Month: June 2018

Summertime, And the Reading is Easy

Summer is here and what’s a better way to enjoy your time than to find a shady spot and read a fun book. So I am going to take a break from boat projects to suggest a book. It is Murder at the Marina, by author and sailor Ellen Jacobson. It is her first novel and it is a good one.

We met Ellen through her sister Susan, who also works at the library. Back when we had Gypsy in Tom Becker’s shop, Nina was talking to Susan about our boat project and Susan responded that we were almost as crazy as her sister, who used to live aboard a sailboat in New Zealand. Well, that did not sound crazy at all to us and we started following Ellen’s blog. We got to meet her when she was visiting in Portland. She now lives aboard in Florida.

Ellen’s book Murder at the Marina is set at Palm Tree Marina in Florida. The book starts with Mollie and her husband Scooter having a romantic dinner to celebrate their tenth anniversary. During dinner Scooter announces to Mollie that he is buying her a sailboat. Mollie was expecting serious jewelry and is not thrilled. When Scooter takes her to see the boat the next day she is faced with mildew and peeling paint. She also meets Captain Dan, the fast talking boat broker who is selling them the boat. Dan tells them that they are invited to a BBQ at the marina that evening, so Mollie heads off in search of brownies and a bottle of wine.

The following morning, Mollie and Scooter go to the boat to start cleaning her up, but when they get there they find a dead body in the vee berth. Mollie does not want the boat. The dead body is even less welcome. The problem is she is making friends and enjoying life at the marina, so Mollie decides to find out what is going on at the Palm Tree marina.

Mollie is a cross between Nancy Drew and Miss Marple, and about halfway between their ages too. This cozy mystery will give you a feel for marina life in Florida. You will also learn a bit about boats. A fun summer read.

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Solstice Salutations

We last left you in heavy project mode. We wanted to get Gypsy into usable shape so we could do more than work on her, like actually get her out sailing. Our first goal was to get the cabin looking finished. We had unvarnished trim and lemon yellow paint still showing. The varnishing needed to get done first, so May was varnish month. We varnished and we worked on enclosing the engine space in the cockpit lockers. We got the varnishing done in time to clean the cabin and get Gypsy ready for the Memorial Day cruise. We had a fun weekend not working on the boat. The engine enclosure is still in process. Since the engine was not enclosed we get to invent the whole system. This means you do one bit and then you design the next bit… It may be done before we sail to Mexico.

cabin not painted
The cabin looks pretty good. The vee berth still has the lemon yellow paint.
ladder
The ladder is varnished and we have our new Treadmaster steps. You can see that the quarter berth still needs varnish. The ladder has come a long way from its plywood back and solid sides.  It now weighs less, too.

The painting came next. We piled all the cushions up in the main cabin and painted the vee berth and quarter berth.

cushions covered
No ghost, just cushions.

 

 

Nina painting
Nina painting.
cabin painted
The green is gone!!!

Bill made new plexiglass sliders for the head and galley cabinets. He almost fainted when he got the bill for the plexi. They do look good!

galley with plexi

head with plexi

mirrors in
We also got plexi mirrors. They will be great.
wind vane rebuild
While we were doing the painting, our dining room table became Monitor central. We rebuilt our wind vane. We replaced all of the plastic bearings and the blocks. While doing this, we discovered that 316 stainless is not that rust resistant. There were some every iffy bolts that have now been pounded out and also replaced. Anyways, the wind vane is ready to mount on Gypsy. The 3M stainless polish works very well at removing rust.
watermaker 1
We also started installing our watermaker. This is the main pump and reverse osmosis membrane unit. It is mounted above the quarter berth. We wanted a location that had good access and this was about the only choice. We chose this unit because it had a bigger output and a lower amp draw per gallon than the  small Katadyn watermakers. We will be able to make 6 gallons per hour for an 8 amp draw.
watermaker 2
The rest of the gear for the watermaker will mount on the board that will hang below the shelf. Getting the layout settled was a big step. Now Bill just needs to mount everything and run the plumbing.

The other project we finally got to was to have Rogers Marine come and troubleshoot our instruments. We were having problems with our radar and GPS. The problem turned out to be a defective Lowrance GPS. If we had been able to deal with this sooner we may have been able to get warranty coverage.  Lesson learned is deal with problems sooner rather than later.

So that is what we have been doing. We are working to get Gypsy ready for her summer cruise to Vancouver Island. We have a month to get her ready.