October 27, 2011

Looking Good!

Here's a pictures of the SHAD without the cover on.  The whole thing is now down and Dave's sister has started the daunting task of cleaning up the interior.  Dave and I will be down there over the weekend again getting things squared away as well.

~Misty~



October 26, 2011

Here We Go Again....

Juneau's October weather is notoriously windy, wet and cold.  Tuesday's weather was all of the above.  Again, Dave had to remove all of the plastic from the structure covering the boat.  The wind was shredding the plastic and lifting the large timbers several feet in the air.  Some of those timbers came up and dinged up the paint on the starboard side of the boat below the water line, we'll have to touch that up before we go back in the water.

So, now that all of the plastic is down we had to clean everything up, throw out the garbage and stow everything we're keeping under the boat.  What an overwhelming task that was, the place was a mess!  Thankfully Dave's sister was there to help out!!  We got the whole place cleaned up, a load to the dump and everything else stowed under the boat.

Dave, Shawn and Paul met me down at the boat late in the afternoon and we started taking down the rest of the cover. We took all of the wood and conduit down and finally around 7pm we had to stop as it was just too dark to do any more and I was just too wet and cold.  Unfortunately we left the place in a big mess again.  

I must say though, the boat looks fabulous!!  I'll post better pictures tomorrow.

~Misty~

Port bow...what a mess

Bow

Starboard

Bow, nighttime view


October 23, 2011

Date Set For The Splashdown!

Earlier this week we were notified that the crane that will put us back in the water will be leaving town for a couple of weeks.  That meant either put the boat in the water tomorrow, Oct 24th, or wait another 2 weeks for the crane to return to Juneau.  Needless to say we are not going to be ready tomorrow. We're tentatively scheduled for either the 7th or 8th of November.  We've still got quite a few things on the list to complete before the splashdown, so this extra 2 weeks will work out for the best after all.

~Misty~


Getting Close To The End!

Yesterday Dave and I went down to the boat to put on the coat of paint that will adhere the sand to the deck.  This will give the deck some traction when it is wet, which will be most of the time here in Juneau. 

Dave's sister met us down there and we were all a little discouraged by the overall dirtiness of the deck considering she had thoroughly mopped just the afternoon before.  Dave and I took some time to figure out how we were going to get the deck cleaned.  Eventually we ended up on hands and knees crawling the whole deck and scrubbing it with towels and water. 

After the deck dried we painted on a layer of bronze paint and spread the quartz sand on the wet paint.  We'll be heading back today to sweep away any loose sand and apply the final layer of deck paint.  Technically this is the last coat of paint.  There are some areas that need touch up where we got some silver paint on the black, but that can even be done after we go back in the water.

~Misty~

Coat of bronze with sand

Close up of the sand in the paint

Walls etc. painted in silver; this color will be on the deck too

Underside of the deck hatch covers.  The topside will get a coat of paint and sand too

Bottom painted in red and black

Dave and Brian checking out the bottom paint

Ding in the paint from a 2x4 that hit the side of the boat; we'll be touching that up before splashdown

October 19, 2011

Painting Is Almost Done!!

We've been painting and painting over the last couple of weeks and we're almost done!  We'll be painting the deck and inside walls on Thursday, finishing up the bottom paint on Friday, and laying down the sand for traction on Saturday and Sunday.  Once all of that is finished we'll be about a week away from going back in the water.  There will still be a ton of work to do, but we have all Winter to do it!

~Misty~

October 14, 2011

Making Progress WIth The Paint

We've finally finished the sandblasting and grinding and dare I say it.... we're almost done with the paint. 

We've had some turnover in the last week with the guys who were doing the work for us.  Thankfully Dave's sister was available to jump in and help us for a couple of days.  She was just what we needed!  Josh is back in town now and he's been helping out every day too. 

Here's a quick photo update since I haven't posted in a while.


~Misty~

Most of the sand is gone from under the boat now

Topside with the bronze paint; coat 2
Topside with the black paint; coat 3


Starboard side with the black paint

Starboard side with the bottom paint

Port side with the black paint

Port side with the bottom paint

Josh painting on the bottom paint on the underside of the hull

Stern

Josh painting the gates below the bow