What a Day to Splash!!!

walterv

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Joined
Jan 11, 2004
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12640
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6,381
Wow,
Wind, driving rain, but hey, I am floating :)

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Geez, it's about time! You already missed a month of boating...
 
You must be a real trooper for not postponing. The weather looked nasty out today I would not have wanted my first docking of the season to be it that. Glad to hear you are floating enjoy and have a great season.
 
Mike,
Yeah, great month :)
Dave,
Needed the boat in, promised a friend who is in from out of town that I would take him for a ride. The wind and bad weather did not bother me, just got wet.
My friend, a sales rep for a new product we carry was in town this week, just found out he is dieing from Lou Gerick's disease, need to make him feel good.

Walter
 
I lost my Grandfather to Lou Gerick's, it's a horrible disease and it can be very slow to progress and become life threatening. You are a good man for helping he get out and enjoy himself while he can.
 
"Gehrig". Nice of you to do that, Walter
 
Just got the call. Test run went great so boat is ready to move. Will clean her up (inside) tomorrow morning and take a nice ride over to the marina.

Walter, you are a good guy but don't worry, your secret is safe with me.
 
Cleaned the boat up today, all systems work, gotta love that !!!
 
Good intentions Walter I wish your friend the best for the time he has. Mike it's been a so so month. We went in about a wekk late this year but we still enjoy just being away from the office and home. I have been working on little unfinished projects on the boat. Found I had a defective Garmin VHF200 so I bought a new one while I send the older unit VHF200 back to for repair. The new radio is finally recieving he way it used to. I believe it is a damaged low noise front end GASFet. I could tell right away after I checked the antenna before deciding to replace my primary Garmin VHF200. Next proect tomorrow is to install blue LED lighting in the ER airboxes to a look like StaryNight's boat. I rewired the underwaer thru-hull lights by adding a new panel mounted on Starboard in the ER for the fuse block, voltage regulators and to properly dress each light's leds and give individual ATC fuses instead of the glass style fuse holders that came with the lighting. I also cut almost 12 feet of excess coiled up wire to each light. Now with the 4 Blue high intensity lights it looks like I have blue neon under the integrated swim platform even in muddy brackash water. There is never a dull moment here on Wireless One.
Bill
 
Was a good run. For those interested Kismet is not charging for docking for 2 more weeks. Surfs out and kismet inn are open.
 
Almost ready to launch, if the weather cooperates I'll be picking up Finseeker next weekend complete with the new hardtop.

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Really looks great John, bet they put it on straight :)
 
John,
I think we discussed that I was afraid to do the underside ot the hardtop in fiberglass (weight concerns) look like the underside of yours is fiberglass did you do that?

Very curious who did this and the cost??? Also, what material did you use for the enclosure , glass???
 
Walter,

I went with a cored fiberglass top. Originally I was thinking of sticking with canvas or doing a thinner top to keep the cost and weight down, but I really liked the look of the fiberglass tops done this way. Since it's foam cored it's not that heavy, I was told 2.5 lbs per square foot and about 60 lbs for the frame. My old canvas was about 8x10 so that works out to about 260 lbs total (probably a little more since I think the top is a little longer than the canvas was). While weight up top isn't good, compared to the 30,000 lbs+ that the boat weighs, much of that very low in the boat (the engines are 7000 lbs combined) I figured it can handle the weight. Many of these boats came with full tuna towers and I spoke to the dealer I bought it from, who was a Blackfin dealer for years, and he said I won't even notice the difference. It's a very stable boat so even if it rolls a little more I figure I'll be fine.

The work was done at J&J marine in Somerset Massachusetts. http://www.jj-marine.com/index.html I did a lot of research and there's not a whole lot of places that specialize in that work. I looked at a couple possibilities in NJ also but decided to go with J&J based on their reputation and the fact that they do everything and I was only dealing with one company - they have their own yard, their own canvas shop, etc. They build the hardtops for new Cabos in the area, and also some of the smaller Hunt and Hinckley models so they have a lot of experience with this type of work. I'm really happy with the work they did. Jeff, the owner, really has an eye for how to design the tops to fit the boat right.

I ran the boat there in November and they moved it into a heated shed and did all the work over the winter. The forward sections of the enclosure are 'Clear Vision' which is very similar to EZ2CY. The back and sides (past the first seam) are strataglass. He didn't recommend going all the way around with the clear vision because of the way it opens and it requires bigger borders.

I'll send you a PM or email with some of the cost details when I get a chance. I had some work done that was separate from the top also. I've had the boat 7 years already and am very happy with it and if all goes well plan to keep it at least another 10. It wasn't cheap, but given that I decided it was worth it. The old canvas was shot, by the end of last season I had it held together with duct tape so I couldn't put it off any longer. I decided at some point if I was going to do something I'd go all the way and get it done exactly like I wanted even though I spent a bit more than originally planned.

John
 
John,
will talk when we see each other on the water. Really nice job!!!!!!!!!
 
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