We officially have a date to get our mast back! We are leaving July 31, mast will be back on the boat August 1, and then running rigging done August 2 & 3 - then we get to take her for the very first sail since we have owned her!!!
As you can tell, I'm super excited :-)
It was actually ready at the end of last week, but Michael is out of town this week (he had to go back to IL for work), so we decided to delay so he could be part of the trip. We all had such a great time together last time, we wanted to do it again.
Bean and I will stay on the boat and be there for any questions/things needed - Michael will come back to the apartment and work for a few days, and then come back to sail -hopefully- on Friday.
We have also made another decision, we are not going to sell the boat - YET. We decided it still makes sense to get some experience on this boat, and given the market we have been looking at and the price point we want to hit, we will probably want to wait about a year to buy the next boat if we want to go straight into a catamaran. So, with all that, we will keep this one and use it on the weekends. I still plan to look for work soon (probably start looking in September, hoping to land something by the end of the year), and we can bank my paycheck to save up for the next boat.
With that in mind, we are also going to move the boat. Harborwalk is a beautiful marina to live aboard, but since I plan to move into the apartment for work, and the three of us don't plan to live together on it, we want it somewhere less restricted by water levels. Since we have an almost 6' draft, getting out of our current harbor can be difficult in the winter months. I am in the process of selecting a marina up in the Kemah area that we will move the boat to. I am hoping to have that lined up before we finish with the mast so we can just move the boat over there instead of bringing it all the way back to Harborwalk, but we'll see how things shake out.
On other fronts, the electrical work made very little progress, but some. I ended up calling Blue Sea to find out what breaker they recommended, and if they had a bus bar to connect them. I was a little disheartened to learn they do not sell the bus bar separately.... but thankfully their competitor (Paneltronics) has a bus bar that fits the bill. So, if you are ever in need of a Blue Sea Surface Mount with 3 breaker spaces - buy the 3128 model - it comes with three 15A breakers (which you can swap out if you need to), and the bus bar, unlike the 3116 that I bought.
I was able to use a really old dockline to get the wire runs defined though - I drilled some new holes for the runs and measured the lengths for both outlets as well as the shore power line. I now have all the wires cut to the proper length (minus the charger which will come out of the leftover 10G), I just need to put the connectors on them and attach them to the main breaker panel. I also have to get the main breaker enclosure box ready - I need to drill three holes for the wire glands in the bottom. I'm hoping to get some of that done while Michael is gone this week, but we are also working on getting the boat ready for the mast pickup - removing unnecessary items, putting the sails back on board, filling the water, etc.
I also did my very first soldering job, that was kind of fun :-)
The fuse holder replacements get soldered to a bus bar, so I got to try that out for the first time. Took me a couple tries to get the hang of it, but definitely enjoyed learning
So, overall, it has been slow progress, but we are very excited for the next couple weeks, and I think we are all much happier with the decision to keep the boat for now and get the experience we originally hoped with it - at least sailing if not living aboard it - and then we will be much more capable and ready when we buy the bigger boat. We also won't feel the need to settle for something quickly just to have a boat, so we can take our time and wait for the right boat to hit the market
Wish us luck, and a great weekend of sailing soon!!
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