We’ve worked on a few miscellaneous projects last week. One of them was to remove the doors and waterproof and repair them. With the summer storms, we quickly realized that the doors weren’t weather-proofed. During a downpour, we would have water coming through a few cracks in the door. Also, some of the wood was starting to rot, so we hired our marina-neighbor-handyman, Bill, to fix them. He removed the doors and sanded them down to the bare wood. After that he sealed and epoxy’ed them to close up the cracks. He also removed some wood stripping and replaced it with new. After that, he sanded them again and they were ready for me to finish with a couple coats of Cetol Natural teak. Besides having them weather-proofed, they also look a whole lot better.

The other project we’ve (or rather, Randy and my Dad) been working on is installing new dinghy davits. When we hauled out our trawler a couple months ago, we had the Jatco Marine Trillogy lift system removed. The old lift system worked, however, we didn’t like how it was bolted onto our swim platform. It was in the way and posed a safety issue for anyone wanting to swim off our boat. Since Randy and I dive and Corey is a swimmer and we all kayak, it was just too cumbersome and in our way. We decided on the St. Croix davit system because they are removable when not in use. This is an excellent solution for us since when we are anchored, we most likely will have the dinghy in the water already, so we can remove and stow them while we are swimming. My Dad helped Randy with the installation since he installed the same davit system on their trawler. The way our transom is set up has posed a few issues. At this point, the davits are installed and the dinghy is in the lift but it isn’t as sturdy as we would like. The area the brackets are bolted to overhangs a little causing the area and railing to bend just slightly.  This really isn’t an issue if we cruise locally, but if we decide to go to the Keys or Bahamas and end up in rough waters, the system could break. My Dad and Randy have already formulated a plan for fixing it and stabilizing it more but that will be another post. For now, we’re happy to have the dinghy back in the water.