Well, no posts in April because it was only a day or two in the boat shop due to extensive work travel. And a fun Saturday at the Strictly Sail boat show in Oakland. Drew, Dad and I hit the info booths hard; navigation equipment is tricky as we search powerful auto-tillers and wind instruments with the rotating mast. But good progress was made on the engine-to-prop system, leaning towards Yanmar and a Gori prop now.

Here’s the rear deck with rudder post area now complete, ready to start fairing.

Stopped in at Home Depot for 10′ lengths of 3/4″ PVC electrical conduit to form the basis of the nets’ lashing anchor points. Epoxied them to the hulls and beams (used temp screws to hold in place), then a few hours today to fillet them for more bonding surface area. Next they’ll get glassed over with two layers of cloth. Once these tubes are all built and faired in, we’ll use a jig to cut ‘windows’ in the tubes so small rope can be looped over a small rod inserted the length of the conduit pipe.

The lashing tubes define the surface area of the starboard main net here…

And finally with a weeknight not on the road, I sat in the little engine room for an hour last night finally figuring out locations for the water tanks, fuel tank, fridge compressor, watermaker and furnace. A bit if a puzzle, but things should tuck nicely in to their spots. First up was finalizing the refridge order with the CoolBlue people in Orange County today. Good USA quality, at a decent boat-show discount. Let the systems begin!