We finally finished the last of our work on Monday and had the boat yard put us in the water today.

The last month has been a marathon. We were at the boat yard early in the morning and didn’t leave until late at night… every night. It was hard work and physically demanding; something I’m not used to. But it was very rewarding. Unlike working in IT, I accomplished something meaningful, useful, and not harmful to anyone. It’s a great feeling.

Spending so much time at the yards, I got to meet a lot of the guys who work there: Chris, Al, Alberto, Dan, and Oscar. All great guys who helped make the long days a little more enjoyable. I owe Dan a couple of beers. He’s a workaholic who’s at the yard when we arrive and is still there when we leave. One Sunday a storm with high winds came through. Sue and I were below and heard a loud crash. I ran out to the cockpit and see what happened. The wind had blow our step ladder over. Fortunately, Dan was in the shed, heard the ladder crash, and came over to put it back up. He never gave me grief about tying it to the boat. Thanks guys, we’re going to miss you.

Enough ramblings, here are some picture:

I finally got our solar panels installed. I had been planning on doing this from the docks, but with the delays, my father and I decided we could wrestle them over the davits from the step ladders. We couldn’t.

We ended up attaching the solar panel frame to the main halyard and had Sue winch them up while we guided them.

Unfortunately, Odyssey is on the east side of a large shed which blocks the afternoon sun. By the time I finished the installation and wiring, it was afternoon and as you can see from the picture, they were in the shade.

The next day we were out bright and early (for us) and I was excited to see what the panels can do. The problem this time was the batteries were fully charged. I turned on the refrigerator and the charge controllers started putting in what the frig was taking out.

I have a charge controller for each panel and the second controller was also putting in 4.7 Amps. Our refrigerator usually draws around 9 amps while it’s running.

The yard should be finishing up the bottom paint today. I’m hoping to wash and wax the boat over the weekend and be launched on Monday! We’re getting close.

Odyssey is my second boat that has too much external wood which constantly needs to be varnished. I was warned by Bob about getting a boat that has a lot of “teak”. He tried to tell me how much work it is keeping it up. I ignored him. After all, I have a large cedar deck at the house that requires re-finishing every couple of years. The deck is pretty easy to maintain and it has a lot more square feet than the boat. How hard can a boat be?

Let me tell you, it’s hard. Backyard deck staining and boat varnishing are NOT the same. The deck is a open, flat, and everything gets stained. The boat on the other hand has stanchions, rub rails, shrouds, cleats, sheet car tracks, etc. All items that need to be either removed, or sanded and taped around.

Here are some pictures of our bow pulpit with and without the hardware.

That should give you an idea on how painstaking boat varnishing can be.

Believe it or not, it gets worse. Boats have eyebrows. They run pretty much from bow to stern, they’re rounded, small, and nearly impossible to sand mechanically. If they served a purpose I wouldn’t mind as much, but they are completely worthless. Did I mention that I hate varnishing eyebrows? I always leave them for last.

Here are some picture of our eyebrows.

If I can’t mechanically sand the eyebrows, how do I get it done? Fortunately, the Admiral is much better at tasks like this than I.

By the way, the original purpose of this post was to let you know we finished the varnishing, EXCEPT for the eyebrows. Keep sanding Sue 🙂

One thing I’ve learned as a sailor with a job is that schedules ruin trips. When you only have a 1 or 2 week vacation from work, marina reservations, meet-ups, etc, the schedule forces you to sail in less than perfect conditions.

With this trip, one of my objectives is NOT to have a schedule. Reality is, you can’t avoid all schedules.

I was hoping to have most of the work done in the spring and was hoping / planning on launching mid to late June. The first hard date we had coming up was July 4th.

My mother lives in Boyne City, Michigan on Lake Charlevoix. She was having a 4th of July family party and we were planning to be there. Yes, right out of the shoot and we had a hard date schedule.

Before we could leave, we needed a bottom job. I had commissioned the boat yard to soda blast, barrier coat, and finally pain the bottom. The soda basting was initially scheduled for Fall of 2018. The rest would be done in the spring of 2019.

There were scheduling issues and the yard couldn’t get the soda blasting done before the snows came in 2018. The soda blasting wasn’t done until this June.

A couple of coats of paint can hide issues, and our bottom was no different. We discovered problems on the rudder and near the bow thruster. All of which needed to be repaired before starting the barrier coat and paint.

For those of you in Northern Illinois, you know this has been a wet and cold spring. Our boat is outside and it can’t be painted if rain, fog, or temperatures below 51 degrees are scheduled.

Sue and I took on the task of re-varnishing the wood on deck. Unfortunately, this was more than a yearly touch-up maintenance coat. We needed to take it back to bare wood and start over again. I knew this was going to be a lot of work, but I had no idea.

These are the reasons we’re running a little behind. Good news, the barrier coat is complete, the first coat of bottom paint is on, and Sue and I are about 80% done with the varnish.

Here are some pictures of what’s going on:

Sue and I have decided to take some time off and go sailing. Many of our family and friends have asked us to keep them up to date on our adventure.

We’re not big computer users, so no FacePage or InstaPic. After researching our options, I’m most comfortable with a WordPress blog.

My plan is to give weekly updates along with a few pictures. It may be more frequent and it may be less. This is all new to me.

Kurt