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BMS is back on!

After all the wiring was done and working last year, I had to disconnect the system to organize wires better and get them away from rotating parts. Of course, once things reconnected, the BMS refused to work properly – not seeing batteries, not turning on the distributor, etc. Tried a lot of troubleshooting with no success.

I took it back to local distributor where they ran some bench tests and confirmed it was working OK. With holidays and travel getting in the way, I finally picked it up and brought back to the boat this weekend.

Plugged it back into the system and it still didn’t power up. It did ask to update firmware, which I promptly took care of. As soon as it booted up with the new firmware, we were back in business – everything working nominally! I did a happy dance. One big TODO for this year can be checked off. Next up – tackling that remaining vibration in the shaft.

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Continuing with headliner

After all the patching and post-sanding cleaning, I finally installed the other half of liner in the saloon:

After that was done, I started on the liner for port-side shelving. That was even more tedious because of all the deck hardware fasteners protruding through liner. Turned out OK.

Steady progress.

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More fiberglass sanding & patching

One learning from installing the first few panels of headliner was that it doesn’t cover imperfections as much as I hoped. To make the next panel look smoother I’d have to make the actual fiberglass smoother – remove some of the bumps, etc. As much as I hate sanding fiberglass it still seemed like a worthwhile task so I cleared out the cabin – all the books, cushions, galley items, etc. – and went on with sending off the rough bits and patching anything that looked compromised in any way and had any remote risk of leaking.

Even with the shop vac, the dust was everywhere and cleanup took forever. But I think we’ll see smoother panel in the end.

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Starboard side headliner in the saloon

Continued on with headliner install and tackled half of the saloon. Was royal pain to deal with a panel this big on my own. Came up with a system that had a support pole and clamps and ultimately allowed to get the entire panel done. Took quite a bit of time but I’m happy with the result.

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Cooking on the boat

As I’m without a car this weekend, I stocked up on groceries and ended up cooking more than I usually do. But it was fun and turned out great, despite somewhat cramped quarters.

Pasta with Alfredo sauce and shiitake mushrooms:

Steak with asparagus

Avocado toast with boiled egg and sriracha (don’t have room for a proper toaster so used the pan).

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V-birth headliner

Started working on the headliner for v-birth. My original plan was to use template material to create proper shape with all the cutouts required and then transfer it to the headliner material. That proved to be almost impossible. The template kept shifting around and the holes and edges ultimately didn’t match that well.

So I changed the approach and cut out the rough shape directly in the headliner material, then glued the part that didn’t need much adjustment (e.g. the center), and then slowly worked around the edges: drawing the lines, trimming in place, gluing. That worked much better but was a bitch to do upside down in a cramped space. Boat yoga to the max.

The final challenge was to figure out what to do with the visible edge, especially around the hatch. The foam backing, even though it’s thin, is yellow and visible on the edge and that looked kinda ugly. I tried sewing a strip of nylon on but after an hour of experimenting couldn’t get consistent results that looked good. Then I tried to glue that nylon; also without success. The final approach I settled on was to remove about 1/2″ of foam at the edge and glue that edge flash. Turned out OK.

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Companionway panels

Knocking off another item from the 2026 TODO list: companionway panels. I had them cut out awhile back but the fit was not good. Today I finalized the fit, removed the protective film, made teak trim for the top panel.

I also created a nifty storage place so the panels are out of the way while I’m on the boat. I sized the panels so the first two are smaller than the top one and they all fit together. Super happy with the result!

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Clothes hook

Turning my attention to the companionway, I went on to install a basic clothes hook. Wanted it for a long time but couldn’t figure out the right placement. Seems like this spot is perfect and has the lowest risk of causing any kind of injury underway.