The weather wins!

ell, our trip down the river to drop off our trawler to get the topsides painted has been delayed. 34-35 degrees and steady/misting rain would not make for the funnest of travels. Thus, we have pushed things out at least another week. Assuming the weather is good next Friday we will hopefully untie the lines and head down stream finally! Here is a screenshot of the current weather in Chattanooga today...not exactly the tropics!

Someone asked me yesterday if the name of our trawler has yet been changed to "Living Light." Since we are getting the transom painted along with the entire topsides, we have not yet placed the new name on her. In fact, right now her port/starboard nameboards of "Poco A Poco" are still up as well. When we take her to get painted though, we will be removing the nameboards to be refinished and the new name will be placed on the transom and the nameboards prior to us making the return trip back up river to Island Cove. Below is a (not so good) photoshop picture showing how the name should look when we are done with her:

So far, our list of work completed:

1) Recore and refiberglass entire foredeck and aft bridge deck. Old plywood square coring (it wasn't balsa coring- actually small squares of 5/8" thick plywood and random wood pieces) was replaced with Corecell (synthetic coring that does NOT absorb water and will NOT rot).

2) Repair the many tiny blisters on the hull, sand down old bottom paint, and 2 coats new bottom paint. Install new anodes on hull, shaft, and rudder.

3) Reinstall Mast and run anchor masthead light.

4) Get all navigation lights operational.

5) Fill old speaker holes, etc. at flybridge as well as fill in any and all cracks, dings, etc. to gelcoat throughout topsides and sand entire superstructure in preparation for painting.

6) Full service of main engine and generator including all fluid changes, replace leaking fuel line at injector pump, chase down miscellaneous oil and fuel line leaks on main engine, etc.

7) Pressure test both fuel tanks for leaks. It is common for older trawlers to, at some point, need their fuel tanks replaced. We decided to pressure test both tanks to be sure all was well. Happily, both tanks held pressure great!

8) Tear out old galley and associated fixtures, replacing with new wiring for new cooktop, granite counter tops, and all new sink fixtures and large undermount sink. Additionally, new wiring run to relocate microwave from previous location atop the galley refrigerator to it's new home under the new cooktop. While working on the galley....I also built and installed a new silverware drawer to cover the gap between new cooktop and the microwave which made everything not only look better but also further increased our storage capacity in the galley.

9) New coats of paint on the interior of all storage lockers. Being that the boat is 28 years old, the interior of the storage lockers were looking a little tired, so new paint to all of them and it looks better and cut down on odors.

10) New wiring to add 4 gang electrical outlet to the forward stateroom for the kids.

11) Install new flatscreen and DVD player in the kid's stateroom.

12) Run cabling for dual monitor function GPS tied into the lower helm macbook and engine room camera (hope to make the permanent mount for the cam this weekend).

13) New ipod compatible stereo/CD player in main salon and get speakers working through out both staterooms and salon.

14) Wire and install new air horn.

15) Replace old style swim platform ladder that only had 2 steps (way too short to really work!) with a telescoping 4 step ladder mounted under the swim platform.

16) Replace faulty freshwater pump, freshwater vent line, and HVAC water pump.

17) Build a second v-berth style bed to starboard in forward/kid's stateroom. Boat was originally built with a large double to port but with us having 2 children we wanted each to have their own berth so I built a second bed to starboard.

18) A bunch of other small stuff I am forgetting right now. :)

Items still on our "to do" list:

1) Install the small inverter that a friend and client recently gave us (you know who you are- thanks!!).

2) Paint topsides and transom and get her new name put on.

3) Finish installing the Wifi booster antenna and router our friend Bill gave us as a "boat warming" gift.

4) Look at upgrading our lighting fixtures and "lighting plan," both interior and exterior.

5) New canvas on the bridge.

6) New curtains in the salon.

Luckily our "to-do" list is a lot smaller than our "done" list and some of the "to-do" is purely optional. Actually, pretty much all of the items still on the to-do list are optional, with the one I want to get done first being the inverter.

Here are some "before" and "after" pictures of some of the projects mentioned above: