In the beginning

Skip is still anchored in Annapolis and I’m in Wilmington spending time with family. We’re doing boat chores both on and off the water – changing the oil in the engine (on the water) making fitted sheets for the odd shaped berths (off the water), picking up odds and ends that we've overlooked, etc. So much for getting back to basics… we’ve probably made more purchases these past few weeks just for the boat, than we've made in the past few years in every area of our lives. We did have a mega yard sale of our land based stuff a few weeks before we left Newport so hopefully we're even as far as consumption goes.

Since I won’t be back aboard until the end of the weekend this might be a good time to give some background on Saralane. She’s a C&C 40, previously named “Expectation”; when we first saw her in a boatyard in the Chesapeake she’d been out of the water for about 4 years. We looked past the mold and mildew and saw a boat that would work for us. Skip checked the hull for soundness, found a few spots that were wet and needed to be drilled and drained, but didn’t find any real structural issues. With lots of friends in the boat industry that were happy to help us out with parts/labor/advice/enthusiasm/encouragement – we were in a good place. 

Before and after photos can be pretty tedious so I'll try to stick to the basics. I'll do another post with sequences of before/after shots so the progress is a little easier to see. 

Here are a few 'before' shots of the exterior...

Here's Skip standing up at the bow (the pointy end) - we took off all the winches (the six round spool-like things on either side), filled in and fiberglassed all the holes they left behind.

Here he is at the stern (the back end). Doesn't he look happy? We took off a few of the winches and other hardware visible here too. In the 'after' photos that I'll post later, you'll notice the back of the boat (the transom), which is closed in here, has been opened up. This involved a sawzall and lots of "are you SURE that's a good idea?" commentary from some on lookers. Not from me though. By that time I'd become accustomed to Skip drilling holes in the boat and slicing and dicing various other areas. I'll admit to asking more than once if it was wise to put holes in the bottom of the boat where the ocean could come pouring in. Apparently it really was okay because we haven't had any water come seeping in through those ex-holes.

Here's a not-so-great 'before' shot of the interior, after we removed the moldy cushions and whatever else we could. This is looking forward through the salon toward the V-berth.... followed by port and starboard views of the salon and a shot in the V-berth. Smell-o-vision would really complete the experience of viewing these photos but you'll have to use your imagination. Just pretend you're having an asthma attack and you'll get the sensation of being there.

A little more technical info and we'll call it a night. Saralane is a centerboard design, meaning that the boat sticks down into the water about 5' when the centerboard is in the up position, but closer to 8' when the centerboard is down. The centerboard is tucked up inside the keel (the fin that Skip is checking out here) and can be raised or lowered from up on deck. Actually, I take that back. In theory the board can be raised or lowered from up on deck. Skip drilled a hole through the keel (see? another hole drilled in the boat and I didn't bat an eye) so we can put a pin through the keel and centerboard to take the pressure off the cable that holds the board in the up position. When the pin is in, someone will have to dive under the boat to remove it so the board can be dropped. Hopefully this will only be something we do in warm, tropical, shark free waters...