Well where do I begin? Well I couldn’t sleep because I wanted to get started working. It was unseasonable cool in the mornings so I figured that it would be best to get an early start and see what happens. I do have some photos to post and will add them shortly.
Upon arrival we were greeted by the contractor who was already working and advised that under the current blue paint (it was red for the barrier) has/had a bunch of worm coral. It won’t hurt anything but it will make it difficult to get to that layer of paint. Ok, fine. We were also made aware of some previous work/repairs that were made to the rudder and the keel. Again no biggie. Repair work looked good and we are going to keep moving. Yay! Then we were asked to remove part of the galley because there is thru hull under there that they needed to access to replace the old one with the new one. What a pain in the butt that was to do! It took 2 days to remove the parts we needed for the kitchen. Oh well, it had to be done.
We brought up the Bimini pieces so we can get this put together because that sun can be brutal and boy am I glad we did. Makes it so nice to relax up there. We have the dodger but left it on the boat since we don’t need it up. We will have to replace some of the screws and we need to fabricate 2 support poles that we just can’t find and then we can mark that project off the list.
Completed the 2nd coat of paint in the Engine room and boy does it look fantastic! That project is done! I got board because Andy wondered off to chat with the salvage guy at the yard so I put on the wind scoops! Another item to scratch off the list! Yay!
Next for me to tackle is the sanding. This job is harder and going to take longer than I thought. I spent several hours just taping the dang boat so I can sand the next day… In the meantime, Andy is still fighting with the kitchen with the most colorful words you can imagine, LOL. Apparently it’s attached to the bulkhead so not easy to remove and they made it so it would NEVER be removed.
Saturday ended later than we wanted but we did a full day and got much accomplished. Then realized that we should be filming more of this. We promise to get better.
Sunday, Sanding all of the teak wood. The cordless hand sander is not strong enough to remove the varnish from the companionway however, I was able to sand everything else down with 60 grit paper. It took all morning for that and then it was time for a break. The kitchen got removed, then I decided to head down and start making some room in there. I went to put the puzzle together and find out where the drawers all go. I was able to find some and then breaktime was over and Andy came back and finished it off. So we have most of the drawers in – the aft cabin was full of stuff so not easy to get back there to put away the drawers. Will finish that off next weekend now that the painting was done and we can move the fans that were used to help dry and remove paint odors. Got some lunch and then started picking at the teak on the cockpit seats… (because I am getting splinters!)
I removed the exposed screws first, because that was easiest. They have them covered so it was hard to remove the cover (it too was glued) to expose the screw and then discovered they glued them down. So what I thought would be something quick and easy… Not so much. Plus there is a large amount of dirt that is stuck in there so I will need to sand some of it and then seal the screw holes with 5200 to prevent any leaks. This project is going to be a full weekend.
By this time, we both decided that it was too hot and we both lost our motivation to keep going but since it was already 2pm, I was good with it. Overall the progress of this weekend was great and I was happy.
The contractor is working on completing the final sanding so new barrier paint can be applied, then new anti foul paint. The engine should be dropped in and all of the thru hulls should be replaced. We will need to get a list of items to get the engine connected and running. Final item for the contract will be to repair the mast support foundation. Then we can step the mast and move Free Spirit into the water.
That is all for now. Thank you everyone for joining us in the journey as we constantly try to “Never Stop Learning”.