Detour

I've got to take a little detour on the yacht build to take care of some other business. Spring has for sure sprung in my neck of the woods, and work on the yard and work on our 28' cruiser is demanding my time.

The boating season officially opens this weekend as this is when my contract begins on my harbor space. Our plastic cruiser boat is a 1977 Carver that I restored about eight years ago. Late last season, we had a catastrophic failure of the gimbal ring on the TRS drive, and it's a little past time that I get working on it.

I bought a used transom assembly off of Ebay that I am going to re build. Yesterday, I removed my stern drive, and transom assembly off of the Carver, and this morning I steam cleaned all of the parts and started getting things ready for the re build. I'm putting new bellows, gaskets, lower and upper pins, bearings, and seals in the used transom assembly. I'm also going to paint all of the parts with Acrylic Urethane paint while I have everything apart.

I've made a list of parts I think I need but I'm still going to put the transom assembly in a box and bring it down to the local marine repair shop and have him do a parts take off and order what I need. Once I get everything back, I think I can have it all back together and back on the boat in two days time.

While I'm waiting on my parts to come in, I'll paint the stern drive and transom assembly. I'm also going to give the boats bright work a couple of coats of urethane, and some general cleaning. At the end of last season, I purchased a galvanic isolator that needs to be installed along with a new cranking battery and two batteries for the house. In three weeks time, I should be ready to splash her.

Harvest Moon has been a good boat for me, but I'm going to throw a for sale sign on her this season. I need the money from the sale to buy some parts for the yacht. While I dread being boat less for a season, I'm going to commit to launching the yacht for the 2012 boating season.

The shop is about as full as it can get with having Harvest Moon in my working bay. I've always like the size of Harvest Moon, and to be honest with you, it's been plenty of boat for us with 28' LOD, and her 10' beam. But seeing Harvest Moon sitting next the the yacht, motivates me that much more to get the yacht done and love all that space I'm going to have.

I painted the the new transom assembly and stern drive today. I'm going to give them a day or so to cure, then I'll assemble everything this weekend. Hopefully, I'll have her out of the shop by the middle of the week. I'm starting to have some withdrawal from not working on the yacht, and I'm anxious to get Harvest Moon back in the water.