanted.  The rear mast crutch is created so that I can take a wingnut off and flip it around allowing it to hold the mast at a higher angle for raising. I also wound up buying a small electric pressure washer to better clean the bottom of the boat. After a good pressure washing it was much cleaner than before I plan to spend some time cleaning the gelcoat on the boat. First step and this was wet sanding the entire boat removing any imperfections as well as removing the previous name on the boat.   The next step will be buffing and polishing.

It's been a while since I've updated the blog so thought I would catch up a bit. Back in August, I "invested" in a new sailboat.  I found a Seaward 25 over at Mark Twain lake for sale and began pursuing it and negotiating with its owner.  We came to agreement on the price and now I am the proud owner of said boat.  As with every boat, there is always a tremendous amount of work to be done, starting with the trailer.  I'm fortunate that the boat was sitting in the Marina slip at Mark Twain so this gave me an opportunity to work on the trailer. The trailer needed new bunks, brakes, tires, lights, and a few miscellaneous items.  I've been working on it for the past few weeks and have just finally completed all the necessary things the trailer needed. The next thing to be accomplished is to take the trailer over to the lake and load the boat on it, bring it back home, and get to work on the boat itself. I'll attach a few pictures.

We have been spending time at Luquillo beach the past couple of days.  This is a great beach lined with Palm trees and a gentle slope out to the water.  Some wave action and the sand is sticky but soft.  A great end to our week here on the east side of Puerto Rico.

We went over to El Yunque rain forest.  They have a visitor center, lots of hiking trails, and a few waterfalls to visit.  We did a quick road side lunch and there were some great times admiring the beauty of the area.