Home from 'Boat Camp'

It has been a busy few weeks.

I have been living boats for the past month. I worked on boats, I sailed on boats, I talked about boats. There was indoor, weather-free storage, no distractions, big changes. My head is spinning as I try to grasp all that has happened in the past month.

"It all happens right at the end". I was told this at some point and now I understand. All those months and months of grinding, sanding, and priming and in a few days it suddenly goes from a project to a boat.

I have a ton of pictures but there is already a bunch on the website I posted earlier. Here is just one to show how the deck looks now. In between projects I was able to get some of the deck hardware back on and the companionway trim.



So this month...

The deck was re-primed.
The deck was painted.
The deck non-skid was painted.
The hull was painted.
The toerail was fabricated and installed.
The rubrail was fabricated and installed.

Not too bad.

The toerail design is one I shamelessly copied from Nathan Sanborn's Triton. www.dasein668.com I had a chance to meet Nathan and see his new toerail just days after he installed it. From the moment I saw it I vowed I would have the same. Its a great design; high enough to feel very secure and be of real safety value, and not so big as to look clunky or out of place on a plastic classic. Combined with the rubrail it is a great look.

As a final touch, I saw some metallic flaked tape on Bolero, a modified Shields that was in the shop waiting to go home. The Shields is quite a work of art and you can read more about it at www.knockaboutsloops.blogspot.com/

Anyway, the gold flaked taped looked great so I decided to copy it with some silver flaked tape.



I am just too overloaded from the busy month to sort it out and write coherently.

As a final note, the website is almost ready. I just need some real content to make it interesting. Maybe next week...

Now I have to rest and savor the experience.