Help Alan Retire at 85

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This will be the last posting on this page. I have been double posting for a while so I don't start off with an empty slate. Bookmark the new address - http://oya.com/yardblog.

I am still listening to the Christmas music at least a couple of hours a day. To the left is my all time favorite holiday album. These young singers are just embarrassing themselves trying to remake the classics - let them stick to the more contemporary stuff.

Still plenty going on with at least two jobs in addition to battening down for the winter. We spent some time last week adding door seals, additional insulation, etc. It got cold early this year and seems like it is going to hang around for a while.

We got the major portion of the sole installed on the Island Packet. The small part in the forward cabin should be templated and cut today.


The service on the Caterpillar engines is also moving right along. When you start pulling hoses, you often find things you did not expect. This is going to take a bit of clean up!




I really like the engine room on this boat - it is bright and seems easy to work in (although you won't find me working in there). The entry door is a bit on the "slim man" size which is the primary draw back.


We should be having our Christmas luncheon today or tomorrow.  I can only assume what it will be this year, but I can guess:

It hasn't gotten any warmer yet. All week it is predicted to be in the 30's with plenty of wind to make us even more comfortable. According to weather.com there is a 50% chance of a White Christmas which suits me just fine as I never leave the house on Christmas.

Pat is busy doing a scheduled maintenance job on a Caterpillar engine for a boat that was sold last week. This job is part of the sales agreement and has to be done by Monday so he may miss a bit of holiday cheer. There are bits of impeller stuck down in the heat exchanger which is not all that uncommon. If we see a bad impeller we make sure to get all the bits out, but not every one does that. The consequence is a blocked heat exchanger and if enough of the tubes get blocked you end up with a bad situation.


All the parts get a coat of Zinc Chromate Primer before applying the Caterpillar paint.


This is a pretty good way to paint all the bolts.


A few months ago we replaced the cabin sole in a sailboat and since we had another to do we prepped the teak and holly sole for the job. This is on a boat that is in our brokerage department and since there is now some interest in the boat we are going to finish the job this week. Since it has just a bit of curve to the floor, we had to cut grooves to get it to take the bend. It is important to seal the kerfs left by the saw as plywood will suck up some serious water.


At some point over the weekend my counter hit the 75,000 page views. This is amazing. Thanks to all who come to blog on a regular basis and welcome to all the new visitors!

Fortunately the snow never materialized over the weekend but the cold weather persists. I invested in a new energy efficient electric heater to set beside my desk. Us old guys get cold!

Holiday parties have started already (2 so far this year) which makes Monday a bit harder to get a grip on.  It must be the same with the other employees and Mondays have begun to be a “show up when you can” situation.  Still not sure when we are closing for the holidays but you can bet there won’t be anyone here on Friday and probably lot many on Thursday. During next week the sales department will be the only ones working – everyone else saves up vacation time to take a long season with friends and family.

I am still double posting to here and the new blog and getting the "lay of the land" with the new software. You can do some really cool stuff with it but sometimes doing simple things is too frustrating.

Bristol Skiff Repair



We had to move the boat into our paint booth where we could have a bit of heat to do the varnish work. The varnish work was exquisite.  The insurance company who was handling this claim was very impressed and even offered to send more repair work our way. That’s a good ending!

I seem to be almost alone today and who knows what I’ll get into. We left a bit early yesterday after being alerted that the roads were getting a bit slippery.  It is not going to get warm enough to melt it today and they are calling for more snow over the weekend (60% chance).

 I have been working on the new blog and will be posting in both for a few days – primarily because I don’t want to start the blog empty. I will be posting a link sometime next week. I am still tweaking and adding “widgets” to the core. Although I have done some custom word press  themes, I picked one that I really liked to save a bit of time. (sneak preview):

Eventually it will match the rest of the site.   I can now automatically have larger images so you can see details more closely. Feel free to leave comments when it becomes live!

I have the Christmas music playing and am not getting any static about my choices such as Bing Crosby, Johnny Mathis, Dean Martin and the like. To me that is the proper holiday music.

Anything Can Happen Friday

If you miss your boat already, I have found a resource list of Boating In Winter tips and stories. Hope you enjoy!