Refit Blues
- By tsarich
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- 03 May, 2019
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The Highs. The Lows. The Hope. The Despair.
When I think about our refit, I look at the picture above and realize I had no idea what was coming.
Here, we're looking at the removal of newly laid decks that were already 3-weeks behind schedule. Here, we are looking at our 50 amp chord before it was carelessly cut by our deck vendor (luckily only cutting the neutral wire and not the negative, which would have blown our entire electrical panel). Here, my eyes had yet to become swollen from teak dust, my nose had yet to run, I hadn't started mumbling when walking through grocery stores out of frustration and rage at the needless delays and stupidity. I had yet to cancel our trip through the Panama Canal that I spent weeks planning.
What are you looking at? This is the removal of decks that had been - seemingly beautifully - glued down. Glued down and caulked despite the fact that the vendor knew they had cut the hatches wrong. Laid both sides, 2/3 of the 54' length of the deck on both starboard and port sides. In this picture board removal had begun - 3 days later board removal would become complete demolition when our vendor told us they had to "start over" because the integrity of the deck was damaged by the extent of the board removal.
2 1/2 weeks it would be done - he said. "2 1/2 weeks we promise to fix our mistake."
Then 2 1/2 became 3 1/2....3 became 4.....4 became 5.....5 became 6..... And as I write it's still not done.
This too shall pass -- I know this. It will be a funny store - some moments are funny now after a few drinks.
We are scheduled to ship from Ft. Lauderdale now to Victoria, B.C. in 3 weeks in order to avoid hurricane season and use the summer to get to know the boat and prepare for new adventures. Stay tuned...
Here, we're looking at the removal of newly laid decks that were already 3-weeks behind schedule. Here, we are looking at our 50 amp chord before it was carelessly cut by our deck vendor (luckily only cutting the neutral wire and not the negative, which would have blown our entire electrical panel). Here, my eyes had yet to become swollen from teak dust, my nose had yet to run, I hadn't started mumbling when walking through grocery stores out of frustration and rage at the needless delays and stupidity. I had yet to cancel our trip through the Panama Canal that I spent weeks planning.
What are you looking at? This is the removal of decks that had been - seemingly beautifully - glued down. Glued down and caulked despite the fact that the vendor knew they had cut the hatches wrong. Laid both sides, 2/3 of the 54' length of the deck on both starboard and port sides. In this picture board removal had begun - 3 days later board removal would become complete demolition when our vendor told us they had to "start over" because the integrity of the deck was damaged by the extent of the board removal.
2 1/2 weeks it would be done - he said. "2 1/2 weeks we promise to fix our mistake."
Then 2 1/2 became 3 1/2....3 became 4.....4 became 5.....5 became 6..... And as I write it's still not done.
This too shall pass -- I know this. It will be a funny store - some moments are funny now after a few drinks.
We are scheduled to ship from Ft. Lauderdale now to Victoria, B.C. in 3 weeks in order to avoid hurricane season and use the summer to get to know the boat and prepare for new adventures. Stay tuned...
New decking, the biggest part of our refit. Removing all the hardware, creating the template, removing the old boards, and cutting the new - we estimate that the new decks will be done by the end of February. Fingers-crossed we will have all the hardware re-bedded and everything back together by mid-March so that we can begin to shake this "new" old-gal down and get ready to depart by the end of March.
