Summer Leave

Its been a long time now since I've updated this. We got really busy working on the boats right before the summer and didn't take the time to update this. Then I was gone all summer, and have been swamped with school and sailing team to update. Currently the O'Kaye is out of the water sitting on its trailer purchased in April of last year. The bottom paint held up very well and kept the bottom clean all summer. This past weekend, Tai ran new wiring in the mast for the masthead light, foredeck light, and anchor light. I washed the storm jib and working jib, and started cleaning the hull. I will finish washing the sails this weekend and take them and the cushion to storage for the winter. I'll try to take some pictures this weekend and get them on here.

NEW ENGINE!

As of Friday night, the O'Kaye has a new power plant. It is a 2004 mercury 9.9 remote, electric start outboard. It was a dealership display model and has 0 hours on it, and comes with a factory warranty that started Friday. I also am just about finished with the new electric panel for the boat. A coat or two of paint and it will be ready to go. I found out the weekend before this one that i need to replace all of the thru-hulls and seacocks on the boat. I found a website that was having a great sale and got all of them for $142. The one seaock sells for over $90 alone normally. I also started mounting a winch on the cabin top as part of my project to run the halyards to the cockpit. Here are pics of the motor and the winch.

31JAN, 1FEB

So still no pics for the last post, but i have some for this one. Because of the weather we have been having, the boat yard currently looks like a ice rink. This weekend we mainly worked on Tai's boat. We did some fiberglass work and also cleaned/organized the engine compartments and back of the boat. For my boat we got a lot of the woodwork sanded and some of it coated with polyurethane. I also sanded down my rudder shaft and sanded the bearings smooth. When i finished sanding the rudder post, i used west systems aluminum etch to prep it for receiving a coat of epoxy. I also figured out how/where to mount my new toilet. Here are some pictures. There will be no post for next weekend since Jamie will be here for the formal, but the weekend after that is another long weekend so lots of work should be getting done. The pictures are of the boat with the cover on, the icy boat yard, the rudder tube, and the old toilet.

Back to CT

Tai and I spent the the first weekend back and the martin Luther king long weekend on the boats and got a lot of work done. The O'Kaye is finally covered. We got all the snow and ice off the decks and cockpit and now she is pretty dry under the cover. The first weekend, Eric, Stephen, and Jack came by. We dropped the rudder and started building the frame cover. That was it for that weekend. Over the long weekend, Tai and I stayed the whole weekend at the boat yard, minus Saturday evening. We cooked all our meals on the boats and slept on them too. Friday night it got down to -3deg outside. Saturday evening i had to sing at a coast guard auxiliary change of command with catholic choir but returned to the boat as soon as it was over. Over the weekend we finished the cover frame and got the tarp on. We also removed the old head from the boat. The new one came in this past weekend and should be getting installed this weekend. I also spent the weekend sanding a lot of the woodwork prepping it for polyurethane. We have some pictures from the weekend but Tai has not gotten them to me yet, so when he does i will post pictures.

December, finals and Leave

I spent the last week of november back home in virginia beach, and came back to school with less than 2 weeks to finals so i haven't really had any time to work on the boat. Last weekend Tai and I satyed saturday night on his boat while we finished prepping his bilge for paint. I also got some wood work done for both boats. While i've been busy studying hard for classes i purchsed line clutches, a deck organizer, some blocks, and some other hardware i need to run the main and jib halyards to the cockpit. I'm going t o mount them and the better of the two winches from the mast on the cabin top to make shorthanded sailing a lot easier. We are still waiting for the boat yard to get the boats tented and sandblasted. Hopefully they get the bottoms blasted before we get back in january. I have a final tomorrow and not another one until wednesday afternoon, so around noon tomorrow we are heading to the yard until around noon on tuesday. They are suppossed to have the wood for my frame waiting for me so i'll get that built and get a tarp on my boat, then i'll be able to start cleaning out my interior enough to work. After my final wednesday i will be flying home again, so no work on the boat until i get back in january, but i should be coming back with lots of goodies for the boat. :-D Thats it for now, back to studying for my fluids mechanics final.

Nov 14-16

We spent saturday from noon till 8pm and then sunday from 11am till 4pm at the boatyard. The only accomplishment towards the O'Kaye was test fitting the dinghy motor bracket for the stern rail. It was designed for having the pipes come together at perfect 90 degree angles, and the pearson has some small curvture to the piping so i will have to do some grinding to get it to fit on the rail properly. It will be nice to have when it is finally mounted though. The rest of my time was spent working on Tai's boat. We got his engines running, varnished some more wood, and starting rebuilding his alcohol stove on saturday. Sunday i spent most of the time building his tarp frame and then putting the tarp on. Here are some pictures of the tarp frame. I need to build one for my boat when i return from leave.

The rest of the weekend

Tai and I spent all of saturday afternoon and evening, and sunday afternoon at the yard workin on his boat. The O'Kaye got moved from next to the crane to another spot on the yard where it will stay the rest of the winter. They moved it on a hydraulic trailer which was really cool to watch. We got more sanding done on tai's boat and got more interior work done. We figured out the face shields weren't doing so great to protect our eyes while sanding so we picked up some snow sport vented goggles. They look really dumb, but they work really well. We have now been sanding Tai's boat for three weekends and are only about 1/3done. We decided that it was going to take too long to continue sanding. We talked to the boat yard guy and he is going to talk to his sandblasting friend and get us a quote to get both boats bottoms blasted. Hopefully we will hear back from him tomorrow. As soon as the bottoms are clean will start applying bottom paint, but our temperature window is decreasing for getting the paint applied. Here are some pictures of the faceshields, goggles, the hydraulic trailer, and the sweet F-350 towing the trailer.