week 31: The count down has started.

We made great leaps forward this weekend. We got the remaining non-skid painted. We had the side decks and the cockpit locker lids to paint. This consumed almost all of Sunday, taping off the areas and sanding and papering.  Thankfully, the side decks had been taped off by Tom or Chris so we didn’t have to tape those.  Sunday was hot and the Durabak non-skid paint dried faster than we could pull off the tape and masking. We had lots of bleed over to trim, so the first thing on Monday was carefully removing the extra bits with X-acto knives. Once that was done, Nina taped off the dodger and we painted the non-skid on the dodger top and touched up repairs to the side decks and locker lids. It all finally done and looks great. Durabak is wonderful non-skid, but it is not the most user friendly to install.

Sunday we also installed the halyards on the mast and upgraded the spinnaker block to a really beefy one that will pivot all the way around.

On Monday we also installed the new water tank. It fit perfectly. Bill installed the fuel fill hose on the new fuel tank. It required a lot of extra work to make it fit: very short hose and no space to work in.  The hose was finally wrestled into place and it should never need to come off. We also installed the FrigoBoat refrigeration cooler plate on the hull.

Tom helped us install the engine.  He hoisted it up in place and  we eased it in through the towel-protected companionway and onto the bedlogs.