Good Bye Trailer Trash, Hello Boat People

Well, almost. Tomorrow morning we pull out of the trailer park headed for my parents for a few days, then as soon as we are back, its onto the boat. Its been a crazy few weeks heading up to this point. Noticeable by the lack of blog entries as much as anything else. I can't guarantee that the posts will get any more frequent, but they should look a little different.

The most important thing though is that the boat is ready to move onto. Not ready to leave the dock, since there is no mast, no running engine, no lights, no ground tackle installed, and a big list of other things. But we have refrigeration. WooHoo. I rewired the high current electrical this morning, as I was not happy with the original installation. I had missed that the ACR circuit needed a 100 amp  fuse on either side to protect it, so when I installed it, I used up the spare fuse, plus the one for the main house line. Its all better now, and safe. So I ran the wire for the compressor, cut out the bulkhead so that I could get max air flow, hooked up the lines and flipped the switch. In 2 hours it had cooled the fridge from 17 deg to 7 deg C. Success!!! Interesting to note though, that the interior of the fridge was only 17 deg when I turned it on, and it was 27 deg in the boat. That has to say something about the quality of the insulation.

Here are a bunch of pictures of the boat in her current state. Serena has started nesting, and I can't believe the number of things she has crammed in there already.

 I spent 2 days sewing, among other things, but here is the new cockpit cushions. It would have cost an extra $50 to put piping around the seams, so I didn't bother, as its only cosmetic anyway. Besides that, if the cushions get a little water on them with piping, it causes the water to pool at the seam, which is bad. This way might not be as pretty, but it still works, and may even prevent wet foam.

 The nav station. Notice all the nicely finished wood.

 I got the stainless steel pan from my welder yesterday, and after the fridge was installed I put the pan in place. It looks good, and the finished galley is really nice. Most importantly, Serena likes it, "happy wife, happy life".

 And the couch is in place. Now that all the painting and staining is done, we can move in the goodies. The shelf to the right in the picture above goes around the mast, provides storage, and supports the fold down table.

 The cushions for the pull out bed are done, and they are the nicest ones yet. I figured out the key to nice fitting cushion covers, take out the seam allowance. It seems to have worked.

 A cushion in the head. My first attempt, not really happy with it, and I may do it again.

 I built a shelf around the anchor locker to hold the rode off of the primary anchor, and both the chain and the rode for the secondary anchor. Just keeping the locker organized.

 Its hard to tell with this photo, but it shows the new bulkhead that I epoxied into the anchor locker to provide some height to the well, and an attachment for the bitter end of each anchor.

 Stove pan. Next week stove, hopefully!

 Nesting, the area in behind the drawers under the nav station provide a good place for dry storage, and man does it fit a lot of it.

 Under the sink.

Little storage for little things.

And lastly, the compressor installation for the fridge. Its down in a lazarette, so I will have to make some fancy covers, but its not going anywhere, and it works fantabulous.

There is so much more that it isn't funny, but to document everything would be nightmare.

So next blog will be from living on the boat. Fair winds and following seas.