Journal

3/16/12 - Spent Friday night on the boat. Really nice! Used memory foam "egg crate" mattress topper, and sleeping bag over v-berth seam. That part worked well. Vberth is a bit snuggly for two...

Caulked starboard side stay at deck joint where there seemed to be the largest amount of water that had previously rotted out the starboard bulkhead.

Scraped and caulked forward most starboard window that was still leaking after bulkhead replaced.

Installed marine radio (temp wiring and placement)

Mindy made a prototype for the curtain, did some tweaking, and completed the first curtain for the cabin. The new curtain looks great. It's a navy-ish blue (dark blue), single thickness. It won't be completley "room darkening", but should be plenty for bright days, and certainly provide privacy in the cabin. Of course, the cover will obscure the windows most of the time anyway. We'll post a pic as soon as I have one of the curtains. The curtain project is a warmup for the cushions... (Cushions are in fair shape with the exception of the aft berth cushion that is pretty moldy/musty, but VERY dated in appearance. Updating the fabric on the cushions with something modern and comfortable with be a wonderful improvement to the cabin!)

Lots of experimentation with cabin lights. Looking at replacing old DC lights with LED lights. LED lights are proving to be sufficient for "night light" purposes. Bright enough to move around and find things, clearly not bright enough to read by or do detailed work under. The good news is that LED lights run about 1/10th the power, and don't produce any heat. We will probably have to compromise with some LED lights for "mood" and night time purposes, and a couple of AC or at least bright halogen lights for reading and working.

3/25/12 - Finished replacing exhaust riser. Sequence: flange, 2.5" nipple, elbow, 5.5" nipple, elbow, cooling water injection fitting, then about 4" of rubber exhaust hose. Spray painted with exhaust coating, then wrapped with two layers of 2" wide fiberglass exhaust wrap. Started motor to test, and ran for a while. Still some exhaust leaking at flange (arrrgh!). Flange attached with 2 bolts. Gasket used, and copper high temp permatex used between gasket and motor (gasket was already stuck to flange from previous attempt).

Also scraped and re-caulked steering pedestal.