The Benefits of Bottom Feeding

  "But I gotta stay paid, gotta stay above water..."
                                              - Three Six Mafia



*Originally published in Ontario Sailor magazine, now published here.  Enjoy.




    I admit, I am hard pressed to find the value in a new boat.
Before anybody goes grabbin' pitchforks and torches, let me disclaim here for a minute:

    There is absolutely nothing wrong with buying a new boat.

  At all.

  Ever.


   Some sailors  like to buy new and trade the uncovered unknowns of an old boat  for the hopefully-warranty-covered unknowns of commissioning, others have scrimped and saved and worked damn hard over the years to trade up and up, with the goal of buying a boat that is not just new-to-them, but brand-spankin' NEW, while other others are just plain filthy rich and wouldn't think of anything BUT buying big, brand new and blinged out.

   Good on 'em, I say!

   If that is what floats your boat and puts a smile on your face, Neptune love ya!

   But I can't do it.

   Or, more correctly, I won't do it, because if I can't justify the value, I definitely can't justify carrying the 25 year note, so "can't" and "won't" are damn near enough interchangeable  in this equation.

    I am a bottom feeder- and I like it down here.

    As my 40th birthday gets ever smaller in the rearview mirror, my gut gets bigger, and 50 looms at damn near the next exit on my life as a highway, a few stone truths have become apparent:

     I was never all that good looking.

     I was never  all that talented.

    Compared to the dreams I had when I was 18, I am a damn failure.

    I never became a rock star, I didn't get a three book deal and a 6 figure advance cheque, and I didn't become a multi-millionaire by 30.  Thus, to 18 year old me, I failed.

     And, I am okay with all of that.

     Because I am a failure, because I am nothing but unrealized potential stuffed into a pair of Dockers, (aka Toughskins for adults) I have learned the life hacks and workarounds necessary to live like I made it.
Which is why sailing is perfect for me.

     There are virtually no seaworthy 40 year old 30 foot powerboats on the market for less than the price of a 2007 Hyundai...

     ... But, there are a crapload of perfectly acceptable sailboats out there for four figures.

 The best part?  I can sail the bejeezus out of a $5000 boat for four or five seasons and likely sell it for....
....$5000.


and if I can't?
    Hell, even if I have to give it away five seasons down the road, my loss is only $1000/year.
   Less than $3 a day.

   A draft beer a day.

   Domestic draft.

     When was the last time a draft beer gave us this much fun, this many grins, this much excitement and life?

     Yes, I hear you, Yeahbutniks:  "Yeah, but, there are repairs and maintenance and upgrades and dockage and ..."

    ...and all of that is cheaper down here on the bottom as well.  When you buy an expensive boat, the idea of buying used gear is, to some, a little unseemly, and rightly so.  Used gear on a newish boat devalues the boat and raises suspicions of the next buyer.
On the bottom, used gear looks LESS out of place and LESS suspicious than NEW gear.

   It is also a lot less nerve-wracking to drill new holes in an old deck than it is to drill new holes in a new deck.


   As Gunny Highway said, "You improvise, you adapt, you overcome."

    Oh yeah, back to that nerve-wracking thing- with less invested, there is less risk in attempting new skills and new (at least to you) ideas to refit or upgrade your ride.

    A generation ago, a 30 foot cruising boat was what you traded up TO, and you kept her for 20 years, because you'd made it- you had space and luxury, and comfort to cruise or weekend comfortably- it was the boat you never felt you would outgrow...and most didn't.

    Today, a 30 foot boat is marketed as an "entry level" cruising boat, a boat to start with, and trade out of as quickly as possible.

   Thankfully.

       Because the more often a boat is traded, the faster it depreciates, and the sooner it hits the bottom of it's depreciation curve, which means there is a whole new batch of boats at the bottom of their depreciation curve sooner,  hopefully for new generations of adventuresome failures to discover.

   And the price of admission is only a draft beer a day.


 

    If you're a bottom feeder, keep on keeping on. And take a newbie for a sail every once in a while.  We need more greenhorns sailing.

After all, we need someone to sell our boats to.

Thanks for stopping by.  Please, feel free to "Talk the Dock!" Pass the word!

New Gear Reviewsday Tuesday: Low-buck, Big Sound - Eton Rukus XL

     "It gives it's heat to everyone...."
                                  -The Police




   Our purchase of Karma  was a transaction of compromises:

   More room, but less gear.
   Bigger hull, but less power.
   Longer waterline, but more tender.
   Sink in the head, but no stereo.

   That was a problem.

    For SWMBO and I, tunes are an important part of our life aboard.
 
    An important part of our life, period.

   But, until we lived with our new summer home a while, I didn't want to start running cables and cutting holes for speakers, and bolting up a head unit.

    Last season, we made do with playing our ASUS Transformer netbook-housed music library linked all Bluetoothy with a Sony SRS-BTM8 speaker.

   It was ...okay.

   Mostly.

   The upside was the portability- do you want sound in the cockpit or on the fordeck, or on the back porch?  No problem.  Pick up the speaker and move it wherever the tunes need to be.

   The connectivity was great.  The netbook could stay warm and dry below, and the signal would reach the speaker anywhere on deck.

   The sound quality was okay.  Not a ton of bass, but no distortion at full volume.

   Speaking of volume, while it had okay sound quality, the sound QUANTITY was sub-par. Down below, the speaker  filled the saloon with sound.  On deck...

...not so much.

   The battery life was meh.  it seemed like we were loading AAAs in every day or so.

So, as winter rolled reluctantly toward spring and the dawn of boating season, I was looking for alternatives.

  Alternative 1: I was toying with a Poly-Planar MRD system driving hardwired speakers in the cockpit and below.

  Alternative 2:  Sticking with a netbook driven mp3 library and player coupled to more robust wireless speakers.

   Alternative 3:.... uhm, I didn't get that far.

  Then I got a flyer from Radioworld.

  Browsing through the clearance section, I spy a Bluetooth speaker of some substance...  that is solar powered.
  It is SO solar powered, it can not only charge itself, but can also charge other USB devices.... while in use.

  So, I pointed, I clicked, I ordered, and 3 days later a box showed up on the doorstep of SJM.


  Ladies and gentlemen, I present the Eton Rukus XL:

                                                                   -all images in this post courtesy of etoncorp.com

It.  Is.  Awesome.

Mostly.

I'll get to that in a minute.

  First, I can hear your question, Faithful Reader: "Who the hell is Eton?"

 Well, Eton is an anomaly:   A distributor who essentially outlived and outthrived the manufacturer for whom they distributed.  Eton is an American company that started manufacturing shortwave radios back in 1986, but were primarily a distributor for famous German shortwave radio manufacturer Grundig. At the dawn of the 21st century, with Grundig sales flagging,  Eton began focusing on alternative energy products- in 2002 they introduced their first crank operated radio. By 2004, Grundig was bankrupt in Germany, but the name lived on in North America- Eton continued to manufacture Grundig branded products for the North American market.

  So, these guys kinda know their stuff.

Initial impressions of the Rukus XL

It is BIG.

At almost 15 inches wide and a little more than 8" tall, it dwarfs the Sony speaker.  Unfold the solar panel that folds down against the back of the speaker, and the height almost doubles.


It is HEAVY.

This unit weighs in at a hefty 7 lbs

To provide some scale, the Rukus XL is essentially the same size as a 5 pound bag of potatoes,  but almost 50% heavier.

It is, indeed, seriously XL.

It is also serious about sound.

There are 2 tweeters, 2 woofers, and 4 passive radiators, punching out 22 watts of sound.  this thing is just covered with cones:

In the center of the front face is a flip down panel, revealing a docking bay for most smart phones:

  Alas, our Samsung Galaxy Mega phablets are too  huge to fit this hideyhole.

   All switchgear is rubberized, the charging port /aux in port bay has a rubber flap cover, so there is some level of moderate weather resistance.  I wouldn't leave it out in a driving rainstorm, but


In the box is a 110 v wall wart (for charging on cloudly days or indoors) and a manual.

Operation is ridiculously simple.  Outdoors in sunlight, flip up the solar panel, turn  it on, pair with your Bluetooth enabled device, and play.  Indoors, plug in the AC adapter and play.

 The fully charged lithium battery will blast tunes for 8 hours or more.  That's not just over-optimistic marketing department bullshit- we have consistently run this speaker for 8 hours plus before recharging.

 The solar panel can fully charge the speaker in 5 hours or so of sunlight.  AC charging results in 100% battery in 2.5 hours.

The sound is FANTASTIC.  Great tone throughout the entire range.  My go-to soundcheck on new audio  is Stevie Ray Vaughan's rendition of "Little Wing."  so, I cued it up and worked the volume controls- no mud in the bottom, no buzz at the top, just crisp, clean, clear, solid sound.  If you need some extra bump in the bottom, there is a bass boost button.

The Bluetooth range is excellent- we have had the Rukus up to 50 feet from the sound source, with no connection drop.

The manufacturer's warranty is pretty typical- 1 year, parts and labour.

So, what about that "mostly" part?

Only one minor gripe- the ergonomics of the handle, and the proximity of the switchgear. Pick up the speaker to move it and, more often than not, your hand will brush the power button, shutting it down.


Retail on the rukus XL is $199.99,  just under the low-buck cap.  At full retail, considering the performance, it is a good deal.  Keep an eye open for specials, though- we got ours for $79.99 CDN. At that price, it is a SCREAMING good deal.

This is an ideal wireless sound solution.

Overall, 4.5 out of 5 stars.

End of Season NextBoat Review / Boat Show Preview Combo!

       "Pack it up, and tear it down..."
                             -Jackson Browne



     November.

     It was time.
   
     Put a fork in it.

    This season was done, our first full season with NextBoat.*

    She is now on the hard in the yard, bedded down in her new/used cradle for the winter...

... and now that the off-season withdrawal shakes and sweats have begun....

...SWMBO and I can objectively look back and figure out what worked aboard NextBoat, what didn't work, what we can live with, and what we need to change.

  First off, our first season with NextBoat  has demonstrated to us that she is a keeper.

   WHEW!

   See, NextBoat was a bit of a surprise for SWMBO- she left all of the decision-making and logistical wrangling in my hands.

  Upside?  The decisions are all MINE.

  Yay!

  Downside? The results are all MINE.

   Gulp.

  After our first night aboard, and after a little nesting, NextBoat was SWMBOApproved.

   Our sow's ear, however, still needs some silk pursification:

    The tweedy ceiling and carpeted overhead, while providing a homey, 70s rec-room feel to the accomodations, is looking decidedly worn.

     Replacement is daunting-the whole damn boat is cabin, and the whole damn cabin is covered in this stuff.

     A thorough scrubbing with all of the latest carpet cleaning wonder products and possibly some steaming is the first order on the agenda, which will (fingers crossed) return our cabin to something approaching it's original hirsute splendour.

     If not?

    That is a project for next winter.

    The Escheresque seagull pattern cushions....

.... need rebuilding and recovering.  Interesting note- there are only 6 cushions on the entire boat, one of which has already been rebuilt. This winter, we will rebuild the other five in the same blue sunbrella and 5" foam.

The salon table, seen above,  is one unstable table, Mabel, and is slightly too small.

                                                                                                                       -image courtesy of google

     I am going to enlarge it aft, and tie it into the stripper pole, er, compression post, similar to the shape of the original table, as seen here:

     On deck, the mast step might need a rebuild- the plate needs to be removed and some exploratory surgery performed,  chainplate islands installed to prevent any new leaking, and struts fabbed to allow the fore and aft overhead hatches to be cracked, instead of the current all-or-nothing ventilation situation:

     As you can see above, they are beautiful big hatches, but there's no support- the hatches are either lying flat on the deck closed or flapping back against the house.

    You can create your own beautful big/floppy/flapping/ no support metaphor.  I'm not helping.


   The portlights need to be rescreened and the hazy plastic polished.  The cove stripe needs to be repainted. and the hull could use a good compounding and waxing.

   With the boat out of the water, I am able to eyeball the whole hull, and it all looks good, except for the carbuncle  ahead of the keel ...

...which is a redundant depth transducer.  THAT has to go.

 I also need to re-repair my most embarrassing, sloppy, kludge of a last-minute repair which proved more durable than I expected- the water bottle neck masthead light lens:

   Piss poor preparation and all that-  the mast had to go up NOW, the crew was ready NOW, oh crap, didn't notice that, it needed to be fixed NOW...

   ... and while necessity may be the mother of invention, her kids ain't always pretty.


   The drivetrain is happy, the only minor, low-on-the-punchlist, item is replacing the prop.  The 8 hp Yanmar happily pushes NextBoat along at 5.5 knots at 90% throttle in flat water with her 2 blade prop...
....  but a little more thrust and less vibration from a three blade prop is appealing.

   And the list goes on...


  Which brings us to early January, and brings us to Toronto, to the Toronto Boat Show , our annual midwinter respite.

  We've got some shopping to do, some people to meet, and dammit, it's just good to get away.

    The Westin Harbour Castle offers a silly good rate for the weekend. Seriously, this is the view that $98/night buys us:

 

  So, that's where we're at, where we're going, what we're doing, and why we're doing it.

   Stick around- this is going to be an interesting year.





"Talk the Dock!"

Galley Gear Review: Nice Nesting Pots and Pans

"You see your dreams come true, this I promise you..."
                                                             -Rick Ross





 No matter how big the boat, every boat is too small.

 Especially the galley.

 When it comes to boat galleys, to paraphrase James T. Kirk...

 Space is the final frontier.


  NextBoat*'s galley has more storage capacity than Whiskeyjack's  galley, but "more storage capacity" is a relative term.  That is like saying that your humble scribbler here is taller than the average 9 year old child.

 That doesn't make me a giant.

  Ergo, maximizing space is paramount.  The more stuff you can fit into the existing space, the more comfortable your life in aforementioned space.

  Hence my interest in a set of nesting cookware.

   Every year at the boat show I look for a deal on cookware. I like the quality of the Magma set...

                                                                                                        -image courtesy of  Magma


...but I don't like the inventory-  there are four pots, but only one pan, in the 10 piece set.  Those of you who have read any of the Two-Burner Tastiness recipes understand that I'd rather have two pans, and one less pot, but that isn't an option.

   So, my search continued.

   Until early this summer.


    Wandering through the camping department of my local Canadian Tire, last June, I made an impulse buy.

    (why am I not surprised? - ed.) 

    I had just picked up the bottle of lamp oil I needed,  and on the shelf right beside the lamp oil was the camp cooking gear.  There were the usual speckled enamel suspects, the stuff that looks rustic and rugged, right up until the moment you actually use it, but in the midst of the sea of stamped-in-China-great outdoors-nostalgia-ware  was a  SALE ! tag, under a carton of cookware that looked...different.



   So I bought it.

  Yeah, I'd never heard of "Lagostina" either.

No, those not-shrimp, not-prawns, not-crawfish, not-lobster things?  Those are LaNgostinOs.

Which can be cooked in a Lagostina pot.




 Here's the deal:   Lagostina is an Italian firm that has been manufacturing stainless steel cookware for decades.  Their "Campeggio" line is their, as the name implies, line of camping cookware, but while it is compact in size, it is not compact on quality.
    These pots and pans are constructed of 18/10 stainless, with three ply (stainless steel/ aluminum/ stainless steel) bottoms for even heating. fold down the handle on the large stock pot and ...

    Keep going and in rapid succession you get...

Two, count 'em, TWO pans...

...Two stock pots...

...Two lids that fit both pots and pans....

  ... and a grip-anywhere, go-anywhere insulated pot/pan handle that is both ambidextrous and has hooks for removing hot pot lids, like when you are steaming Langostinos.

Both pots are graduated, which is a nice touch...

  ...for measuring the exact amount of liquid for boiling langstinos


   Also included is a mesh carrying bag... that was promptly repurposed forother uses aboard.

   After 5 months of use, both SWMBO and I can confirm,  we LOVE this stuff.

   All pieces heat evenly, the bottoms don't warp when warm, the handle is substantial, the construction is solid,  the non-stick is real non-stick, and, mosti importantly...

  ... These were the ONLY pots and pans we have used for the last 5 months, and we haven't needed to buy more.  Cooking for 2-4 on a 2 burner  stove?  This is all you will likely ever need.  It is all we have needed.


     Here's an example:

      Cracker crusted pork chops, "Booker T"  mashed potatoes and peaches and cream corn- two burners, three pots, from one nesting cookware set.

Oh, and a bottle of Ramblin' Road DPA. 




      Surprisingly, although less than half the price of the smaller one-pan Magma nesting set, the Lagostina cookware comes with a 10 year warranty, compared to the Magma's I year warranty.  I am impressed. Retail price at our local Canadian Tire Store  was $119.99 cdn.

      The only challenge is where to find it outside of the Canada.

     Or Italy.
 
     If anyone wants a set, let me know.   I'll pick it up for you and ship it out- for actual cost.


Thanks for checking in, and please,
"Talk the Dock!"



 

     

Back in the Saddle Again

"Come on!  I'm waiting...."
                          -Madonna




     I'm back.

    Now, where was I?

    For those  wondering about my absence from this (occasionally) ongoing saga lately, I've been on a honeymoon, and enjoying almost every minute of it.

    No, not that kind of honeymoon.

    The honeymoon phase of new old boat ownership, when every experience is new and fresh and nothing expensive has broken, failed, or fallen off.  The honeymoon has lasted far longer than I expected it would, especially considering that we did absolutely everything wrong when we purchased her. (more on that later.)

   SWMBO and I have just been thoroughly enjoying NextBoat, buying other new old boats, (more on that later,) I've been racing two nights a week,  (more on that later, too,) volunteering the other nights of  the week and life just got in the way.

   There has just been so little spare time, and so much activity, that I found myself bunged up with reverse writers block.

     It wasn't that I didn't know what to write about.  

    Exactly the opposite, in fact.

    I simply had too many topics, and the plenitude of material caused my mojo to lock up.

    But, with the end of racing season (yeah, more on that later), I have been able to half-assed organize a hazy scribble plan.

    It's been a weird season.  The water level is well up, which is good,but the weather was...  unreliable.  

   Which is bad.  
  
    Spring felt like winter, July felt like April, I think we had a new month, Augtober, and we swam in the lake at the end of September for the first time in memory.

    And some days it felt like we were in the Marina of Despair, with this foreboding flock  ruling the roost atop the light at the Marina mouth: 

    But, we got some solid time on the water,  got some time off the Dock, had some great sunsets, met some great new friends, and I sold a story to Good Old Boat.

    More on that later.

    October is shaping up to be a month with some sailing promise.  

    Hopefully, the Dock will hold together for another few weeks.  We've had higher sustained winds, more often this season than usual, and the prevailing winds out of the West and Southwest blowing against a tall boat on a slip running East/West  have taken it's toll on the Dock cleats and the decking underneath:

      We've picked up some new gear, got some updates on old gear, and low-buck projects past, present and future.

      Check back soon.  Please?

      As always, thanks  for reading, and don't forget to

     "Talk the Dock!"
   

    

    

Low-Buck Projectapalooza

  "Yes, I'm workin' all the time..."
                                        -Rush

The stages of New/Old Boat ownership:

       Stage 1. Admiration stage- admire how much roomier (or prettier or shinier or faster or just plain better your New/Old Boat is than your Old/Old Boat.)

                Stage 2. Installation stage- Start installing stuff.  Begins approximately 7 minutes after the onset of Stage 1.

Stage 2 never, ever stops.

If you have bought the right boat, the first stage never stops, either.

Having lived with and aboard NextBoat for almost 3 months, much Low-Buckness, and some Mid-Buckness, has ensued.

For those of you still following along, (thanks!) you know the story.  For those who just stumbled into this meandering morass of a blog, here’s the short version: 

We owned a boat, wanted a slightly bigger boat, found a bigger boat, bought a bigger boat, sold the slightly smaller boat…

Now we are pouring money and time and effort into the slightly bigger boat. 

And enjoying every minute of it.

The upside of NextBoat is that she had been well maintained by two previous owners.  The downside is that there were few upgrades, and some gear that we consider necessities  was missing entirely.  Like, oh….

A compass.

Didn’t have one. 

Apparently, never had one since new- the binnacle was as smooth and unblemished as a baby’s transom.

We'll come back to that later.

So, after peering into the purse  and seeing the present paucity of pennies, (prolonging our  perpetual pondering of whether we are presently poverty stricken or penurious,)  providence presently allowed us to press the button on a plenitude of purchases, provided by the profits of this profligate’s penmanship.

In other words, I got paid for some scribbles.  Cool. 

So, with cash in hand, we got all Bugs Bunny and Road Runner on the boat.

(Okay, come on, I can’t be the only one who remembers the theme to the “Bugs Bunny and Road Runner Hour”?  Come on, sing it with me, “….On with the show, this is it…”)
er...
*turns the Obscure Weirdness dial down to 7*

A flurry of mouseclicks and credit card approvals and straight-up hand-to- hand cash transfers later, we had a whole bunch of new stuff to stuff aboard our new ride.

SWMBO is a ginger, and with a redhead’s propensity to burst into flames upon exposure to sunlight, she immediately noted that NextBoat lacked cockpit canvas of any sort.  A shadeless boat with a redhead aboard is an unhappy boat for all aboard.  Luckily, a beaten and battered and unused-by-the-previous-owners dodger was included in the purchase.

 It needed help. 

 Canadian Canvas Works underpromised and overdelivered,  restitching the entire top in less than 48 hours. 

The skipper of Cyclone sold us a languishing bimini from his currently-for-sale S2 8.0A, and with a little cutting and sweating we soon had a comfortable cockpit.

The stove that came with the boat had to go.  Kenyon Homestrand pressurized alcohol stoves may have worked just fine when new, but 30+ years later….

…  not so much.

The scary quotient, however,  had increased considerably.

After following the less-than-simple lighting instructions, ( Pump tank of flammable fuel, tunr burner valve to introduce flammmable fuel to burner, close burner valve, light flammable fuel,  let it burn out, then reopen valve and relight ) we inevitably faced a *WOOF* of ignition, resulting in burners with flames that had only one setting- Total Conflagration.

Seriously, the few attempts at using this DeathBlaster stove to create Two Burner Tastiness resulted in singed entrees trailing the faint odor of burnt eyebrows.

    A quick click to Binnacle.com got us a great deal on a Cookmate non-pressurized alcohol stove.  Under $250, including shipping.

  Installation took less than a half hour, and the result is incredibly satisfactory.

 Great temperature control, easy to light,  and the  burner capacity is measured in weeks, not hours. 6 weeks of regular use have borne out the value of this investment. 

Further, we have upped the culinary ante by permanently installing the Kuuma Stow-n Go propane grille we bought during our first season aboard Whiskeyjack, but rarely used.

We have used this grille more this season than in the past 6 seasons combined.

Which means we are using more propane.

Which presents another challenge:  Storage.

The one drawback to this center cockpit layout is that it eliminates all cockpit storage- no lockers, or lazarettes or cubbies on deck at all.  I had no desire to store 1 lb.  propane cylinders in the cabin, so a solution was required.

A quick trip to Home Hardware  netted  2 feet of 6" PVC pipe, an end cap, a cleanout, and a couple of hose clamps.  Less than $25 later, we were able to store 3 propane bottles on deck safely.

   So, back to that no-compass thing:  The existing cockpit instrumentation on NextBoat consisted of an inoperable Lowrance depth gauge.

That’s it.


A  quick trip to Dovercraft Marine  netted us a Humminbird 160 fishfinder  for $80.  Some headscratching on where to locate the transducer and how to route the cables  and roughly an hour or so of sweating and drilling and and wiring later, we not only had depth display, but water temperature as well.

Back to that absence- of -cockpit- storage issue:
 I picked up a couple of these mesh map pockets a half decade ago, and finally got around to using one!  Very handy for books, sunscreen, sunglasses, all the stuff that would otherwise end up in the way.

With depth out of the way, time to deal with the compass issue.  I opted to go with a small handheld compass as a backup to a small Lowrance chartplotter at the helm, from Radioworld.

   I LOVE these things.  Lowrance "Gold" plotters include a 2 gig Navionics chart card,  and the plotter we had on Whiskeyjack never let us down.  The seated helm position on NextBoat makes the 4"ish screen size practical,  and, though small,  the screen is easy to read, the controls are intuitive and the menus easy to understand. The included mount swivels and tilts, making it viewable from anywhere in the cockpit....

...even if you are a slacker teenager, as Jordan demonstrates:

  $250 well spent.

  $3 worth of 1/4" line and an hour or so of time dressed up the wheel...

All of this new electrical gear requires improved electrical charging management-  Two $99 40 watt solar panel/ 7 amp charge controller kits from Canadian Tire were installed to charge the battery bank.  When docked, or flat water motoring, the panels live on the bimini-

 When the wind picks up, they migrate to the aft deck.  An upcoming project is to sew pockets into the bimini to secure these lightweight panels up there full time.

   Down below, hammocks were hung and bungies were strung and non-skid mats were laid to keep everything that has a place, in it's place.

The settee-berth did not have a table, although there was one installed at some point in the past:

A while back some of the stuff that James was clearing out of his boat shed ended up in my boat shed.  Among the assortment of stuff was a table base and post.  a little  plywood and edgebanding later, we now have a salon table:

   We managed to bend the shank on the anchor that came with NextBoat, and decided this was an opportunity to reduce weight on the bow and make anchoring a less strenuous task for the crew on the foredeck, by replacing the current steel anchor with an aluminum Fortress anchor....

...which requires assembly.

slightly larger flukes, slightly longer shank, half the weight of the previous anchor should make anchor launching and retrieving easier.

  We'll let you know how it goes.

Last but not least, a quick little project with a big "why didn't they do this from the factory?"  factor:
There are no clutches on the cabin top, and the only cleats are horn cleats...

 which leave much to be desired when it comes to tying off halyards.  You get a couple of wraps on the winch to get a full pull on the mainsail halyard, only to lose tension when you try to secure the halyard around the cleat, leaving you with a baggy sail.

  We installed a cam cleat ahead of the horn cleat. No more baggy sails for us!

We also ran the mainsail reefing line to the coachroof, enabling us to reef the main without having to leave the cockpit.

Finally, we made life easier for the mutts.  We carpeted the companionway ladder, to make it easier for them to climb/descend.

Ellie demonstrates that she now has ample room to run around.
Lots more projects ahead, lots more work to do, but, she's getting there.
 She is becoming a home.

"Talk the Dock!"