Ernest moves on board

Well we went and adopted a cat. He is all black and named Ernest. He has quickly become part of the family and we love him so much! He is loving and sleeps with us every night. The positives of having a pet on board far outweigh any negatives he may bring. Yes somethings have become more difficult, mainly traveling or camping trips. Yet he is full of such personality and love. He is sitting on my lap as I type this. I have just retuned home from work and he is in need of “lap time” He watches us while we work and cook. He likes to cackle at the birds and crows but has not caught one yet. He also hates to leave the boat… He has never jumped onto the dock and freaks out if we take him to someones house to cat sit. He may meow more than is ideal yet we put up with it. Our diet just may consist of more cat hair than it did in the past. Dylan was NOT a cat person. Ever since Ernest, Dylan is now a cat person. Although Ernest is a bit more dog like than any cat I’ve met.

Sometimes he wears clothes.

First Haul out March 2017

Main reasons for Hauling out the first time.

1) Inspect everything.

2) Repaint bottom.

3) Replace old seacocks

As you can see this is the max height and width that fit on this 50 ton lift in Juneau.

There is some debate between Sara and I about how many thru hulls this boat had when we bought it.

The correct answer is too many.

I fiber-glassed up at least 5 holes after removing the terribly scary thru hull ball valve setup that the boat had previously.

We replaced 7 thru hulls with Groco BV series flanged seacocks and the appropriate bronze Groco thru hulls.

The old backing plates were fiberglass over plywood. Some had moist plywood and I didn’t like it.

We cut off the plywood backing plates and I made some solid fiberglass ones.

We used the new thru hulls to clamp them to hull while being adhered with polyester resin putty.

I really like BoatLife sealants and adhesives. I believe we used lifecaulk to install the new parts.

The old thru hull plumbing was wrong and dangerous.

Straight pipe threaded thru hulls on tapered pipe thread ball valves, rusty hose clamps, corroded and broken handles, and rotten hoses were just a few of the problems we encountered.

First thing we learned about this potential project was this: Thru hulls have a Straight pipe thread or NPS. Most normal ball valves suitable for household and small industrial applications have Tapered thread or NPT. If you attempt to put NPS male to NPT Female you only get a couple threads on before it wont screw in any further.

There are a few “combo threaded” thru hulls that will fit NPT ball valves. We got fancy and went with the very nice (and expensive) Groco Flanged Seacocks with NPS threads.

Cutlass bearing seemed to be in good enough shape although the bronze strut seemed to be in less then perfect condition due to galvanic corrosion or electrolysis

Prop seems to be in great shape. Shaft seems straight.

We now have all new zincs and we are still debating the best way to bond all of our underwater metals to zincs.