March 2016 - S/V Akupara

March 23, 2016

I’ve got those old time hinge blues…

Well, I managed to hang all of the finished cupboard doors, the head doors and a couple I wasn’t even sure where they came from. I did however have to scavenge a few hinges from areas that we have not installed yet, like the chain locker doors. Several months ago the admiral and I were at home depot and thought we had found a replacement hinge for all of the old hinges. They looked almost exact, but once I installed one, it became obvious that they were just different enough to not work. I also learned that there are 2 types of hinges on the Whitby 42. They look identical but one is slightly larger than the other. I am guessing that the larger ones were for the doors but who knows, maybe Whitby couldn’t find the right hinges either!

So added to our list of things to find are a truckload of replacement hinges. If anyone knows where I can find the original hinges new, please, please let me know.

I think the admiral is rather happy as the only wood sanding left now is approximately 5 small pieces in the cockpit and a bunch of little fiddly pieces like trim and what not in the basement. We do need to go back and re-sand a few pieces that I may have gotten wet by accident but I really think with a little focus, we are less than 1 day away from putting this phase of the project to bed. Once the interior liner and sole has been sanded and painted, we will go back and re-sand (polish) all of the interior wood to fix any small imperfections or issues we have created but this will be a fairly quick project as it is more of a polish than a sanding. We will probably follow each other, one with 220 grit and one with 400 grit. Then we will add the final 2 layers of clear Cetol gloss. That should make the interior glisten even more than it does now.

You can see we still have a fair bit of staining to do in the main salon, but we needed to let the dust settle before we did that.

The frame for the main salon cabinet in the picture above still needs to come out one last time as I have yet to shape the backing pieces for the interior of the cabinets and I need to build out the shelves.

I can’t explain the feeling we have of actually being able to see the cockpit even if it is covered in several inches of sawdust and dirt!

The nice thing is that we have completed a Major part of this project and we know that we have an insulated, clean, fresh, dry interior with no lurking surprises behind panels. The bad part is that now we are entering a phase where things will start to cost big money as opposed to sandpaper and sweat.

Deck Painting, Electrical, Plumbing, Rigging, Engine, Heating, Refridgeration, Propane…

March 20, 2016March 23, 2016

Nice to be back.

I had a very productive day yesterday on Akupara. I was there for approximately 6 hours and accomplished a lot of little tasks that had been piling up. The admiral over the last couple of months had competed sanding a lot of cupboard doors and drawers but I had not been installing them as I did not have any screws. Now I know that sounds a little funny. I mean there are a hundred stores within 10 miles that all sell screws I am sure but, the problem with all of those stores is that they are newer up to date modern stores. Like Home Depot or Lowes. What these stories lack in my opinion is a couple of really important things, like customer service and in a lot of cases, quality items. So I have been holding off on buying screws as my favourite store, which is about a block away from Akupara, is Wolff’s Marine, but Wolff’s Marine is not open on Saturdays during the winter months. Good for them but bad for me. Wolff’s Marine is an old time kinda store. The kinda store where there is a greasy stained old coffee pot that is always on and the coffee is free. The guy behind the counter knows almost every item in the inventory and precisely where it is in the store. The entire store has a distinct feeling and smell to it that reminds me of going to the hardware store with my dad when I was a kid. Wolff’s Marine has 2 floors of goodies and the aisles are narrow and the shelves go almost to the ceiling. It is a paradise. I am sure that somewhere inside that goldmine is every single part I will need to complete Akupara’s refit times 2. When Wolff’s makes an order for new items, they don’t buy just 1 or 2 to have in stock, they must order in the 100’s. Case in point, I will need 2 new heads, West Marine downtown Vancouver might have one on the shelf, and 1 in the storage room. Wolff’s has 10 piled right to the ceiling. So to make a long story short, ok shorter, Wolff’s Marine is now open on Saturday mornings for the summer again. Hooray! I bought a can of Bilgekote, a can of Cetol, 5 boxes of number 8 Robinson screws and 2 boxes of finishing washers. I bought 1/2, 3/4, 1, 1 1/4, 1 1/2 inch stainless screws and lined them all up inside a drawer like prized possessions.

It is amazing how happy I was, okay still am! I wanted to hug the guy and tell him how much I have missed him since October. I refrained of course, but I did tell him I would see him every Saturday until October. 🙂

So after buying all of the screws, I hung what seemed like 100 cupboard doors. I also permanently fixed another issue yesterday and that was a leaking chainplate. I had temporarily “fixed” it a while back, but it was still leaking but I had to wait for a day of no rain in order to fix it properly. Now I only have another 9 to go. The gigantic pile of wooden pieces in the cockpit is almost gone now, hopefully today we will see the last of it and I can complete the rough sanding of the decks in preparation for painting the next time we are down.

March 12, 2016

Not a lot happening

There has not been a lot happening with Akupara as of late for a couple of reasons. As my last post mentioned, the Admiral and I were in Cuba and we had left on a Thursday so we lost a weekend. We returned the following Friday and I spent the weekend completing homework from the Java course that I am taking for work so we never made it down to Akupara either. And this weekend, I have the mid term assignment due Sunday at midnight, so I doubt if I will have time to work on her either.

It is frustrating on the one hand to have Akupara sitting there waiting to be worked on and to not have the time to do anything but I guess it can be a fact of life. Work has been super busy and with school, family, dogs and everything else, there simply are not enough hours in the week. Between work and school alone I have been averaging 14 hour days and it is bloody tiring. 5 more weeks to go and I will be complete this class, and I will have a break until September once it is complete.

I did manage to contact one of BC’s most well respected riggers, Steve White from Steve White Rigging and obtain a ballpark quote to replace all of the standing rigging on Akupara. It came in at a little over $5000. Not too bad. Expensive of course but not that bad, and this includes all new turnbuckles! All of Akupara’s rigging is rust stained and questionable so when we purchased her, we knew we would be replacing all of it! Steve will be dropping by Akupara to have a close look at her masts and at some point I will connect with him to give him all of the old rigging for measurements.

If there is one thing I do not need to experience, it is having a rigging failure and losing a mast due to not fixing it when we have the chance.

Well, I guess I better get back to the homework…I almost miss the sound of the sander. Wait, did I actually say that?

March 8, 2016

All quiet on the Western Front…

No matter where in the world you go, beaches are always amazing! To me at least. Some are worn and ragged while some are as soft as a babies bum, but they are all amazing in their own way!

We had the opportunity to take a little trip 2 weeks ago, and had the pleasure of experiencing a totally different kind of uniqueness. We managed to get ourselves to Cuba for 8 days and boy did we enjoy it!

Cuba is like stepping back in time, from the architecture of the late 1700’s right up to the 1950’s, everywhere you look you are surprised by what you see!

Of course, no trip to a foreign country can be complete without visiting at least one marina, I snuck in 3 ;-)!

And of course everyone likes to talk about the old cars and how well they have been kept…

But I think what most people forget to talk about is how necessity is the mother of invention. The Cubans have had to make due with what they had for many many years and it has brought them to a whole new level of resourcefulness. Take our hired car in the picture above. It is a 1955 Chev Bel Air and it appears almost mint! The interior is immaculate, although it is missing one door handle, and the paint more than passes the 2 foot test. (As in from 2 feet away it appears flawless.) What is fascinating about this car, which is prevalent through all of Cuba, is the lengths Cubans will go to in order to preserve it. For instance, the original engine died completely a long time ago, and rather than scrap the car like we would, they pulled the engine and transmission out and somehow got a Mercedes Diesel and 5 speed manual transmission installed. It is a column shift by the way!

And when you look at the working boats, you can see that they have been repaired more times than you can count! Probably more repair material than the original boat now.

We could stand to learn an awful lot from the Cubans. Think about that the next time you are about to throw out that thing that does not work. Does it really not work, or are you just too lazy to make it work? I know I will.

I tell ya, visiting Cuba made our project of breathing new life into Akupara a walk in the park! I can go to a store and buy what I need to fix her, and yet people still think we are nuts for undertaking such a massive project!

We have nothing on the Cubans at all! They are the true masters of keeping old things running and looking like new, I can only hope Akupara looks as good when we are done!

BTW, if you get the opportunity, Cuba is an amazing place. We plan on going back and just spending a week in Havana alone!