Project List

There's sometimes a silver lining to having a girlfriend who is a busy attorney. Mia's work schedule required her to work extra hours Saturday and Sunday. It meant that I was going to be alone and therefore hyper productive to catch up on the perpetual project list.

I had originally wanted to do some of the higher priority tasks in the morning and then go sail the dinghy in Marina Del Rey. But the weather, as sunny and warm as it was, provided absolutely no wind all weekend. In addition, I haven't loaded the dinghy on the roof of my campershell before and prefer to run through that procedure with someone else to help so I know what to expect when I do it by myself.

So the list, I had to replace a couple bolts on the campershell roof rack and loosen all the roof fittings to fill the bases with weather sealant. Now they're all finally waterproof. I had to mount a dodger snap-button back to the underside of the traveler because it had corroded off. Since this required me to buy a tube of 3M 4200, which doesn't have a shelf life after you open it, I used the rest for sticking the cupholders back on the dinghy and I taped off the base of the mast and gutted out the old sealant and resealed that. I taped off the v-berth skylight which has a slight leak, and cleaned out the old sealant and resealed that as well. I had to find a replacement cap for an external radiator reservoir because the original cap was metal and rusted through, unfortunately nowhere sells this type of thing without replacing the entire reservoir, so I got creative and hunted through Smart & Final for a bottle or jar with a cap that would work - I found one - hopefully whoever has this boat next doesn't doubt my ingenuity when they find a green chili sauce cap with a rooster stamped on it holding the radiator fluid in. I cut up a 12-year old wetsuit to use the neoprene as a removable chafe-resistant pad around my bow and stern cleats to protect the boat from the dock line rubbing, bonus, it will quiet down the creaking sound of the line which occures when it's really dry outside. I installed a couple of these metal anti-chafe (wearandtearpads.com) near my cockpit cleats to prevent chafe from the roller furling line as well as an additional dockline that I use. I took the dinghy for a couple of rows around the marina during both days, took the big boat to the pumpout dock and fuel dock for a CNG tank that they no longer supply, I went surfing in the middle of the afternoon thanks to some lingering swell and those nonexistent winds.

It felt fulfilling to check this stuff off my list. All that is currently left of the list is building a lock for storage in the bed of my truck, going to MDR for the CNG tank, and then big project boat stuff.