no more dustbuster

Since starting work on Wahoo, which besides the complete reseal of the hull-to-deck joint has mostly been just removing rotten wood and grinding a whole lot of fiberglass, we've had to rely on a dustbuster to suck up all the glass dust, etc. It's one my grandfather gave me that you plug into the lighter in the car to get juice. It works pretty well, actually, but I was having to pull my truck right up next to the boat in order to use it. And hey, it is a dustbuster, and therefore not really intended to be used in the manner in which we have used it.


But no more, for last weekend we jumped up a level or two (or ten) in terms of sucking power when we got a wet-dry shop vacuum from Home Depot. Nice.








What sporty colors! It must be a racing vacuum. :D


Bring on the glass dust, baby. I'm ready!

Boat bling

My birthday was last week. I'll be honest, I'm not really liking this whole pushing 40 bit, but I guess it's better than the alternative. :D


The coolest birthday present I got was from my brother's girlfriend and all around kickass gal Christy. She snagged a most important piece of boat equipment for Wahoo.





Nice, eh? And I am certain that this will be the most used tool on the boat. :D


In other boat news, the garage/boat tent has truly proven it's worth....and then some. It's held up to three severe storms already with no sign of wear or damage at all. I'm impressed. And when I up and move to Florida in a few years, the whole contraption can come with me.

Another major boat repair item was also secured this week - a wet/dry shop vaccuum. Should make fiberglass dust cleanup go much quicker. Also got some replacement filters for the respirators. We are good to go for this weekend. Am really hoping to kick the repairs into high gear in the coming weeks. Wahoo won't fix herself, so I guess I better get after it. ;) Time to get out of Dodge.

Wahoo gets shelter

I bought Wahoo (not her official name....yet) back in July of '07. Since that time she has been sitting out in the elements behind the garage in the back yard. I've kept a series of blue tarps on her to protect her from well, mostly rain, as every drop that hits her top pretty much ends up in the cabin.

Let me state that while these blue tarps are really great and have kept Wahoo dry and mostly protected for months, the Louisiana sun and heat really eats them up quickly. You can get about a month of use before microscopic (and some not so small) tears begin to appear anywhere the tarp has been stretched.

And the worse thing about the tarps is you have to remove them all before you can really start working on the boat. And then, of course, put the tarps back on and secure them when you're done. It's a lengthy process. And one that while a pain in the butt, has kept Wahoo nice and dry.

So, I've been pondering what to do about some more permanent shelter for Wahoo as we go through the long process of complete sailboat restoration. Enter Tractor Supply. Minden just got a Tractor Supply. --Those of you not from Minden, or familiar with it, can't possibly fathom how great this is.-- Well, Tractor Supply has a portable canopy for about $89. And as an accessory you can get 4 walls and auger-type stakes to help hold it down.

So, yesterday Mom and I started construction on said canopy/garage. It took a few hours and there were a few moments of great frustration, but it all went up nicely, and with just the two of us to construct it.





And from the side...





And completely enclosed....





I think the neighbors will appreciate the new look...





Doesn't she look all nice and protected? I don't know this for sure, but I suspect this is the first covered shelter my poor little boat has ever had. S'okay little Wahoo....it's all better now.

This should make a huge difference in pretty much everything Wahoo-related.

sail logo design

I think everyone who buys a sailboat wants to personalize it in some way, besides just changing the boats' name. I guess I'm no different. The design that was on the original mainsail of the Laguna Windrose 18 looked like this:





I have the original mainsail that came with my boat, and it has this design on it. Or did have this design on it. All it has now is a brown, sticky 'leftover adhesive' outline of the design above. At first, the plan was to simply paint the old logo back onto the mainsail. But after putting in all this work I've decided to go ahead and get new (or at least refurbished) sails for Wahoo. So then the question is do I leave it blank, paint the same old lame and dated Windrose design that was on the original sail, or redesign it and make it look cool? I like the idea of it looking cool and personal.


So taking the original logo and the windrose name and an actual windrose, I combined them to make this:





The 'N' needs to be bigger. Still have some minor tweaking to do, but I like it much better than the original. I also like the idea of getting it as a tattoo. But I shall refrain, for now. :D

The keelson that wouldn't die

Okay, so that keelson didn't want to come out. All of the rotten part came out easily, but about half of the aft keelson is still in tact, and it's not cooperating. And because of it's location (between two berth supports) there is no way to get close enough to it to use heavy tools like a grinder to remove it. So I spent about half an hour with a hammer and chisel trying to chisel it out. Very slow going and it really twinged my back. Mom came up with the best idea so far for getting it out - cutting it up into small squares with the dremel to make the chiseling go quicker. Ugh. So I can just scrap that part about having the keelson out in one day. Ha!





Also, I spoke prematurely when I said there was still one piece of good wood in the boat. When we removed the berth tops, revealing the bottoms of the main bulkhead, we poked with an icepick and found good wood there. I guess we never checked the other side, though. Well, we checked it yesterday. And there is a big spot along the bottom that is rotten. So it will have to be replaced. It had to come out anyway in order to replace the transverse support underneath it. The main bulkhead in Wahoo is actually two pieces, so I guess technically, one piece of wood in the boat is still good. :D





Actually, that's not completely true. The berth supports appear to be okay as well. So that's three pieces of good wood. And I lost count on how many bad peices of wood. Who could count that high? :D


Also, while working on the keelson I noticed the missing cockpit support. When I got the boat there was nothing supporting the cockpit - the main bulkhead had been removed and I noticed no evidence of any support at all. I just didn't see it. Because it's not there.





So for now, we're using some plywood pieces to support the cockpit.





More later.