September 2016 - S/V Akupara

September 7, 2016

Labour Day Weekend

At times it feels like we are making great progress and at other times it feels like we are making none or very little at least. I guess in reality any progress is good progress.

During our last surprise inspection I noticed that the eyes of one of the inspectors kept gazing towards the ceiling in the main salon. Hmmm not a good sign. I will admit that it looked pretty bad. So that decided it. We would tackle the ceiling. Now truth be told we had been putting this off as in order to paint it we needed to sand it. 4 hours of holding orbital sanders with 80 grit paper above our heads was not fun let me tell you but we powered through it and managed to get it done. We also had to cover all of the wood with drop cloths of course and created a scene right out of Dexter.

2 coats of gloss white paint later and it feels like a new boat.

So. In order to complete the main cabin including the galley the major projects left are to finish the galley cupboards, countertop and tile. The main salon needs to have the pantry painted and we still need to make a firm decision on the starboard settee.

The last and biggest job to complete will be the sole. It had been painted at some point with a lovely off white and of course with the refit now has a myriad of paint and stain drips and is very dirty. This will wait until all of the interior construction is complete.

We still have a lot of customizing to do inside lockers and what have you but those types of jobs will not prevent us from launching. Our goal as I said previously is to launch in June and at least Akupara will be back to original even is the custom jobs are yet to be completed.

This weekend I think we will work on completing the galley and maybe the electrical wire will be run it would be nice to have that job done as well.

September 4, 2016November 5, 2016

Back to sanding

As we approach the 2 year mark the Admiral is still smiling. Hmmm maybe we should buy a bigger boat?

Sometimes I wonder if we had just saved all of our dimes and nickels for all this time, we probably could have a bought a working version of Akupara by now. But then again, we would have an unknown boat with all kinds of yet to be discovered issues. At least with Akupara we will be 100% intimate with every nut bolt screw wire fixture fitting piece of wood rope material and know for sure that if and when there is an issue exactly how to fix it.

September 3, 2016

September already.

Wow so it is September already. Where did the summer go? The leaves have begun to change colour and the weather has certainly altered course. We are back to a typical rainy Pacific Northwest. I guess the good news is that with the cooler temperatures we can get back to the hot dirty work of sanding the decks and getting ready for painting but I sure wish we were already done. The last few days have made me long for a nice cozy fire on the boat. I love being aboard when the temperature is cool and the rain is hammering the deck with a hot cup of coffee and a warm fire. Of course I love the idea of being onboard in the tropics just as much but we will take what we can get. ?

Last weekend was the first time in almost 2 years of working on Akupara that I got fed up and had to walk away. We were working in the galley and had a surprise inspection. Of course it never fails that everything is a giant disorganized mess when this happens and the progress does not show but in any event, I think we passed. ?

After they left we returned to work, completed what we had been doing and started trying to run some wire on the port side. For whatever reason, something that should have been super simple turned into a nightmare of events. I realized that this just was not going to happen and whatever else I attempted that day was just going to result in the same thing so I threw my arms up, gave up, packed up, and we left.

Strange how a week later I am still worried about a repeat of events. Not sure if I will work on the wiring today or not. Might be better to have a minor accomplishment first before returning to complete this job. In any event, fingers crossed that we have a good day of work and that things go a little better.