Ready to Go Back in the Water

So, the progress on the boat has been going along pretty well. As of last Friday, the boat was actually painted. You can see the pic to the left here. They did a pretty good job, and it's definitely a million times better than it was. One thing that didn't get fixed is the paddlewheel for the knotmeter. It's broken and according to the boatyard, to old to be able to get replacements for. They also said it would cost a couple hundred bucks in labor to fill in the hole, so I just decided to leave it there. I'll remove the actual "meter" part of the knotmeter, and then later, maybe next haul-out, I'll fill the hole for the paddlewheel and repaint it.

This morning, at the advice of the boatyard manager, I replaced the thru-hull cockpit drain hoses. This design is stupid, and I can see why they don't use it anymore. Basically there are two holes in the bottom of the boat, and two holes in the bottom of the cockpit, and they connect to one another so that any water that gets into the cockpit will drain out the bottom of the boat. This is fine, but there are better ways of doing this, which modern boats all seem to have implemented. Anyway, on my old boat, there are hoses that attach the bottom of the cockpit to the bottom of the hull. You can see them in the picture on the left. They're all new, and double-hose-clamped, and have cool green stripes that I faced forward cause I thought it looked cool that way. The old hose, with a rusted-to-the-point-of-falling-apart hose clamp, which ripped in half while I was trying to get it off, is sitting there on the floor in front of the new ones. It was probably a good idea to replace them, the old ones wouldn't likely have lasted another 40 years, and they're the only thing keeping water from coming in the two holes in the bottom of the boat.

Now the boat's sitting in the travelift getting the spots that were covered by the stands painted, and tomorrow it'll be ready to go back in the water. I have to get up early and go to the boatyard before work since they're putting the boat in the water at 7:00AM and I have to be there to check the work I did on the new drain hoses. It'd be pretty lame if by trying to do preventative maintenance I caused a leak that sunk my boat.

Updates

1. 2013-08-02 A Few Years Later
2. 2009-12-20 Final Update
3. 2009-08-21 Summer Update
4. 2009-05-06 April Update
5. 2009-03-30 March Update
6. 2008-12-30 Prepping for the New Rigging
7. 2008-12-18 Taking Down the Mast
8. 2008-12-01 Small Project Update
9. 2008-11-19 Back in the Water
10. 2008-11-18 Ready to Go Back in the Water
11. 2008-11-12 Haul-Out
12. 2008-11-10 The Boat's First Outing
13. 2008-11-07 It Runs!
14. 2008-11-02 The Once-Over