One Love

New Bottom

2011-12-27T21:56:00.000-08:00

Out of the water for new bottom paint!

Time for new bottom paint! Actually I think the paint would have lasted a little longer, at least according to our diver's reports, but there was a problem with the raw water intake seacock that meant it couldn't be turned off fully - basically making it useless and preventing servicing of the raw water system (including the impeller).

So One Love got hauled and had its bottom painted, some blisters near the transom removed and the raw water intake serviced. Tomorrow we return her to her slip feeling all fresh!

Not much happening!

2011-03-27T22:19:00.000-07:00

Been quiet for a long time as other bits of life have kicked in. While the boat hasn't been out for a while I have managed to spend some time crewing on someone elses boat with the aim to get more experience learning to race a slightly smaller and more sprightly craft.

In the meantime One Love is slowly getting some love. We've installed a shower sump, rigged a spinnaker downhaul (and going to get the spinnaker setup for gybing too - perhaps we'll even fly it in the harbor sometime) and fixed up the steering control on glenda the ~~steering vane~~ good witch so that she can be controlled from the cockpit (previously this involved leaning over the back of the boat).

Today we removed some of the post market custom cupboards from the cabin, so now I just need to get past the teak paneling and we can remove the chainplate I found cracks in. Hopefully this will be quite straightforward - it all depends on the state of the screws!

Hopefully we'll get this done over the next few weeks, fix the head pump and get back out on the water!

5hp, two people and a RIB

2010-10-28T21:32:00.000-07:00

This is our Tohatsu 5hp driving the compact RIB 310 with Janet and myself onboard. The water was flat and the boat only just made it onto a plane but it did make it! Since then I've added foils to the outboard to help it get up on the plane.

Apparently you can swap out the 5hp carb for a 6hp to gain the extra power, I probably should have done this when I replaced ours last year after the motor got sunk with our previous inflatable.

I've posted this because when I bought the RIB I wasn't sure the 5hp would get the two of us up on a plane. Please note it is borderline, not making it into the wind or any sort of chop (though sometimes you can head down wind to get on the plane and then keep the speed up when you turn back into the wind). I'll post more videos showing the acceleration and maneuverability of this particular combo later.

KAV Rig 2.0

2010-10-17T19:30:00.000-07:00

I finally got around to building the stabilized platform for my GoPro. This has been planned for a long time but finally had the time (okay I shirked some yard duties to get it put together...).

The servos are driven by a receiver like normal servos and also accept radio input. Of course the critical channel would be horizontal rotation which I don't yet have, there will be a later modification adding a 360 servo to drive this (I believe they are used for RC sailboats).

So far the rig is very like many others you'll see described here: http://arch.ced.berkeley.edu/kap/discuss/

Here's my first video with the rig suspended below a pivacet pendulum and swung around the house. The video is actually smoother than I was expecting.

Honeymoon Part II

2010-10-10T16:20:00.000-07:00

The first part of our honey moon was a week driving a convertible around northern California, the second a week's sailing.

My agenda had been to sail to Catalina taking advantage of the reversed wind direction we experienced last week. Unfortunately we spent a tiring night bouncing at Zuniga - the wind had been SW when we anchored and I was hoping that the lower tide during the night would dissipate the waves energy but the wind switched to the SE leaving us completely exposed.

Luckily the hold there is really good but nevertheless the night was spent bumping up and down in 3 foot chop wondering how far off the bottom the keel was bouncing. The wind really howled at times and we could hear breaking waves running past us!

Eventually light dawned and we ran back to Shelter Island to drop the hook and get some real sleep (illegally as I now know) anchored in La Playa Cove. At midday we headed out again, this time intending to get to Mission Bay ready to try again the next day.

We were beaten back again, a three plus foot steep chop limiting us to less than three knots. Janet had been feeling sick before we even set foot on the boat so I figured it was time to cut our losses and get back to Shelter Island.

At this point I gave up on any hope of making Catalina, at least with any time to spend there before returning. The next day the weather was in "wasn't me" mode and we made it up to Mission Bay where we chilled for a day before returning.

Sailing to Bob

2010-09-20T12:37:00.000-07:00

Edited version of the video, sadly we didn't have the kite camera mount - would have been a great day for footage!

Stag do sailing

2010-09-19T23:25:00.000-07:00

As a pre-wedding wind down from work I got to sail with some of my favorite people. Hopefully they will forgive me the cold and perhaps eventually the sea sickness and end up remembering the calm of the anchorage and the blast we had with the spinnaker under sunlight.

The first day we sailed the grand 7 miles as the crow flies to Shelter Island. This took, cough cough, about 7 hours. Lots of tacking practice happened but we we also kept amused by the navy. While we headed out several ships (the centre piece being an aircraft carrier) came in and judging by the rust marks they'd been out for a long time. Instead of the usual police and loudspeaker accompaniment they had helicopters buzzing boats out of the way!

On the way past Ralphs (end of Point Loma) Rob and I took a quickish surf. Okay, Rob surfed a lot and I caught one wave right at the end but given the lack of practice this year that was pretty good going and I got to manage a weak turn and pop off under control.

After that the wind was starting to rise and we headed deep south with the spinnaker up.

Later on it got cold...

After an upwind beat to get back to the harbor Rob dug in and cooked up a storm

And we helped him eat it.... then all lied about some dice.

There are two types of sailor (some of them have run aground)

2010-09-12T10:22:00.000-07:00

We got to the boat about mid day and started getting it ready. After a short while Dan and Melissa turned up, we finished getting the boat ready and set out.

This was meant to be a short, simple, sail. Perhaps about 5- hours, sailing up the harbor and returning in later afternoon, no hurry, no agenda to get miles done, no specific plan but some different options depending on the wind.

We motored up to Coronado Bridge then got the sails up (being all out of practice I'd rigged the main halyard incorrectly and it took two attempts to get the main up) and tacked further up the bay. The wind steadily increased and we started at 3 knots then eventually got up near 7 knots with perhaps 15knots of wind at the strongest gusts. Not white knuckle but a good blow, decent heeling, lovely sunny weather, spray going, good times and a great introduction for Dan and Melissa to bay sailing. Here's Dan steering through one of his first tacks.

Then we sailed back home on a long lazy downwind stage in several large tacks.

On the way through south bay we took advantage of the high tide and blasted right across areas we normally avoid. This worked for a while then proved troublesome....

To keep the sails flying I avoided heading straight down wind and consequently we ended up a bit to the west of the main channel, aiming to join it for the last segment where the bay gets really shallow. We'd got the headsail in and were just about to re-enter the deeper water when I looked across to the other side of the channel and saw the mud flat exposed, with a power boat stranded in the middle, as I was about to point this poor unfortunate out to the others there was a lurch.... followed shortly by another and then another.

Our speed dropped to nothing, we were aground, and within 40 feet of the safety.

At this point I took notice of the markers around us and it really sunk in that we weren't anywhere near the +7 ft that I had thought.

Another crappy realization that sunk in at this point was that we were in a section of the GPS coverage that doesn't have marked depths. Normally not a problem because we navigate the channel but now I was feeling blind, exposed and stupid and the channel was sitting there laughing back at me saying I told you so.

Getting the engine on quickly (thank god it started!) we jammed it hard in reverse, got the sail out and had people hit the lower side of the boat and we shifted a bit. Bump, bump, move, bump, move move, bump, move move move go go go and we were free! Without decent depth guide all we could do was back trace our steps. As the tide was falling fast I was worried that any places we had sailed previously were also becoming untenable but figured if we could make it onto the part of the bay I had accurate depth readings for we'd probably be okay.

As we headed back north the Channel was tantalizingly there, just off the starboard side and I made another mistake, trying to run for freedom and cut across to it.

Aground again.

This time reverse and weight shifting didn't help, we tied two full jerry cans and the most accessible spare anchor to the boom and swung it out, this got us bumping a bit but we still couldn't reverse off and the bumping steadily became less frequent as water level continued to drop and the boat settled again.

The tide was falling and I was beginning to contemplate what would happen if we didn't get off again. I was guessing that it was going to fall another 3 feet or so and that the boat was going to be pretty hard over, the next thing I needed to think about was how to prop it up and minimize the possibility of flooding when the tide rose again (which was going to be early the next morning).

But we weren't done yet. The question was how to get more heel on. Two methods considered (in between Janet trying to get me to calm down) were getting in a harness and swinging out along the boom or going out in the dinghy and hanging off it. In the end we picked the latter and were very glad of the electric pump that we'd purchased in the morning which reduced ten minutes of foot pump work to a minute.

We dropped the dinghy in the water with a couple of safety lines attached, I jumped in and swung out to the end of the boom, reached up and got as much weight on it as possible.

Janet got on the helm and gunned the engine hard in reverse, I pulled down as hard as I could, nothing happened, nothing happened, nothing happened, something happened, we moved a bit, we did! At this point Dan and myself both realized that during our efforts the boat had actually shifted a bit closer to the channel and it was even more right there and we both turned at shouted "full forward", The engine strained, I strained, Janet gunned the engine, there was another moment of hesitation then things began to move and Janet called out 0.5 knots, 0.8 knots 1.0 knots.... suddenly I was standing on an inflatable hanging onto the boom while surfing at increasingly higher speeds...

... and we were back in safety. The channel. Never so welcome, never so appreciated.

Phew.

Actually, Euphoria - we avoided a long night dark night aground in the middle of the bay getting covered in mud having to work out how to prop the boat up!

Here are some of my takeaways:

I was stupid in many ways.
The tide was falling, not a good time to take risks
I didn't think it was falling but there were many clues around (an aground boat, lots of mud...) that I failed to notice.
Not having good charts of the large expanses of dangerously shallow water within a mile of your home port is insane.
Given the above lack of knowledge I don't know how stupid cutting back to the channel a second time was.
Using diesel jerry cans was stupid. The spout on one was actually damaged and while very little diesel got out (a splash on me / the inflatable) that was sheer luck.
Getting in a dinghy, standing in it hanging off a boom with a moving (eventually) boat pulling us around with jerry cans and a sharp anchor swinging next to me without a life vest on was stupid. Wear a life vest. I'm also thinking of ways that the swinging weight could have been controlled more easily.
Having able and willing crew makes scenarios like this far easier to deal with, both emotionally and physically. Dan and Melissa were awesome and are welcome to run aground we us as many times as it takes to learn not to.
I don't know how to prop the boat up. I have a rough plan but need to research it more.
We didn't consider kedging off, I was the only person on the boat who knows this stuff and it should have been considered as an option.
While we didn't do a fantastic professional job we did get off the bottom, twice. We used techniques that I read about in books. Book reading is good.
Janet's caution is a good foil to my excitement and helps keep things under control.

Things to do going forwards:

Get a climbing harness on the boat, this would have made getting a body to the end of the boom much much easier.
Practice using this in the dock.
Get my hands on the charts for the area that I'm missing. I do actually have some on the boat that while slightly lower resolution than the GPS charts would probably have given me the information I needed if I'd taken the time to look at them.
Take more time in critical situations to come up with calm approaches.
Next time, with four people on a boat in the same circumstances I'm going to be able to plan better and give us a better chance of getting free. This will involve:

having our spare anchors easier to hand
having a block and tackle always rigged and ready for hoisting them on the end of the boom
getting a crew member to prep the inflatable as soon as we run aground ready for kedging off
having a climbing harness (which I've meant to do for running mast repairs anyway) available to get human weight out to the end of the boom.
Being better armed with knowledge to deal with NOT getting free

With two people choices are more limited, however the same preparation stands and the same steps just with less going on in parallel.

This time was a warning and we were very very lucky to get away with it.....

There are two types of sailor, those that have run aground and those that will. We've finally joined the former club.

Excited

2010-09-11T01:00:00.000-07:00

After months of being separated from my boat tomorrow we sail together again.

Can't wait to cut the motor and have the sails do the work.

Boats in the UK

2010-06-27T03:27:00.000-07:00

Currently separated from my boat while I sort out some immigration details. I keep looking at the boats here in the UK and wondering what it would be like to have a boat here. Certainly much much less tolerance for leaks but also 20 foot tides and very changeable weather.

This doesn't seem to put people off, there are boats everywhere, and I think partly because the coast must be a fascinating place to sail. Most small boats are twin keels to deal with grounding and while smaller on average than the boats seen in southern california have a tendency to look simple and very sea worthy.

Seems to me that boating in the UK is a pretty serious experience.

Seriously pretty tie-up as seriously as far up river as these boats can go.

Seriously functional fishing boats (with quite a serious looking leak)

This ones seriously past its prime

Serious lack of water at low tide in a seriously cute harbor.

Serious pair of ocean crossers in the Liverpool docks. Seriously caught my eye.

Seriously well kept canal boats can now get to the Liverpool docks now the canals are reopened.

And a seriously pretty coastline makes it all seriously worthwhile.

Next kite cam?

2010-06-09T01:00:00.000-07:00

Perhaps this is the next kite cam? It has a serious wide angle, does HD, is built for extreme surf conditions and rated for 60m..... too good to be true perhaps? Looking for more details...

MY HERO?

Drilling small things

2010-06-09T00:09:00.000-07:00

New trick found - from time to time I find myself drilling small items that are difficult to clamp on my drill press but today I found a new trick.

On the left of the image is a Irwin "Quick Grip" clamp. On the right is its sister clamp, cunningly inserted in the drill press and clamping a small (<1" sq) piece of aluminium.

The trick was to remove the stopper (seen far bottom left on the pristine clamp) and pull the jaws off then reattach as part of the drill press. Re-attaching was a PITA, requiring a screwdriver to be inserted and jiggled. For a while I thought I might have broken it then everything just worked.....

KAV Rig 1.0

2010-06-07T11:28:00.000-07:00

Right now I'm planning my second camera hoisting rig. The plan is to go super technical, with gyro feedback to keep the camera steady and I'm sorely tempted to add radio control to it (the gyros will take me 50% of the way there anyway).

Since building Rig 1.0 I've learnt a lot, and finally shot some video that I'm happy with. This first unit took a few hours to build one evening and is mostly built using things you'll find in West Marine, Home Depot and your local craft shop. The most expensive part is the camera and the second most the bearings used to help stabalise the kite.

Rig 2.0 is going to be a bit more expensive to build (I think about $150 including the electronics but not the camera). I'll post here when I build it, which will be in a few weeks. In the meantime here's 1.0...

1.0 comes in a little bag. This includes everything needed to go plus a couple of extras I haven't ever used. It would also compress a bit better if needed. To me small size is important, it needs to hide away on the boat and I like being able to take it places easily.

And here's everything unpacked. The smaller kite and reel are the bits I don't use, except for using the reel for repairs. Keep intending to film the smaller kite using the larger one (the PowerSled 14 is what I use to lift the rig) but haven't got around to it yet.

The wooden component is the cradle and Picavet Suspension that keeps the camera at a mostly constant angle. Clear details on the suspension are found here.

Close up of the Rig. The little blocks were the most expensive part of the rig, but are going to be recycled and used in 2.0. They allow the pendulum to hang freely with minimal friction (which all translates to extra camera motion that you don't want). The balsa basket is a snug fit for a kodak ZX-1, but no other camera. The hole at the back of the basket allows access to the controls.

Shot of the rig hanging free.

One of the biggest problems with my early videos was that the FOV of the Kodak ZX-1 I've been using is pretty tight. Combine that with the motion of the kite wobbling the camera around and you've got a nauseating video that no-one wants to watch. The solution presented by youtube was to use a spy hole to create a fish eye effect. Another possibility I haven't tried yet is to get some uncut lens blanks from your local optician, this might get better results. The little wood board (oak) and rubber band keep it in place over the camera without obscuring the light sensor, or hiding the power button and screen, all kind of handy!

Here's a thread that shows where I'm going with 2.0.

And here's the guy who makes the gyro servo.

I'm finding it a bit hard to find KAV demos in action but this youtube video was pretty cool.

The only variation is that I'm trying to work out how to damp some of the jitters that you see as the servo works in steps. I've found some model aircraft aimed rotational dampers and think you should be able to use them to smooth things out a bit.

FleetFoxes and sailing

2010-06-07T00:14:00.000-07:00

Starting to play with iMovie. Its fairly limited and a bit frustrating to play around with but still fun!

Memorial day sailing

2010-06-03T23:16:00.000-07:00

On Memorial day I finally was able to go sailing again. Sailing One Love is a pretty big commitment, it takes an hour to get ready, and hour to put away, and if we're going out on the ocean it takes nearly three hours to get there and three to get back. An eight hour turnaround doesn't play well with being on call for engineering emergencies which is where I've been with the release of Red Dead Redemption.

Anyway, we headed down to the boat late on Friday with the idea of anchoring out somewhere on the Saturday night. Our common choices are Zuniga Shoals outside the harbor mount, the Coronado Islands just across the mexican border and Mission bay, a few miles up the coast (about 30nm from our marina).

On Saturday we woke to a forecast of a decent sailing breeze getting really nice (16-20knot from the NW) in the afternoon and a "choppy swell" with a mix of NE and SW. Given the swell and the wind it seemed sensible to make Mission bay our anchorage of choice. This anchorage gets crowded but we figured we'd get there early with the decent winds. The forecast for the Sunday was NW winds < 10knots. Oh well I thought, hoist the genny and enjoy a gentlish downwind run.

Talking to me pops on the way out of the bay

Early signs were that the weather forecast was spot on, as we reached the hook of the bay to head south out past point loma the wind picked up from the west and we ran out at about 6 knots following out slip neighbour Dancy who was on a similar plan.

Once out of the bay the wind dipped a bit and stayed westerly rather than NW. We ran out about 5nm before tacking, in hindsight this was too far as the weather forecast was far from accurate!

As we headed north the wind shifted south. Combining this with the small but uncomfortable swell and J started feeling worse for wear, Here she is feeling peaky!

I took the opportunity to try out my new(ish) wide angle lens.

Over the course of the afternoon the wind steadily tracked to the south and got lighter, the swell got more irritating, J's stomach more tender and even mine started feeling less than fine. Eventually we fired up the engine and cheated the last half hour.

J enjoying a beer in a nice calm anchorage.

That evening we went into mission beach and ate some pizza. The highlight was rowing back to the boat, the oars glowing with phosphorescence and fish leaving bright trails behind as they darted underneath.

Quite something!

In the morning the wind was still from the SW, and seemingly a bit stronger. We waited awhile for it to shift as the sea breeze filled in then headed out for what was one of the most enjoyable day sails we've had in One Love.

And then again from a different angle :)

The rest of the sail was more of the same, with the exception of having the unusual task of tacking downwind into the harbor which is very bizarre. That was our chance to fly the genny but J was sunbathing and I was too lazy so we just took a few lazy gybes to keep the sails full.

It took us about five hours to cover 30nm at an average of 6knots and our top speed was several cycles on the GPS of over 8 (I saw 8.4, the highest we've had yet!).

All in all a most satisfying sail!

Dinghy Chocks Become Dinghy Rails

2010-06-03T21:59:00.000-07:00

Finally having a bit of time to do some project work I sat down to build the dinghy mount. Only about six months after I was drawing up the original plans.

Luckily this allowed time for a redesign and now we've used the final piece for reals I'm happy this happened.

Here's the project from start to finish, pictorial form!

Starting with a single plank of wood.

Cross sawing before chiseling out. Prior to this I'd ripped the lengthwise cuts with my little table saw.

After chiseling shape starts to form

Tough work but not nearly as bad as the seat, mainly I think because of the cross cuts - thanks mum for the tip!

And after an hour or so the first rough cut rail was in place. The clearance at the back goes over the main hatch.

A jig for my first dry run on the boat before expending more time and effort. The aluminium here is for the supports and is cut ready to go get welded.

This is the first time the rails were attached to the support. Its really solid and the supports use the holes in the roof already drilled for the old life raft mount. The only concern is the unsupported extension to the rear that has the hatch slide under.

I love those first coats of varnish, when you see the project start to look more professional.

And here it is, in place on the boat with the RIB waiting to go on its new home, but first....

I added a bit of padding, in the form of a tough carpet. This will protect both the wood and the fiberglass underside of the RIB.

And finally here it is with the RIB mounted out at sea. There is just room for the vang to swing and the hatch to open underneath it (the hatch is rotated here to allow us to open it under way).

Seat cover

2010-06-03T21:42:00.000-07:00

As you can see from the lack of posts I found very little time to get to the boat, what with finishing Red Dead Redemption and trying to sleep when not.

We found that in the periods between going to the boat the seat weathered pretty quickly. This was probably enhanced by a very wet (for San Diego standards) winter with lots of sun in between.

There has been a little actual structure damage, but it looks pretty fixable. I'm also going to remount the seat on aluminium plates that will be sturdier and more rust resistant than the current cheapo brass corner pieces that arn't really up to the job.

To make the seat last a bit longer I brushed off some long dormant sewing skills and made a quick cover....

I'm going to have to modify the edges to make it a bit tougher but generally I'm quite happy with this first attempt at sewing in about 15 years. Actually it inspired me to go on an make a cover for our dinghy too!

First sail of the New Year

2010-01-05T23:58:00.000-08:00

This didn't quite go to plan as intended. We'd talked about sailing up to Mission Bay on the 2nd and returning on the 3rd, a trip we've done a couple of times before.

At about 10am on the 2nd the boat was ready to go, the weather was perfect with light Santa Anna breezes, blue skys and ludicrously warm weather. Ready to go bar one thing, the engine, which didn't want to start.

After checking the obvious items (things I've screwed up before) I'm still getting no where. The engine cranks strongly, there is fuel coming out of the injectors, the air filter (such as it is) looks clear. I ask our neighbor Joe (http://oceanshorizon.com/) what he thinks. He thinks the secondary fuel filter (in between the lift and injector pumps) needs changing. It does. I've tried to get it off in the past and failed.

This time I try harder. Of course I make the mistake of going to Napa without it and have to return a second time with the piece to make sure I get the correct replacement.

After fitting the new filter, bleeding the system and cranking again no change.

I'm pouring over the diagrams, post on cruisers forum, all with no effect. Theres a sneaky feeling that in looking for water leaks in the engine compartment I've knocked something awry.

I take a break and we go do some shopping. With a clearer head on our return I tighten every single fuel hose connection. My theory is that some old hose with no remaining give was dislodged in my clambering.

This time the engine fires up. And keeps running.

Yey!

So much for the 2nd, what about the third?

On the morning of the third I wake up every thirty minutes. Its been months since I've been sailing. I lie in bed before dawn wondering about getting going in the dark but I'm also tired and I know its unfair to wake Janet. Eventually I get up at 8am and make a few final preparations then start the motor (fires right up). Joe and Marci help push me out as Janet appears.

We set out into the clear morning sun....

Head out under the bridge

Glenda the Good Witch (monitor wind vane) does the work

We head home as the sun sets

....it really did look like this...

Finished and on the boat

2010-01-05T23:19:00.000-08:00

I have to admit that theres still one step left but as far as this blog goes the helms seat is finished (barring a few extensions I'm planning).

In the end I decided to fill the gaps in and try and prevent water getting to the plywood base. If this looks like its failing I'll just refinish and coat in epoxy as some of the good people on cruisers forum suggested. Here's everything sealed off. I then used a syringe to fill the gaps, large and small, with west system epoxy.

While I would design the seat slightly differently if I were to start again it did its job pretty well on our first sail with it. Will be interesting to see how it works out with stronger winds.

Here it is in place - as you can see access to the main sheet is good (and to the emergency tiller under the round plate behind). You can also see how the mass of main sheet normally making a mess back there is easily hidden away:

And here it is in use. The extensions I'm going to make are a couple of fabric sheets that clip over the rails and down to the seat as back rests, this position proves to be very comfortable!

Portlight removal

2009-12-25T15:02:00.000-08:00

I've been putting this off, no, thats not quite true.... I've been getting side tracked for a while but finally got around to looking at the potentially leaking portlights in the vbirth.

This, like any other first time boat operation was a good experience.

The first part of the job was undoing all the screws on the inside of the frame. This wasn't quite as easy as it sounds. Quite a few were corroded and had bonded with the aluminium frame. Working at them with WD40 and some heavy screwdriver pressure I finally got all fifteen of the first frame out.

At the bottom of the hole left I could see dirt marks going under the vinyl. Not sure how much of the water getting into the vbirth was from here but it was good to get some confirmation that at least some was.

When I went above to see about prying the rest of the porthole the frame had pulled away from the boat and it was obvious the sealant gasket had failed.

After pulling the portlight out I cleaned up the old sealant and wiped off the area with acetone. I then gave the portlight itself the same treatment.

It is fairly obvious that the frame is nearing the end of its life. There is a fair amount of corrosion but I think it'll last a while longer while I find a replacement for the 7" X 14" holes, I'll just follow in the PO's footsteps and caulk it up!

Anyway, before putting the portlight back I put a thick bead of 4200 hundred around the frame and gently refastened the interior trim with some new screws. I'll bed it down harder when we go to the boat tomorrow.

On all the fixed portlights the silicon seal where the gasket joined needed replacing - I scraped it out with a craft blade, cleaned with acetone and reapplied silicon sealant.

Doing this one makes me realize I need to tackle the large main cabin window's outer seals before they start causing problems. In the meantime my priority remains to stop further interior damage from current leaks.

We're talking about going sailing next weekend - this will be the first time in ages, perhaps a couple of months. It'll be good to get some miles under the keel for a change!

so almost finished..... but I need your help

2009-12-22T00:35:00.000-08:00

1) Mask off areas for varnishing

2) Varnish

3) Worry about caulking

Plan One had been: butt the teak slats against each other perfectly. Problem - I'm an amateur and this is beyond me. Plan Two: lay enough resin and coat the teak sides so it seals the gaps. Problem tried it and it didn't. Plan Three was: Caulk in between the slats. Problem - this is better done (or so I understand) by pre-routing the teak slats PRIOR to application. Routing what I have seems somewhat dangerous.

Right now I'm thinking about several possible finishing strategies:

Leave as is, suffer the water damage
Re-coat everything in resin, possibly with a light glass cover.
Inject/push silicon in the gaps
Inject/push resin in the gaps

Anyone have an opinion?

Here's some pictures:

Working on the leaks

2009-12-21T01:11:00.000-08:00

I was slightly hung over after my office Christmas Party and had to get some Christmas shopping in but managed to get a couple of hours on the boat.

The area around the mast was dry now so I wiped it down with acetone and sealed it with 4200. Apparently why you are sealing the technique is to push the bead in front of the caulk gun.

Here's the area masked up. In hindsight I should have done a better job with the masking but I'll know for next time.

I tried using the corner tool in the picture above to get the sealant bead pushed into the corner but it was tricky to use with the deck variation but in the end found that it was just easier to use my finger and the finished shape seemed okay.

It's going to rain this week so we'll find out how bad the leak from the mast really is.

I gave the plate in the cockpit well the same treatment around its edge and then moved on to look at the stanchions around the v-birth. Removing the lifelines left the boat feeling rather naked, its odd what a psychologically difference those little lines make.

I'm still not convinced that the leak is coming in through this area though the bottom of the holes were definitely broken up all the same we can eliminate doubt by following the steps outlined here.

Leaving the marina the wind was settled and the colors were beautiful.

Leaks!

2009-12-13T23:31:00.000-08:00

I suspect this topic will come up repeatedly.

One Love is nearly thirty years old (28) and as you might expect has developed a few leaks. Recent stormy weather brought gale force winds and plenty of rain which was very helpful in highlighting a few of them.

We visited the boat during the highlight of the weather and it was obvious that we were leaking in the vbirth, under the foot of the mast (which is deck stepped), from the hatch and in the engine room.

My intention is for the boat to be water tight by spring time, and any accumulated damage to be repaired. Today I went back to start working on them. As in all things boat my initial estimates of the workload were, um slightly off.

On the way to the boat I stopped and grabbed some 3M 4000 sealant - this is the UV resistant version of 4200.

When on the boat I took another look around. The v-birth was dry and the tissue paper we'd put down to track water showed that a only little moisture had touched it. The mast foot was a different matter. Water was still coming out and trickling down the compression post. This puzzled me as the previous rain had been a decent 12 hours earlier.

It got really interesting when I looked in the engine room. The leak there had seemed the lightest of the lot but when I turned on the light to survey the damage the first thing I noticed was how weak it was. Closer inspection showed that the dome fitting was FULL of water, and rusty water at that.

The leak was obviously more considerable than I'd thought so I adjusted plans to go for that and the mast first, leaving the vbirth for a later day. Thankfully the weather here is normally pretty good!

Attacking the mast foot from the outside I started to scrape away the old sealant. As I worked my way around to the aft (the right in the above photo) I found a big gunk of sealant at the bottom of the groove.

As I dug into this water started flowing out of the mast! Lots of water! Probably several pints. Enough for me to go get my camera and take the following photo:

And enough for that flow (draining on both sides of the boat) to continue for several minutes. Turns out our mast does have a drain hole after all.

So now I knew why water was still coming out below the mast. Here's what I think happened :- The boat has a leak in the electrical conduit below the mast. In an effort to prevent water getting to this conduit a PO (previous owner) blocked the drain to prevent water getting in. This works okay in normal dry southern california weather but when a freak storm comes along blowing water every which way it still gets into the mostly sealed mast and now has nowhere to go but that same electrical conduit and hence into the boat.

I cleaned up the mast foot, scraping away all sealant and sanding a bit in the end. The foot was now clean and ready for new sealant but water kept on seeping out. This continued for the rest of the day, steadily getting slower and slower but enough for me to think that leaving it a while to see what happens is a good idea.

Next summer I plan on dropping the mast, redoing the electrical wiring and painting it. We'll make sure the whole thing is sealed properly at the time.

Moving on I turned my attention to the problems in the cockpit area. After poking around above and below I decided that there were two main areas of concern. Firstly a random (I had no idea what its purpose is) metal plate bolted to the cockpit floor and secondly the foots of the railing that goes around the compass binnacle. Looking at the latter it seemed that this was screwed into the cockpit floor into holes that went through completely and still had water dripping through - again I was wondering where the water was coming from.

Taking off the metal plates I was met with a mess.

Seems that water and rust had been accumulating underneath, though I'm not sure it had made it through the deck yet. My camera battery died at this point so no photos but I cleaned up what I could and resealed the plates with new 4000. While doing this realized that the deck around this area was squishy and I could hear water seeping around inside as I moved on it.

Expletive.

I suspect the metal plates are some form of "repair". Expletive 2.

I have a feeling I'll be back here. Really the deck needs to be sealed with new epoxy, assuming the foam core is savable.

Moving onto the rail attachments (there's one at the top of the above photo) I find they are screwed into holes that are open to the core. This is pretty cheap and not very cheerful. As my primary concern right now is to stop the boat leaking I cleaned things up, threw a load of sealant at it and put things back together but will need to take it apart again and create a decent epoxy plug to screw into (this prevents water getting to the core material and I think I can set it up so water can't get through.

After doing this I drilled a couple of holes in the core below decks but no water came out.

The hatch came home, I'll need to get my hands on some material to make a new gasket as the one on it is dry and stiff.

Hopefully it'll be dry next weekend and I'll be able to take a crack at remaining issues like sealing the mast foot and sealing the stanchions near the leak in the v-birth.

Today was fairly frustrating. I didn't really fix anything, just discovered problems and patched up issues.

The Teak Looks Good!

2009-12-04T08:41:00.000-08:00

Got home from work at about midnight last night. Janet had brought me some teak oil and as part of my wind down I decided to use it.

Over the week I'd taken the teak down to a pretty smooth finish. Sanding first at 320, then 400 and finally 600 grit sandpaper. Too be honest I couldn't really tell the difference between 400 and 600 except perhaps it felt a be more velvety smooth.

Putting the oil on really brought out the wood grain and leaves a pretty stunning finish. Next up I'm going to make a special sanding block for the curved sections of fir and start working on them, oh I'm also going to mix some of the fine sawdust I've collected with some resin and fill some of the holes on the interior to help strengthen and water proof the structure.

Still hoping to get this on the boat in a weeks time, after a load of varnishing this next week. Pretty excited to finally get this project to completion as its taken about four times as long as I was initially hoping.

The Paint Looks Good!

2009-12-04T00:31:00.000-08:00

So Janet got to go to the boat and cleaned up after last weekend's painting and demolishing fun. She brought back some photos and a little video of the interior. Can't wait until the upholstery is back in, its going to be really cosy!

Painting the bulkhead

2009-11-29T22:38:00.000-08:00

Its been a long term wish of Janet's to make the interior more homelike. Over the last year and a half of One Love ownership we've spent our time getting to know her. Now we're more comfortable with the basics we're starting to make her feel more like our own boat.

The first move on this is refurbishing / replacing the upholstery. All our cushions are at the shop right now (UFO in National City, CA) getting new foam edging, new fabric and in the case of the V-Birth all new foam (a layered firm foam + memory foam approach).

While this is underway we figured that it was time to embark on painting the bulkhead. Of course like any boat project it turned out that there was plenty of scope for even the simplest task to extend itself.

The new upholstery is going to be blue and we (Janet...) decided that painting the bulkhead yellow would be a nice combination and that by keeping the yellow quite pale we'd be able to accent the wood and make the cabin appear lighter.

Step one involved masking off the area to be painted.... well actually no, step 1 == strip off the layer of water damaged veneer around the edges of the bulkhead. In the following picture you can make out a section to the left that is already stripped and a section at the bottom awaiting the knife.

Step 2 involved getting too high to remember to take pictures of Step 2. Actually Step 2 involved sanding down the bulkhead with 220 grit, Step 2.5 involved mixing an epoxy paste and filling the exposed plywood surface. It was raining hard outside so we couldn't ventilate as much as I would have liked and the effect of the epoxy setting in such a confined space was a good warning for future work. I certainly wasn't thinking straight by the second coat.

Having finished with the epoxy we primed the surface and were ready to paint, here's the primed bulkhead already looking so much lighter in comparison with the above picture.

Of course, in boating nothing is that easy. Here's a picture of me looking at the adjacent shelving, which we now realized wasn't quite straight.... as I looked closer it became apparent that the central section was supported by a couple of screws that had pulled through the end grain they had been embedded into. If you look you might be able to see that the middle is lower than it should be.

While we discussed this new problem Janet pointed out that she could never fit things through the doors and I pointed out that it looks quite easy to remove and next thing you know....

As you can see boat life continues and this step exposes the crappy headliner left over when someone had done work on the deck. At some point soonish expect a post on fixing headliner problems.

Anyway, once this was out of the way we were able to prime the rest of the bulkhead (more had been exposed) and get to the painting. Here's the first color test going on to make sure we really wanted the one we'd selected.

And after deciding we really did we rolled and brushed on a couple more coats and here's the nearly finished wall:

Janet will return to the boat this week to remove all that tape and I'll post a finished picture when she gets back. We won't get the new upholstery until Christmas time though so meanwhile onto other projects!

New woodworking project

2009-11-29T20:10:00.000-08:00

As the seat wraps up its time to move onto the next project. Originally I had intended this to be a new set of swim steps but recently we purchased a new compact RIB inflatable (310 from West Marine). This needs a decent place to live on the deck.

The intention was to mount the RIB in place of our old life raft and I've got to admit we got really lucky. I didn't measure the space available prior to buying the RIB but guestimated the fit and when we did a trial run it turns out we only have about 2" to spare on a 10 foot dingy, not the 6" or so I was expecting.

While on the boat this weekend I measured up both the deck and the dingy under belly. On the way to the boat we stopped at a woodworking store looking for something unconnected and a slab of Mahogany caught my eye - just the right size for my next project!

Not having any other materials handy I transcribed the RIB and hull shapes right onto the wood. We're going to have a V shape for the forward section that will be attached to the forward through bolts that were holding the life raft. The rear section goes over the hatch which will need to slide under the dingy. I'm going to build a bridge over the hatch with the aft hull section embedded into the top.

On both cases I'm still not quite sure how its going to fasten to the deck. Hopefully the forward section will be able to utilize the same bolt holes the lift raft did but the aft bridge will require something new.

The picture above shows the mahogany slab and some tracing paper that I'm using to create a plan for the new piece.

Almost there

2009-11-29T19:27:00.000-08:00

I'm going to delay varnishing the base for a few days. In this time I'll mostly be working but when possible will continue to sand down the rough bits. I'm also going to fill some of the gaps with a wood dust / epoxy mix that will them need a little sanding. If all things go to plan I should be starting to varnish this next weekend.

Right now I've got the teak finished and down to 320 grit sand paper. Its going to get to 600 grade by the weeks end and then I'll lightly oil it to seal it off and bring out the grain. The fir is going to be finished to 220 and then covered in about 5-7 layers of a decent UV resistant varnish. The Fir is very light when first sanded but turns red when exposed to sunlight. I have no idea what color its going to end up at!

Here's where we're at....

Lightening the load

2009-11-26T19:01:00.000-08:00

Part of the original design of the seat was for space to be available underneath it so we can tidy up some of the mess that collects on the flat deck while sailing. When all was put together it became apparent that the left and right sections were extremely heavy and would make it very tricky to open the lazerettes. I decided to go to town discarding needless wood from the base. This would also give water more exit routes and make it easier to clean under the seat.

This next photo shows the marking out and guide holes (actually these were a mistake in the end I used a drill piece that didn't need them) for cutting curved corners.

Once the corner holes were cut out I took out excess wood with a chisel, hammer and sand paper. Managed to cut myself a few times, got a nice blister and some aching arms but after about five hours of work had all the cutaway sections roughed out.

I also put in the teak plugs over the screw holes. At least most of them. I had planned on reusing the loose parts of the teak bungs in other holes but it turns out they have a fairly close tolerance and a wedge shape. My efforts to cut costs mostly led to frustration so I'm going to have to get a few more to plug the central section. Here's the first row in and waiting trimming:

Once I got the plugs in I started sanding the side units. Finally it feels like we're getting close to a usable product. Several hours more sanding to go and then a week of varnishing the fir then its ready to try out for real! Here's what I've got so far - as you might be able to tell I've started rounding off the corners, all part of making it ergonomic and lighter too:

Last weekend we were on the boat looking at the various near term projects. Took the chance to remove the current rusty and dysfunctional fishing boat chair and dry fit the new seat, here it is in place

Tomorrow we're going to be continuing some interior work and look further into building some dingy chocks for our new compact RIB which is taking the place of our out of date life-raft (which will be replaced with a newer lighter version, probably stowed below).

Attaching the teak deck

2009-11-26T16:25:00.000-08:00

The teak deck is attached to the base using a layer of epoxy (the same west system 105 + 206 hardener used earlier) and two brass screws per piece to clamp it down tight.

The screws needed to be bedded into the wood so that they could be covered with teak plugs sanded to a smooth finish. Using a drill press with a guide setup so I would get even spacing on the screws I drilled a guide hole of about 3/32" and then the parent hole (3/8"). Doing this by hand would have been a royal PITA but using my simple Ryobi drill press it was a breeze. While here I should mention that this drill press is probably the most solid Ryobi tool I own and while not as accurate as a the industrial tools we had at school is good enough for my home projects.

Here's a side by side picture of a piece where the teak had just been attached and one that had a quick sanding.

And here it the whole piece put together. Now the process shifts from putting things together to starting to remove material from the seat, partially to add access to the space underneath and partly to reduce the weight on the lazerette lockers so we'll still be able to open them.

Since taking these pictures I've actually got quite a bit further in construction but right now I've got to go and ride my scooter with Janet for sunset!

Bevelling the slats

2009-10-08T08:56:00.000-07:00

Because of the curved base the slats of teak end up with gaps between them.

Other than just being ugly these will also help water run down to the play base. While this layer will be sealed when I add the teak decking the less water that makes its way in to sit there and fester the better (actually, one of the final steps will involve caulking between the slats to try and avoid this even more).

To try and reduce space for water to move and sit the trick is to plane down the edges of the slats so they fit better, heres that same area a few minutes later:

While this is a big improvement I'm going to take another pass at the gap to the left to try ad reduce the remaining gap further.

Trial run of teak seat top

2009-09-23T13:49:00.000-07:00

Today I cut the slats of teak that will top off the seat. Just putting them on the top in a dry fit run transformed the look and its going to be exciting to shape them for a better fit and get them fixed on.

Heres the full deck on

And a closer shot of the central section

Next up I'm going to trim the edges of the pieces so they slot against each other firmly, then they get screwed down into a bed of resin and the screws get hidden behind teak plugs. I might have to invest in a drill guide or small drill stand to make sure I get the screw holes accurate, not much room for error in the 1/2" teak.

Once its all fixed together I'll cut away the holes and perhaps some of the extra wood on the interior to lighten the outer parts (which will be on top of locker lids - still the most worrisome part of this, though I have a backup plan if they prove too heavy).

Best get back to work!

Turning the frame into a seat

2009-09-20T14:27:00.000-07:00

This is where things got exciting. Now the frame is glued and ready to go it was time to apply the ply topping.

I cut the basic outline with my crappy reciprocal saw, then finished to actual size with a hand plane and sandpaper. The first layer was glued to the frame using gorilla glue and screwed down into the shoulders. Once in place I clamped any areas that didn't seem to have the greatest contact and left overnight.

The second layer of 1/4" ply was bonded to the first using a resin. the stuff I used is west system 105 + 206 hardener (the slow stuff) and is the same as you would use when building fiberglass. I chose this to seal as much wood as possible and because I can use it to bond the teak. Teak doesn't work well with normal wood glues due to its oily nature. When I was researching what to use it turns out that be old favorite is a glue called resorcinol but that this is pretty toxic and illegal in California!

Heres the top layer being clamped down while the resin sets, which takes several hours to a decent bond and nearly 24 before you can sand it down.

Once the resin had set I grabbed the random orbit sander and smoothed out the top. It still doesn't look completely professional I know but when the final layer of teak in on I'll finish the edges up neatly.

Heres the while piece. Next up is the teak top, then cutting away the sides for access to the space under the seat and adding gussets to bolt to the deck. The final stage will be sanding the crap out of it and varnishing the fir for a week or so! The teak doesn't get varnished because we don't want it to get slippy.

Finishing the frame

2009-09-20T14:06:00.000-07:00

Now all the main pieces are cut to their basic shape I need to cut the joints between the cross pieces and get ready to add the topping.

The seat design has top of teak that rests on a top of 1/2" marine ply. This ply provides the main strength of the piece and to accommodate the curve is laid down in two 1/4" layers, which are inset into the frame and glued / screwed in place.

I used two different approaches to cut the inset, one for the cross pieces and another for the curve.

For the curves I pulled out my router and used a 1/2" rabbiting bit. To get the inset depth I wanted I took two passes on each piece. The router took a couple of swipes at the wood and I messed up a little but mostly this was painless and all the goofs are hidden on the inside of the piece.

This is the second pass going down, you can see how the rabbiting bit continues to follow the curve and therefore ends up pretty much matching the first cut (not quite because of imperfections in the shape of the curve).

The cross pieces were in some ways more complicated as the ledge provided for the ply to sit on needed to be angled, as did the back of the cut. My approach was to saw out the shape and bring out the trusty chisel once more to finish the shape off. Being cunning I didn't take an photos of this stage but here's one of the finished inset:

As you can see in this picture the cross pieces are also jointed (rabbet joints). Hindsight being 20/20 I would have used the router to make the cutaways but here's what I did...

Firstly make the cross grain cuts using a jig:

Then cut along the grain using a home made guide:

Finally I neatened things up with a chisel. Okay, really I messed things up a bit by applying some sandpaper which rounded things off and left me with a fairly annoying cleanup job with the chisel. In the end I'm not really happy with the joints created but figure that with the plywood and teak topping and some corner gussets to attach to the deck the seat is going to end up pretty strong.

Once the joints and inset were cut I glued and clamped:

Cutting the cross pieces

2009-09-20T13:09:00.000-07:00

The frame is made up of a grid of shaped 6"x2" fir pieces. The front and back sections are curved and the cross pieces have angled tops to fit the curves. The above pictures show the basic layout before joints were cut and before the tops of the cross pieces were shaped.

All pieces are cut to length using my miter saw - which has proved pretty useful. Its the cheapest unit I could find from Ryobi but despite its cheerful nature seems able to produce accurate and well defined cuts with minimal wood damage. The biggest issue is that I don't have a tool shed or workshop so have to clean it pretty thoroughly to keep it in the house (and keep Janet on my side!)

Once the cross pieces were cut to length I needed to angle the tops. First thing was to clearly mark the area needing removal. I then attacked with a chisel to get approximate shape and finally planed down to an accurate finish.

In hindsight I'd skip the chisel stage, it didn't save much time and introduced considerable room for messing up. A decent table saw would probably have saved some time but really it was a pretty simple task and quite enjoyable!

The above picture is post chiseling (really didn't by much!). Planing down to the line turned out to be extremely easy - here's the finished angle:

While doing this I was planing for the first time in fifteen years or so. Turns out its a really satisfying task as you make steady progress and get to feel the wood grain. Provided your plane is well adjusted and sharp, and the wood of a decent quality, the finish level is also highly satisfying!

Working with wood - New Helms Seat - Shaping the curves

2009-09-20T12:49:00.000-07:00

My basic template and cuts with a reciprocal saw gave a pretty rough finish. I ended up with a set of pieces with about 1/4" + error from the actual shape I wanted.

The main reason for this in accuracy was that the saw blade wanted to follow the wood grain and with the wood being nearly 2" thick one the far side would be doing something quite different to the line I was following. A decent bandsaw would have fixed this issue but I'm steadily building up my tools and don't have one yet!

My solution was to allow for a fair amount of tolerance and follow up with a 2" chisel. I took about half an hour to do the first couple of pieces but I got faster and that last one probably only took about fifteen minutes to get down (1/8" accuracy).

Once the pieces were fairly similar I clamped them together and chiseled / sanded down until they all matched. Here they are after the chiseling:

And then after sanding:

Here's the central section:

One Love

2009-08-16T23:17:00.000-07:00

If this is going to become a regular thing then I'm going to have to introduce you to One Love. One Love is a DownEast 38 cruising cutter built in Newport Beach in 1981. She has a deck of 38' plus 3' of bowsprit, a mast of 46' and some classic lines. She's 4'11" deep and weighs some 19500 lbs (US not British) before we fill her with crap.

When I'm not working or surfing you'll probably find me working on One Love or on projects regarding her. Doing this at my own pace provides a welcome relief from the frenetic day job, though I can feel my aims for the year slipping steadily as I have less and less time to spare.

The title picture here is the first day we looked at her, which was on an offchance. I was actually reluctant due to a previous De38 experience but Janet persuaded me and I'm very glad she did!

Since then we've had quite a few adventures and a few misadventures. We have yet to take her far but have been stretching our sea legs in local waters around San Diego while learning how to handle such a big boat.

Here's a short video shot during one of our early sails (my Bro Owen and myself on board). I feel that we've got a lot better at sailing since this video was shot so please ignore the loose lines, fenders on deck and needless creases in the sails!

View from the top of the stick...

I'll leave you with my fiance Janet aka 'The Admiral' on a misty morning in mission bay, One Love in the background, safely at anchor.

Working with Wood - Plate Rack

2009-08-16T22:40:00.000-07:00

What could be more simple than a plate rack? Well it turns out that quite a lot of things probably fall into that category.

Up to now we've been storing our plastic plates on the boat in a cupboard that is hard to reach and difficult to see in. At the same time we've got this big cupboard above the sink in the galley that we replaced the back with lexan so its all see through and nice. The plan is to light the inside of this cupboard to show off the nice things that will eventually live there, including a set of plates.

The challenge was to create a plate rack that would hold the plates nice and snug while the boat is powering (vibrations from the engine are an issue) and perhaps more importantly while we're heeling, pitching and rolling.

On top of this I don't know exactly what plates we'll have and wanted the rack to fullfill all of the above with large and small plates. To acheive these aims I came up with a compound curve.

Here's a couple of pictures of the nearly finished product:

These images show the rack with plates and empty. They show how the small plates nesle in the bottom of the rack, while the bigger plates wedge in higher up. The idea is that the plates are not sat loose, but are snugly placed between the ribs.

After these pictures were taken I trimmed the extra doweling but have yet to finish it off with some varnish (I think its going to be varnish, I may just oil or paint it, TBD...) . The rack will end up being fastened solidly to the cupboard with a couple of screws / bolts.

The plate use up a fair amount of space like this but I figure that part of the lost space would probably have been dead anyway. Overall I'm quite happy with the result, though what all is said and done, mistakes thrown away etc it probably set me back over $40, making it a pretty expensive plate rack!

Working with wood - New Helms Seat

2009-08-16T22:07:00.000-07:00

I spend my free time doing four things right now, working on my boat, sailing my boat, surfing and working on woodworking projects for my boat. This weekend the surf was small, the wind light and I didn't have the energy for the drive south to the boat so I invested time into starting to make a new helms seat.

This project has been a while in the planning and I still have a couple of concerns but the only way now to test them is to forge forwards. Currently we have a power boaters seat, comfy while motoring but useless as soon as the boat starts heeling and worse than that it obscures the mainsheet control horribly.

The replacement will be a low curved seat, with two lower sections either side of a central hump. In theory it will provide two positions to sit when the boat i heeled or upright. Design is made more complicated by the fact that the aft lazerettes (lockers!) will be under the seat, so its built in three sections, a fixed central section that I'm hoping to make into an extra storage compartment and two 'wings' that will be attached to the locker lids.

The main frame is fir (2" thick) and it will be topped with teak for durability laid over a marine plywood cover for strength.

For some reason I keep working on curved projects. The first piece involved cutting holes for speakers and the second was a plate holder requiring nine identical ribs with complex compound curves. This piece has fewer curved parts but way more wood involved and will require some joints I've never used before.

This is going to be an ongoing project for the next few weeks.

The wood on the left is the fir just after I cut the main lengths.

To the right you see the pieces I managed to get done today. The grey sheets underneath are templates of the base area that I cut on the boat so I could work from home. Could have got all the curves cut but I backed off the power tool usage when my neighbours started having a party. If they are lucky their hangovers won't be too nasty when I make up for lost time before work tomorrow! I do so wish I had a workshop, preferably somewhere where I didn't have to worry about noise. One day.....