Deck Painted

9 Feb 2019

The painting of the deck was completed on Monday, which I consider to be a milestone. 

Bruce and his wife "Dolphie" arrived early in order to do as much painting as possible before the arrival of the hot midday sun.  Bruce began rolling the paint at about 8 AM while Dolphie worked furiously to complete the masking with tape. A small amount milled plastic powder had been mixed with the paint to ensure that the non-skid property would not be degraded by this second unexpected top coat.  By about 4 PM the entire deck had been  painted and the port side which had been painted first was already touch dry.  Bruce and Dolphie had hung in there throughout the extremely hot conditions and I was grateful for that.  While they worked above their son "Oakie" worked below sanding the hull below the waterline  to smooth finish.  Oakie exhibited the same strong work ethic as his parents.

New deck color

We had changed the color from "Biscuit" (X42) to "Magnolia" (X32) which was two shades lighter and I was pleased to see that the result was as I had envisioned.  The enclosed photo does not do justice to the colors when viewed from a computer screen but at least give an idea of the result.  Note how the toe rail complements the color.

While Bruce did his thing I concentrated on the task of setting up the  hoses for the three bilge pumps.  The electric bilge pump and the manual "Whale Gusher" manual pump at the stern of the cockpit drain the forward section of the cabin bilge and the manual Whale Gusher pump at the starboard side of the cockpit drains a pit in the bilge below the cockpit.

White electric pump atleft, black manual pump inlet at right

Electric bilge pump hose above white manual pump hose

White hoses to manual bilge pumps in cockpit, clear hose at left from electric pump

The first task was to route the two hoses passing from the cabin to the lazarette.  Unfortunately the mechanic had been naughty and passed without notification to us one of the Morse control cables through the opening for one of the hoses and a fuel line through the other.  It took me over an hour of careful work to move these lines to their proper paths.

Passing the hoses through their respective routes turned out to be easier that I had expected.  The key was to feed the hoses down through the lazarette floor into the steerage compartment and from there use a combination of pushing and pulling to reach the cabin drain area.  The starboard cockpit pump hose was already in position and I connected it to the pump.  On Wednesday and Thursday Bruce and I worked together to fit the hoses, coating the through hull inlets with Sikaflex then using a heat gun and lots of muscle power to fit the hoses into the clamping position.  We used sturdy wide clamps rather than the standard universal clamps.

One of the subtle improvements to the boat is the USB power outlet plug suggested by Greg Hansen.  The upper slot delivers 1 amp and the lower one delivers 2 amps.  The shelf below it completes a very convenient setup for charging mobile phones, cameras, etc.

Charging my Android phone at the new facility

Greg made another improvement.  Up to now the boat's AM/FM radio has been  practically useless because it has relied on a tiny antenna in the cabin strapped next to the mast.  I had used it mostly as a sound system for CD's and watching movies.  I had sacrificed my old, decrepit, and redundant Lowrance GPS to make room for the upgrade of the boat's 240 volt system and it was Greg's idea to use its antenna position at the stern of the boat to mount a long marine AM/FM whip antenna.  Greg visited the boat on Friday and did precisely that with the help of Bruce and myself.  He came up with a stainless steel plate to which he could screw the antenna with holes for screws then drilled holes in the freed up Lowrance mounting plate and fitted his plate with thru bolts.  He then screwed the mast onto the plate and  passed the antenna cable through down through the stainless steel tubing into the interior of the boat using the redundant Lowrance cable as a pull through. 

New AM/FM antenna at left, AIS antenna at right, on angle because it is strapped to a vertical slanting bar

He connected the antenna cable to the Pioneer car radio that had served me faithfully throughout the circumnavigation, turned on the radio and we were immediately listening to an ABC AM station in Narrogin, a country town 200 km to the SE.  The clarity was amazing given that the sun was high.  He then dialed in another country station before we locked in on the Perth AM stations that came in crystal clear.  The FM reception was also crystal clear as expected.

Greg connecting the radome

Earlier in the week Greg had made the final connection of the radar dome on the mast.