Passed the inspection by my pups :)
Doors installed
With varnish dry, it was time to mount the doors. Hinges had a lot of rust on them so I took a detour and spent over an hour hitting them with a buffer until some of the shine was restored.
Finished window coverings
Made window curtains for the rollers I installed awhile back. The material was a bit too stretchy and pretty hard to work with. Not my best sewing but good enough.
Mounted them on the rollers to cover the windows. Happy with the result – great privacy and a lot less interior varnish fading from the sun.
Got the doors bleached, stained, and varnished
Bleached the center panels of the doors to get the red hues out, then stained teak frames. Varnished all sides. This is the last piece of panel work for the entire boat. Great milestone!
Time to move propulsion to Lithium
After a lot of thinking (and some $ saving) I’m finally ready to rip out my gel battery pack and jump to Lithium. The AGM batteries are now pretty old and lost quite a bit of capacity and power. The house battery is even older and can’t carry water pump and head flush well without severely dimming the lights.
The propulsion system setup I have now is something like this
I’ll keep the fuse, relay, and all the components of the motor but replace the rest with a Victron-based system so it will look something like this
This new setup gives me a lot of advantages:
- More power to the engine
- Bigger capacity/range – 300Ah vs. 182Ah
- Less weight
- Inverter
- N2K interface / better software
- Simpler system: house and engine off the same battery bank
Will be super fun to put this all in and configure it. Some of the components have already arrived. It’s a pain to get those giant new batteries onboard. Thanks to my dock neighbor Lauren who gave me a hand.
First meals in the galley
Great to be able to use the galley to cook and warm up some food! A bunch of improvements were already evident – need to organize the space a bit better. But still – getting closer to a very livable space.
Trimmed head door and dry fit lock
After I rebuilt all the panels, I haven’t yet tried to put the door back. Surely, it did not fit. Had to trim both sides of the door and make a small lip to hide the hinge. I was also lucky to find the original door handle and lock, which I installed into the new slimmer door. Will need to hide old hole with some small teak bangs.
Bilge cover secured
Finally made a bracket for the bilge cover bolt. Tapped a hole in the aluminum and it’s now snug and secure
Finished sanding doors
Finally finished removing all the ugly plastic veneer from the teak doors. Found beautiful wood grain underneath. Dry fit the folding door and all its latches. Will need to patch old holes with teak bangs and then they will be ready to bleach, stain, and varnish.
Knife block
My original plan was to make a knife block behind the stove but then I saw a really nice magnetic wood-covered strip and decided to mount them on the wall. Will need to add a rubber band to hold them tighter so they don’t fall off while sailing.
