We got a few concerned texts in late-October, wondering what we were up to since we hadn’t moved Alaya in a while. Well, we were doing more boat work, of course!
Since we had access to a slip and car (thanks again Rocky and Aaris) in Annapolis, we decided to spend 10 days busting out some more boat work. Our boat work-period happened to coincide with the long-awaited release of Taylor Swift’s 1989 (Taylor’s Version) which, of course, was the soundtrack on repeat during this period.
I’ll try not to bore you with too many of the details (of course we loved all the songs from the vault, do you think we are monsters!?) but we were able to knock out some great quality-of-life projects, including:
Solar Power
I started sewing our new solar panels onto the canvas cockpit enclosure this summer but the project got put on the backburner for a while. It was finally time to finish it, so I set-up my sewing workshop on a picnic table in front of Alaya. I spent the next five days making a few general repairs to the canvas and attaching velcro flaps that I had previously made to our enclosure. It was a lot of work but I’m really pleased with the results.
Once I got all the panels attached, Lucas finished wiring them up. After working all week in beautiful sunshine, we got the panels working on a cold, cloudy day.
We now have 400 watts of solar to recharge our house batteries. We can also use Pierre’s alternator to charge the batteries, that’s what we have been doing when needed all summer, but now we have a more passive way to charge on sunny days. We have a game plan to add more solar as we go but this was a great start.
Stove and Oven Wiring
As you may recall, Uncle Rob helped us convert our propane stove to electric this summer. We have been using our induction cooktop with great success but we hadn’t run the dedicated wiring for our oven. Since cooler weather was creeping up, I really wanted an oven again. So, Lucas spent about two days doing lots of boat yoga to run wiring for the oven and stove. The oven and stove now each have their own switches on our breaker. The outlet is beautifully hidden behind the unit and doesn’t interfere with the unit’s ability to gimbal (aka sway as the boat heels).
The end result – we can now bake chocolate chip cookies (and lots of other things)!
Anchor-System Improvements
After a few very muddy anchoring adventures, we decided a deck wash system was a must. We first had to decide between using sea water or fresh water. Since we have a water maker (still to be installed), we decided to go with a fresh water wash. This will help keep the chain from rusting as quickly and should keep down smells in the chain locker.
We ran PEX to the anchor locker and then tied this new run into the shower’s water lines. Next, we drilled a hole in our deck (always terrifying) and installed the new deck fitting. Just like that, we had a wash down system and it works great!
We also cleaned and remarked our chain. Having a clearly marked chain is important, you need to know how much chain you are putting out. Our old paint marks had faded pretty badly, so we made new marks every 25 feet.
Lastly, we added a hoop to the end of the anchor roller to help prevent the chain from popping off the roller. This should cut down on the on-the-bow boat yoga moves required when pulling up the anchor in windy or rolly conditions.
Odds and Ends
We worked on a few smaller projects that had been bugging us for a while. My favorite on this list was installing a new winch on our mast. I have been bothered by the fact that I wasn’t strong enough to hoist the mainsail up myself. The old winch we had wasn’t self-tailing, so you had to tail it (pull on it) with one hand, while cranking on the winch handle with the other hand. I just couldn’t do it alone.
Self-tailing winches are expensive and Lucas wanted to stick with the same brand and type that we have throughout the boat. After a two-year long eBay search, I was ready to go off-brand (gasp!). In desperation, Lucas looked one more time while we were waiting for our COVID shots. He found one at a different website and looked to see where it was located. Turns out this winch was only 2 miles from us! This discovery led us to an amazing boat salvage yard called Anchors and Oars. Lucas was like a kid in a candy shop – so many old boat parts to search through. We found a bunch of parts that we needed. We ended up visiting three different times and I’m sure we will visit whenever we are in the Annapolis area.
In all, we spent about 10 days at the marina and we are really happy with everything we accomplished. We celebrated our progress with lots of chocolate chip cookies and one last trip into Annapolis on Halloween for some burritos and beer.
There’s always more boat projects to do but it was time to head south again!
