Susan and I worked four long, hot and productive days this past weekend. Swimming off the boat was a real treat during the hottest part of each day. The "hole" alluded to in the title of the refrigeration box which I gutted, lined with 4” of foam on the bottom and 2” around the sides (the pink stuff in the photo) and then Susan and I fiberglassed over that. Susan cut the glass mat to size as I layered it into the box. We put 2 to 3 layers of glass in the fridge and one on my forearms. I also bonded in a teak mounting block for the condenser. Next I’ll fill, fare and then paint the surface before installing the condenser & compressor. It’s been a lot of work that I hope will payoff by bringing the fridge efficiency up to the point that it’s able to run exclusively from the output of our solar array. Ice from sunlight; what a strange and wonderful idea.
Our marvelous canvas artist Jim Funk rowed over from his loft across the river with our new sail cover which we’re thrilled with. It has a proud blue star within a circle on it. Jim said that the circle represents our planned circumnavigation and the star is to guide us by. I think it should also get us in good with any Texas Republicans that cross our path and possibly with the Wiccans too. I wonder if we could get both groups to come to a vegetarian barbeque.
I made a mock up or our companion way entrance to give to Charlie over at Mystic Stainless. I’m hoping that with the mock-up and with some drawings, he’ll be able to fabricate a security grate for us to use when we have to stay at dodgy anchorages. The grate will drop in place of our companion way boards and lock from the inside hopefully keeping the nice people separated from the scary people at least long enough for me to prepare a proper reception for the uninvited.
A sheepish admission here: the LED reading light I indicated in a previous post as defective was in fact ok, I had simply wired it incorrectly. It has an additional wire for a dimmer that must be coupled with the hot wire when not in use. I had mistakenly tried to pair the dimmer wire with the ground. One of the very good salesmen at Defender Marine straightened me out. The good news is that I’m not cursed by LED gods, the bad news is that I still don’t follow directions very well.
I’m getting a little crispy around the edges with the strain of pulling all the loose ends together in the time frame remaining; the boat projects, moving out of my house and onto a boat that’s “in progress”. We’re a little ahead of schedule but still it’s hard for me to relax as I fear rationally or irrationally, I’ll somehow lose my edge.
