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Boat Preparations
(by The Skipper)
Buying the Boat
This whole thing started with a dream a long time ago. I dreamt of sailing away to far away places and distant shores. Now the time has come when my dream is slowly turning into reality. About two years ago, in the winter of 2006, I started a search for the perfect boat. Now by perfect I mean perfect for me, by no means is she the perfect boat (sorry Natalya, I didn't mean that). What I consider a perfect boat for me is a sturdy hull, enough room, easy to sail and by all means 'inexpensive'. You see, I have this nickname, miser man, that I have to live up to with all aspects of this trip. After searching the internet exhaustively then moving on to actual road trips to view some of these boats I became discouraged. However, in early August '06 my luck would start to change. Somehow I came across a craigslist ad for an Endeavour 37 on the gulf coast of Texas. 
There were four little pictures in the ad. I was looking for a boat that didn't have much as far as extras, as this would make it easier and cheaper to outfit the boat as I wanted. This boat fit the bill. The ad said the price was $22,000. I called the number and asked a few questions about it and then said 'ok, what's your bottom line number?'. He said '$17,000' and I said I would wire a deposit the next day and be there within three days. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw her. I thought the interior would be in shambles (I hadn't seen a picture of the interior as yet), but it was in excellent shape. There were many extras in the lockers and drawers. We completed the transaction the next day. I was a proud owner of an Plan B Endeavour 37 sloop located on the gulf coast of Texas (between Galveston and Corpus Christi) in the middle of August. You can't believe how hot and humid it is on the gulf coast of Texas that time of year. Unbearable!!! I got things secured in Texas after about 3 weeks and left to go back to Seattle for a couple of months to take care of some business, escape the Texas heat, and get my car to come back to start outfitting the boat.
Well, well, well, did I have a plan? Yea, I did have a plan when I started and then I changed that plan and then changed that plan and.... you get the picture. I'm currently working on plan 176.543G if that tells you anything. I had a picture when I started of pretty much how I wanted the boat set up, for sailing and for crew comfort. I have made a big dent into the plans but the major push is about to begin. When I bought Natalya she was a little dated in some areas so I concentrated my efforts to update these things first. The previous owner had started to install a new Raymarine TriData ST60. 
So I had to finish this up first. The next thing to do was to fix and install the bilge pump with a new automatic switch. This all went very easy. I'm liking this boat stuff so far. The head and holding tank were taken out by the previous owner, but he did leave me with a brand new macerator pump. I've got all the stuff except for the tank, which I need to find and buy, to do an all new waste system. This will be done in the coming weeks.
I started with removing the semi-gloss paint on the non-skid areas of the deck. I also removed the oversized bow roller on the bow. I then concentrated on the exterior wood. I sanded, then I sanded some more, then I sanded a little bit more, then I rested some before I sanded even more. Yeah, I think you see my pain here. Lots of sanding. I have learned a valuable lesson with all this sanding. The lesson is: SANDING SUCKS!!!. That's all I got to say about that!
Next in line were the portholes. You couldn't see out the 'window' part of the portholes as they were opaque from age/time in the sun. I had gotten a screaming deal on new ones straight from the manufacturer that was the original equipment from when Natalya was new. They just happen to be having a clearance on the sizes I needed and they were actually cheaper for the complete porthole with lenses than for the lenses only (to replace in existing portholes). This is no easy task, to take out the old portholes. Remember, Natalya was made in 1978. These were the original portholes. Yeah, it sucked taking them out. But it was a lot easier putting in the new ones than taking out the old ones. The new ones fit like a glove. All the holes lined up. NICE!!! I like it when that happens. They look awesome from the inside or outside. They are a nice bright white. The old ones were actually very grey. You really see a change with the new ones. The best thing is that it opens up the salon area as you can actually see outside now. That's very cool. Next in the same line of things were hatches. I ordered all the parts from the manufacturer and got the plastic from a plastic guy in Seattle. I first had to remove the A/C rooftop unit occupying one of the hatches. This again, was no easy task (this is a re-occurring theme through this project). It was put in to be permanent and I had to make it temporary. After a lot of prying, cutting, scraping, and sanding I was ready to fit the new hatch in place. I carefully laid out the holes and drilled and installed the hardware in the new hatch. WOW, that's very cool to have hatches you can see through and that open for ventilation. Very, very cool. And yeah, at the expense of jinxing myself, none of the hatches or portholes leak!!! (God, I hope I didn't jinx myself there!) I've still got the sliding companionway hatch to do but am currently waiting on screws to come by mid-week to complete this hatch. I've got to design a hatch for the washboards to be secure when we leave the boat (meaning no one can easily break into my boat when we're at shore). My Mom sewed some very cool (nautical theme) curtains for the portholes. I just need to get the track and install them and they will make the inside of the boat very very cool. I have her working on a couple of other sewing projects for the boat (more about those later). She does really awesome work. The curtains are perfect.
Next I thought I'd tackle something mechanical. I had picked up a battery charger/inverter with a monitor/remote control a while back and was getting tired of having to manually charge the batteries when they got low. So it was decided (between me and myself) that I'd install the charger/inverter. I figured this would be an easy way to go slowly into the mechanical stuff. Hey there are only a few wires to hook up and boom.... it's done - right? Oh how wrong can one be? In this case about as wrong as you can be. Man, there's like 30-something wires of all colors and gauges. There are shunts, fuses and terminal blocks. There's 12V and 120V from the same place! I must admit that in the end, when I was ready to kick it on for the first time, I lost all confidence and had fire extinguishers ready and I stood back for a few seconds (just in case it blew up). But guess what? No fire, No explosion. It actually worked the first time. Amazing! I then figured out that the galley water foot pump was leaking water. That's not acceptable on a boat. So next I tackled the job of replacing the foot pump and water line from the faucet to the tank. Hey, no more leak. Then I was looking up while lying on my back and really took a good look at the 12V light fixtures. They were 30 years old and showed by dirt and style (fake wood/plastic). I then hatched a plan to update these 13 fixtures. I decided to paint the interior of them and paint the brown (faux wood) plastic white while removing the 'wood' tape and replacing with either a red or green stripe, and shine up the aluminum. I also changed the way each is switched where now you can have either one bulb or the other on and before you could only have one or two bulbs on at a time. With the new switching I can have either red or white bulbs on. (Landlubber tech support=Red is on Port side while Green is on Starboard side. Port is left (while looking forward) and Starboard is right. Port has 4 letters and Left has 4 letters (get it?)). On top of what you've read about above I've also been buying all the equipment (some as yet has not been installed and is sitting in my storage here in Texas). I've been getting pretty good deals on stuff. My philosophy has been to try and get stuff that's within about 2 years old (as marine stuff is built tough and should last many many years) and pay about 1/3 of what is retail for what is essentially almost new stuff (not discontinued stuff but stuff that's still for sale on the new retail market). I've been pretty fortunate that I've been able to find most of what I wanted on the used market. I must give a shout out to craigslist as they have been my number one source for equipment. EBay has been helpful also but no where near as good as craigslist. I also went to used marine gear stores for some sourcing of stuff. I also built a refrigerator to replace the norcold 12v/120v one that's original. It does work and I've been using it and it always stays cold, it's just not as efficient or as big as the one I built, and the refrigeration system I'm putting in. I also have a RADAR and Chartplotter, a SSB/HAM radio, a stereo system, a VHF radio, an Autopilot, wind instrument, anchor windlass, Aires windvane, wind generator, water maker, solar panels, high output alternator, water heaters, waste tank/macerator pump and new Dodger/Bimini/MainSail Cover. This week the running rigging work should be complete. I'm getting all new halyards, and new Hood SeaFurl 5 furler, a masthead tri light, wind transducer installed, Lazy Jacks, new reefing lines, backstay insulators (for SSB/HAM antennae), flag halyards installed, spreader lights installed, spreader boots installed, new mainsail sheets, new VHF antennae installed, new steaming light bulb installed. I still need to patch the non skid deck gel coat and buff the smooth areas of the deck (and remove silicon from around portholes). Also I will caulk and re-install the stainless rub rail on the starboard side (I already did this on the port side). Then I can paint the non skid decks when the weather will allow after that. I need to install the dorades also. Man oh man the list never ends. I hope to keep whittling down the list at a steady pace. I know there's a lot more that I'm forgetting that I've done, lots of small stuff here and there so as you can see, I've gotten a lot done but there's still lots more to do before Natalya is ready for the open ocean - this ain't no three hour tour! I'll keep everybody informed right here. Next time I'll be going over the safety features I've added to Natalya, the engine (stay tuned for this one!) and more.
Skipper