Author: FloatsOurBoat

Are we allowed to have fun? St Pete Boat Show

/ FloatsOurBoat / Leave a comment

We’ve never been boat owners while attending a boat show before! So we were thrilled to be able to attend the St Pete boat show right in our own town. This show combined sail boats and motor boats, so there was something for everyone. And plenty of opportunities to spend money! We sat in on several seminars and picked up tips on cruising in The Bahamas and Cuba, and learned that we need to order The Explorer Chartbooks by Monty and Sara Lewis to really be confident cruising in the Bahamas and to finding our way around on shore.

Speaking of spending money, we bought our dinghy, Bug, at the boat show. We got a pretty good deal on a 2017 model Achilles HB-240AL. In plain English, that’s a 2.4 meter inflatable dinghy with an rigid aluminum floor. It’s a compromise between big enough to get us from boat to shore, and small enough to fit on the foredeck (with the staysail rigging in place) and light enough for two normal-sized people to load and unload. It’s going to be a slow ride though with our measly 5hp outboard!

The other big attraction of the boat show is the annual cruiser party hosted by Cruising Outpost magazine. Bob and Jody Bitchin (don’t you wish your name was “Bitchin”) bring in live music, kegs of beer, and lots and lots of pizzas and keep the party going after the boat show gates close on Saturday night. Our heads spinning, our wallets lighter, and our spirits encouraged by contact with the cruising community, we returned to the yard and to boat projects.

Tool of the Day …. Safety Devices

/ FloatsOurBoat / Leave a comment

Way back in November, we took advantage of Black Friday sales to stock up on personal floatation devices, tethers, a life sling, and portable VHF with GPS and distress signal. The most money I’ve ever spent on something I hope to never use.

In these pictures, we’re just testing the PFDs to check for leaks. Then they fold back up into a low-profile vest that self inflates when in contact with the water.

Tool of the Day …. Teak Oil

/ FloatsOurBoat / Leave a comment

I made the mistake of searching the internet for the proper way to maintain teak wood on a boat. As soon as I found one website that said “clean the wood with Murphy’s Oil Soap and the use teak oil” I found another web site that stated “Why would anyone use oil on an already oily wood? You need to varnish your wood to preserve it.” Sigh.

I choose to stick to the cheapest and easiest way to maintain the wood. Even saying that, with the amount of teak in the interior of our boat, it still took four days to treat it all. I think it looks really good, what do you think?

Tool of the Day… Winch Grease

/ FloatsOurBoat / 2 Comments

One of the projects on our task list when we made it to Florida was to service the winches. Or, as our friend Nathan says, “SERVICE THE WINCHES!!!”

When we tried to turn the winches by hand, one was frozen and wouldn’t turn. So we figured we’d do them all at the same time. I had no idea what this entails, but luckily there are manuals, and YouTube videos, and lots of instructions. The tricky part, is even the vocabulary of winches is not strictly regular English.

Do you have any idea what a collet is? Or a pawl? Or gear spindle? Since I didn’t know any of these words, it made interpreting those instructions a little bit tricky. And who knew those winches would turn into such a gigantic pile of small parts?

Mike was in charge of taking the winch apart and cleaning all of the parts. I was responsible for applying oil and grease, and putting them all back together. Eventually …… we actually succeeded in getting them all back together. But not on the first day we tried.