(Scott here)

I am getting a little excited! Friday I am starting phase 1 of the Great Loop. My first mate (Rita) is not able to join me on this phase. 😢. But, my friend, former co-worker, and former Coastie is joining me. Peter J.

We are taking off Friday, May 5, 2023, in the morning from Harbor Centre Marina in Sheboygan. This is about 1 week later than originally planned. Why you ask? I am glad you did. I have a story to share.

Since April 12 I have been working on the boat. Every day, except 4 days. Sand, sand some more, and wipe down with acetone, the entire bottom.

Then paint and paint some more. We finally splashed last Monday. Tuesday I had a mechanic over to do some work and while he was crawling around in the engine room he saw a leak. Kind of like a stream of pee. That isn’t good! Water belongs on the outside. 😂. So, we hauled the boat out on Tuesday and Thursday I had a fiberglass guy there and a plan was made.

This is the starboard exhaust. It didn’t look like this when we splashed. There was a little crack and that was it. We had to find the problem and started at the crack to find the issue. Just breaking it away with a hammer and chisel. The void you can see had some “filler”. Not resin, just a cheap version that failed. We put a fan on it to dry it out and the “glass guy” worked on it over the weekend.

Primed on Monday. Three coats, two hours apart. Tuesday was paint day. Two coats about 10 hours apart. Wednesday (today) we put her back in the water. No more leak!!!

In addition, because I am a glutton for punishment. Since I wasn’t actually doing the work I decided I had time to get the boat waxed and buffed, at least what I could reach. That was a good 8 hours of work!

Then the dinghy davit system we ordered came in on Monday. What the heck, it will be easier to do this on the hard than in the water. With Rita and Noah’s help we were able to get that installed. That took is all day on Monday, between the prime job.

If you don’t know a dinghy is a small boat on the big boat. Our dinghy is a Walker Bay RIB (rigid inflatable boat) that is about 12’ long and 3’ wide. The dinghy is sort of like our car on the water. I prefer to anchor out instead of going to a marina. The dinghy allows us to get to land. A dinghy davit is a piece of equipment that attaches the dinghy to the boat.

We used to use a Weaver system. Didn’t like that, mainly because I had to take the outboard off every time we used it. I am not getting any younger, that motor was getting heavier. Plus, some larger waves ripped one of our dinghy’s off the boat a few years back. Since then we have been pulling it behind us when we took it with.

After a year or two of research we decided this Dinghy Caddy system was going to work for us and the boat. I still need to attach a cleat above the back window, then it will be done.

The paint job isn’t perfect, but good enough for me.

Today I provisioned and finished up a couple of smaller tasks.

Stay tuned!!