Props to peeps

Minion, found another good blog that I'd like to share. Found, like most of the peeps I find, at the Catalina Owner's forum and I really enjoy his loose, fun way of writing about the maintenance issues we deal with all the time. Check out the Lori Bell blog here.

See you on the lake.

Props to Peeps

Minion, here's a really nice, informative post about the installation of a marine heating and cooling system.

While the author only has a handful of posts each are well done with posts pertaining to sailboat life, sailing in the ROT, and maintenance.

Gimme Shelter is an '82 Oday sloop, here's the specs. It's a handsome craft, with hull shape and amenities typical for a mid-80's production crusier.

Hey, how ya doin'?

Minion, I have just been buried in paper work lately.

Some updates on the s/v GG:

1) finally installed a bus bar for the negative returns. Really cleaned up the birds nest of returns formerly coming to back to the panel. The argument could be made, admittedly, that when the negatives returned to the negative post of thier originating circuit you can more clearly identify wires, however it was a mess, that's not how the previous owner had done it. They'd returned every negative to the "service" post, which is what we saw in that picture I posted back on... here.

2) Had been saving my good boy points for some time at the boat. ( we don't really have good boy points. I'm a grown ass man, y'all better recognize, Minion. ) Got there: dead. Dead as Terry Schiavo. By which I mean I checked electronic readouts before I left and there were signs of life, but upon actual inspection... dead. Anyhoo, did some cleaning. My rudder was, I don't have my copy of Chapmans Seamanship at hand but I believe the proper nautical term was "OMG, like super gross." Regarde vu:

Luckily I had purchased some cleaning products last week and the schmutz came off pretty easily with a medium soft brush.

3) On that same topic did some cleaning of the cockpit the last time I made a special trip to a boat and there was no wind. The outboard starts pretty regularly but it's got a smokey side to it that, again, well, schmutz. That stuff required a bit more elbow grease and the scouring side of a dish sponge. Getting on my hands and knees and really digging into the nooks and crannies opened my eyes to a couple cracks that I need to investigate further.  There are the standard spider cracks all over the deck, but a couple cracks where the cockpit sole meets the seats and or lockers that could probably use a scrape, sand and re-coat.  I crawled back into the quarter berths to have a look and the fiberglass looks solid, but still, will want to open up the gel coat in these ares to verify. I'll keep you posted. 

Here's Mr. and Mrs. Mallard. They joined me for a brunch of crackers and Pabst last weekend.

Props to Peeps

Nice blog here about sailing and life. Found him when he answered a question I posted on the Catalina Owners Forum.

Also, I got a huge spike in visitors when I put kitty cats in the labels in an older post so we're doing that again just for experiments sake.

Just Some Guy Blog

Props to Peeps

This video I put together a couple years ago should have been my very first props to peeps post. I'm perplexed by my profound paucity of perspicacity.

Here is a link to the video of the launching, and launch party, of the s/v Famous Grouse built by amateur boat builder Big D (no one calls him that), Denny Mike (his mother called him that), Dad (I call him that), Dennis Peavler.

I play the dual roles of aft port boat bearer and Spaulding Smalls. My performance was panned by both the theater and marine journalism communities.

Photo courtesy Chaney Brown nee Peavler of Chaney Peavler Photography. Wanted to be specific there so you don't confuse her with any of the other photographers named Chaney you might know.

Tour Report

Took a short trip Friday. Sometimes when it's slow at work I like to take a little time, even if just an hour or two to take her out and race myself around channel markers 6 and 7 on Lake Travis.

Wind was hit or miss but the weather was nice.

Hey, I get to sail in December... not much, really to complain about... except the Saild app, which, despite being the method of reporting this trip here, still sucks.

Started a new project yesterday to make some bags to organize the halyards. Pics and post in the next day or two.

The Sea Was Indifferent, My Friends

I had been saving up my play time for the week for a day of sailing today, however the winds did not participate. The lake was like a mirror.

A couple call backs from earlier posts: First, tried to use the saild again and it sucked again. Second, the electrical system seems to be back to ship shape. I still need to mount and cover the new negative buss bar, but I'm glad I installed it. It's cleaned up everything quite a bit.

Since I've no news to report, here is a picture of a heron for your trouble.