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Another rainy day and the prelude to a rainy weekend. But once again, it is a not a freezing rain so is totally bearable. With deadlines quickly approaching on some early departures we can only hope for a good snow at the end of March - which always deters the early birds! According to the Farmer's Almanac, that could happen this year. But actually this season I feel like we are closer to being on time than in prior years despite the lost time due to the severe weather we had right after the holidays.

The davits were finished up yesterday. All that remains is to add some control lines and hang the dinghy. This system did need to be added to the bonding system of the boat as per the ABYC code.


Carlos got his swim platform squared away and has moved on to detailing the engine room on the 36 that is heading to survey. This looks a lot better.


Most of that large cherry board yesterday has been converted to small parts - primarily door frame trim and parts for the door. Still trying to get the carpenter to clean up the pile of sawdust from the planer and joiner (to no avail).


This boat had Pettit PropKoat applied to the props last year and there was not a barnacle on them. This year we are also applying Pettit Spray Zinc to the shafts to eliminate the barnacles there (although I have seen MUCH worse than those on this boat.)


Kevin was doing some minor gelcoat crack repair around these portlights. He found that there was actually a pretty good sized void and signs of previous repairs done here - either when the boat was removed from the mold or later when the cracking first emerged. In any case, it needs to be ground back to solid for a proper repair to be made.


Have a great weekend and I hope it is dry where you are.

A spot of rain today, but everything we are doing is inside and it is a warm rain. Pat was finishing up the davits yesterday. The underside was so irregular, we used an epoxy bog to bed the backing plates in. This would fill all the gaps and create a solid surface for the plate to sit on.


The brackets provided by St. Croix allow for the arms to be removed if desired. The fit was a bit tight for the bases so we had to relieve the teak quarter round around the cabin to get them to fit on.


Carlos - the jack of all trades - is back on bottom work and painting tasks. This boat is going to survey next week so we are getting it ready a bit early. Although not really a survey deficiency, the bottom was redone recently but the swim platform brackets were not. So he is painting them to match the bottom.


The main engine room hatch in the helm area of the Viking had a bow in it. We think just a bit of persuading will take it out. We'll try this before taking more drastic measures. Things like this are tricky because sometimes the construction technique will cause the problem to reoccur later on.


Also on that boat is the new door project. We never seem to get enough good wood projects and this is the first we have using Cherry.

The day is certainly starting out nice enough. Could  be another "2N2W" day! (at least Willy thought it was.)  Lots of projects are on going and spring is beginning to rear its head. Pat and Laid started a St. Croix Davit installation on a Grand Banks yesterday. The dinghy is large and the arms seem a bit small but we talked to the manufacturer who assured us it would work.


We had planned on cutting access panels through the headliner for the backing plates and trimming the access panels with teak, but found we could just remove the staples and pull it back, which saves a lot of time. We did have to cut through some plywood.


There was a gap beneath the flybridge overhang with some old caulking and cracking paint on this GB42. It looks 100% better with a fresh bead of caulking after removing all the old material.


Rumsey is working on a door for the Viking. It will be in highly varnished cherry to match the rest of the wood in the boat.


I had showed an impeller that I thought looked pretty bad last week, but I had forgotten this one from last year: