Hauled CAPTAIN'S CAT about 10 days ago for some underwater work. Painted the bottom, that which I could reach on the trailer. Since the boat stays on the lift, all I wanted to do is protect it as much as possible and have it look good in the water. It had the original paint on it, which was very faded but still intact. We're in salt water here but with the boat on the lift most of the time, it stays pretty clean. I noticed that the bar zinc on the stbd Suzi is just plain missing, no noted corrosion on any of the zincs, even the ones on the Armstrong Bracket.
Mounted the new transducer for the Raytheon depth sounder (part of the E-80 system) on the port sponson. Have a shoot through the hull transducer for the Garmin chartplotter inside the stbd sponson. Am hoping that they won't interfere with each other.
Drilled the holes for the radar pedestal in the cabin top (boy do I hate to do that). The top is cored, about 1/2" of balsa between ~1/4" of fiberglass on the top and bottom of the sandwich... Used a spade bit and drilled a 5/8" hole for the 1/4" mounting bolts. Used a hole saw (1") for the cables down the center of the pedestal (radar, gps and searchlight power /controls). In each case, I drilled until I just barely penetrated the cabin top with the bits and then undercut each hole using a drill with an allen wrench in it.
After I taped off the little holes in the cabin overhead to make them "epoxy tight" I cleaned out each hole by blowing with compressed air and filled each with thickened West System epoxy. I was surprised that the epoxy and hardner, which had little pumps in them were still good after sitting for a year! Should be hard enough by tomorrow to drill them out and mount stuff.
Hopefully the outside stuff will be done by Tuesday, have to get her back in the water for family company over Easter weekend. The second radio, autopilot, E-80, and other stuff will just have to wait but I can do that on the lift under cover...
This morning, I launched and brought "Sally's Choice" around from the marina about 5 miles away and moored her at our dock. It's an old Gloucester 22 sailboat and looks like new! The 6hp Merc 4 stroke ran flawlessly after I remembered to push in the choke. The marina put in the steel centerboard which lifts up into the fixed keep which had been missing since we had her. It was a pain but the 6 part pully lift seems to work well and it will "point" a lot better now, although it did pretty well even without it!
Also powerwashed all the decks and got Thompson's on some of them.
It will be great with two boats at the pier this season! I think spring has come to Virginia....
Charlie