Small Upgrades

We’re starting to make some progress on some of the easy fixes. The old wooden blocks were falling apart. The metal parts were still solid, but I didn’t trust them, so we replaced them with some Harken blocks. Sadly, there was no way to remove them without grinding them off.

The boat also lacked blocks for the headsail. That normally wouldn’t be a problem, but the winches don’t get a good grip, so the angle kept pulling the line off the winches. That just wouldn’t do. So we added blocks.

Next we removed the plastic “guards” that were on the shrouds. I’m sure there is a reason for them, but all they did was trap water in that area, and I can’t afford new standing rigging right now. The upper covers were easy enough to slide off, and my fake parents helped me remove those. We tried using tinsnips to remove the lower covers, but that took forever. A Dremel made it super easy. Lauren only lost one cutting blade.

Ah, it looks so much better now.

The plastic dust from the Dremel was horrible, so the shower that night was delightful.

Next up was some electrical work. I confirmed that the wiring to the navigation lights works, so it’s just the bulbs that are bad. I’m going to upgrade them to LEDs anyway, so that’s fine. We also added spade connectors to the radio since the “twist and tape” method makes me cringe. For some reason the autopilot controller stopped working. We added spade connectors there, as well, but it didn’t seem to fix the problem.

Unfortunately, the spade connector kit I got didn’t go small enough for some of the wiring. I guess that will have to wait for another day.

On the plus side, most of the sensors on the boat are NMEA so when I have time to do some wiring, I can link them all up.

I’ve gotten the new navigation lights, and the aft light should be here in a few days. I’m just waiting on some butyl tape, before I install those.