December is Upon us and we are still at it

Well I have finally managed to make myself sit and catch you up to date before I get so behind that I forget what we have done. I know I will miss some things as we have been so busy and getting so much done that our heads are spinning and we don’t know whether we are coming or going these days. Hard to believe that it’s December already, where has the time gone? First off you might have noticed that the site has changed just a bit as I have been playing on adding links and in general just playing with the look of the page. Like I need more to do, but as I still learn more about this blogging and the site they seem to be making it more user friendly with new add on things one can do. Up at the top you will notice I have put an about us section, about the boat, from the galley, and contact us. I believe the only one with anything in it yet is from the galley section and the contact us, but keep checking back. If I happen to have a couple rain days there may be an opportunity for me to actually get some other stuff done. Okay, so where to begin…..Since I last blogged Dirk has finished replacing all the standing rigging. We have yet to take her out to adjust it but we have the tension gauge and tensioned them as we did them but now we need to put her under sail to complete it.

The tension gauge

I know Dirk is happy to have that task complete as it was many trips up and down the mast several times daily.

So here it is December already and the marina is in the full spirit of Christmas. Boats are decorated, some more than others.



A shot of the marina with Renegade on the far left

Apparently there is a contest that will give a month free dockage to the winning boat. Boats are judged by the people dining at the restaurant. With us needing to take Renegade out for a sea trial to adjust her rigging we really couldn’t do her all up and while we won’t win the contest we think she still looks pretty in her minimalistic lights. Everyone says she needs a Santa sitting on her stern seating and she would look like a sleigh. Maybe some other time when we don’t have so much work to do. 

Close up of Renegade with the Cortez bridge behind her

 

Our little tree we put up inside

When we bought Renegade she had just about all the electronics new and replaced. As we heard recently from the broker that sold her to the last owner, she had been struck by lightning. The owner had been given a substantial sum from the insurance and actually put it back into the boat. Good for us, and I have to say who ever did it,its a job well done. Most of the electrical wires Dirk is seeing have been labeled and are able to be traced around like they should be. The only thing we weren’t too happy with was where they had located the chart plotter and the radar. The radar had not been replaced although it still worked. The existing radar is downstairs at the nav station which is alright if you’re not underway and actually needing to use it. We decided to put in a new 24 mile Raymarine radar and chart plotter.



The new chart plotter with the 9 inch screen and the radar dome

The Chart plotter ended up being mounted on a swivel arm that attaches to the pedestal rather than the old one that mounted forward close to the companionway. Now we can sit at the helm and see the screen rather than having to walk forward to see what’s going on.



The helm before, as you can see the gray covered box by the companion way is the existing chart plotter



The helm after with the new chart plotter mounted to a new swivel arm

These eyes are not the eyes of a 20 year old anymore. We will keep the other chart plotter forward and use it for a dept finder. Other than that all the electronics are good. Maybe just a new marine radio and remote mike for the helm.

After Dirk had cleaned the fuel filter out he decided to take a look inside of our fuel tanks to see what kind of mess could be in there. What he found he wasn’t happy with. Lots of sediment littered the bottom and they were in need of cleaning. A good note to that was that he didn't find any water in the fuel, that's good. He called a fuel polisher to come and clean the fuel and tanks. They basically insert a tube into your tanks that pushes filtered fuel into your tanks stirring up the gunk while another tube sucks up fuel to be filtered. It all happens in a filtering system located on the dock with long hoses going into and coming out of your tanks.



Here is Dirk checking out the fuel polishing system

Once the filter gets full they change it out and continue to do this until the filter is clean. After about five and a half hours and 13 filters later we called it good.

Now that's pretty dirty

This also gave Dirk a chance to inspect the fuel tanks as we still have the original black iron ones. For their age they look pretty darn good and it looks good for us that we won’t have to go through the expense and work to get them cut out, dismantled and removed from the boat. The boat was actually built around them and it is a pain from what we have read to remove them. So it looks like we will only need new gaskets, an oil change and a few other odds and ends and the engine is ready to go.

We also decided to have the canvas bimini & dodger reconfigured after only a short time on board. When we got the boat she had a decent dodger but her bimini was so short that even at our short height we could not stand up without hitting the top. When seated you have a great view of the front but after cruising for a while we both realize that most of our time in any kind of waves is spent standing as its just more comfortable. At least for me it is. When you wanted to enter the cockpit you had to unzip the top or just about craw in. Hummmm, that’s not gonna work. We also wanted to have a full enclosure so we could have that “sun room” effect. We always saw people travelling all zipped up in the enclosure with just a long sleeve shirt on while Dirk and I were travelling looking like the Pillsbury dough boy due to the layers and layers we had on. How I cursed the rain when it was coming down and I couldn’t see because my glasses were soaked and I can’t see without them. Guess it’s the little things in life that can make one happy. So after many discussions we finally decided on a design. With the mizzen mast sharing the cockpit with us it made for some head scratching discussions. The canvas company made our new dodger frame but the aft frame for the bimini had to be fabricated and welded so they referred us out. Once the frame was built they came to pattern us, about a week later it was ready to fit and finalize.

Linda & Rita doing the final fitting

A couple days later the finished product was delivered and installed. Now all that’s left is the aft and side curtains which are still causing some head scratching due to the turns and twists, & the wenches and ropes that have to run to and from. Can’t wait to get it done and it already looks great in the Burgundy that we selected to match the existing cockpit and aft seating cushions.

New dodger & bimini matching the aft seating

For now we will keep the sail covers in gray as they are in just about new condition and they don’t look too odd with the color scheme. Dirk is also looking at the possibility of getting a sail rite machine so we can begin making our own canvas products and for  the future travelling we plan on doing they come in handy for repairing sails.

The scraping, re caulking and sanding is an ongoing project as we knew it would be. We learned our lesson about pulling too much caulk out at one time when we decided to do the entire raised section of the cabin top at one time. Mother Nature threw us a curve ball and decided to rain on us a day early, causing us to stop midstream, cover what we could with a tarp we had, and have every handy bucket and plastic tub we had down below catching the water coming in. Whew, what a frustrating day that was and it caused us to cancel our Thanksgiving Day plans in order to clean up the mess and correct what we could. Finally the rain stopped, the sun came out several days in a row and we were able to dry out the decks once again and Dirk was able to caulk with wonderful results.

The cabin top un-caulked and drying out

Cabin top, caulked, cleaned, and teak guarded

So far, so good, no leaks……Sandy & Eddie from m/v Tarquin have given us the use of their heat gun in order to get some of the major things stripped. Wow, how it makes life so much easier. We now have one on our wish list and we know with all this wood it will be used a lot. The transom is stripped, sanded and in the process of being re-varnished.

Dirk sanding the transom while hanging from the davits

Transom stripped, sanded and partially re varnished



I added gold to the details to match the gold in the name



Our lettering came in so Renegade will finally be named this week hopefully. We plan on having some sort of formal name change with a few folks at the marina to witness in the near future.

A peek at the name before she goes on the boat

And as my usual finish lately I am posting a couple photos of Butters doing what cats do best

Butters checks out every box that comes on board



Why does he want to be outside when he wants to know whats going on inside