Hull Finished & A New Top

After a week of working on it, I finally put the finishing touches on the hull damage. It took three coats of Marine-Tex epoxy to fill in the deep ones, and countless hours of sanding, steel wooling, and finally polishing. Sanding removed the gloss and shine off it, so I used a super fine #0000 steel wool to smooth down the sanding to a fine finish. After steel wooling for what seemed to be an eternity, I grabbed the orbital buffer and some of the Meguiars Oxidation Remover. It's a somewhat gritty polish, but that's what I wanted to start with.

Lesson Learned: keep head away from buffer to avoid splattering! even though it smells good, the taste isn't. Here's the final product, afer Meguiars Oxidation Remover, #45 Polish, and a coat of wax.
I'm pretty impressed!

She also got her new cockpit cover installed. I switched to a black cover for pure aesthetics, and it makes the boat look brand new!!




It was made by a one-man shop here in town called John's Marine Service. It took a while to get it done, but it's worth it. He designed the top to fit much better than the old vinyl one, added two poles in the rear for stability and rain runoff, and ran the top completely down to the fiberglass, instead of just to the windshield frame. Gives it a nice streamlined look. Total cost, $750.

Lesson Learned: If I need canvas work again, call outside of boating season. Prices are significantly cheaper, and according to John, "we're struggling for business in the fall". So I'll be calling him after this season about adding some snap-in carpet.

Holy....

After bringing the boat back from Lake Norris, I started cleaning the hull, not because of the water at Norris, but because of the Ohio River residue that was on there before the trip! I armed myself with some Hull Cleaner, two buckets & a few rags. I put some serious work into getting the river stains out, and when coming around the front of the hull, I looked and saw this.


So the investigation begins...
Closeup of deepest one.

So I thought about how this could possibly have happened, and I know it didn't happen at Lake Norris, there was no debris, and the boat was never taken into water more shallow than 15ft. I've come to the conclusion that the damage was by my harbor. I'm not holding them responsible, since I know I won't win, but I know they most likely did it. The damage looks perfectly spaced out for the fenders on the trailer, especially if coming at a sharp angle. The rule at the harbor is that if you're out past 9pm, you have to leave your boat tied up at the dock and they will load the boat back on the trailer at 9am the next morning. I've seen them do this many times before, and they "walk the boats" with the lines onto the trailer. I'm assuming this is how it could have happened, especially since they're usually in a hurry, and the lowest hole on the hull seems to have a black scuff from the bunk right in front of it, you can see it in the pics.

ANYWAY, so I did my research on the Trailer Boats Forum as to what kind of repair could be done, and I heard some great things about this product called "Marine-Tex Epoxy". It's a 2 oz 2-part epoxy that advertises it "handles like putty, stronger than steel, sands like wood". I figured this would work great. So I bought a kit, which was about $10. Not bad!


So I applied it on, here's the finished product.

Not the prettiest thing in the world until it's sanded, but I'm going to hit it with some low grit sandpaper and see where that gets me, and then polish and wax it back up once it cures. I'm going to give it a day to cure though. Watch here for an update.

Lake Norris 6/2 - 6/5

We've been planning on taking a trip to Lake Norris in Tennessee since January, and it finally came up on us after waiting patiently for 6 months. We arrived at Lake Norris on Saturday afternoon, after a few miles of winding back country roads which would scare even the most experienced trailer drivers. This is the house we stayed in.

We rented the house for 3 days, and it was a bargain! One of the main reasons we chose the house was for the private covered dock. Well, turns out my beam was just a hair too wide, and I didn't want to chance damaging the boat, so I docked it on the adjacent swimming platform. No biggie! My friend Joe brought his 16' Lockley Surprise sailboat with him. Here's a pic of mine on the dock, and his boat headed out into the lake.


Now I've been a river boater all of my life, so I had no idea what to expect for lake boating. The wakes are a little larger, and the wind definitely plays an impact too. However, after about 20 minutes alone with the boat, I was able to get a grasp for it, and I was ready to go. We tied up and headed inside for the night. Had one of those nice 10 minute lake storms, and then all was well.

The next morning I woke up, walked down to check on the boat, and this is the view.
Frickin' Gorgeous!

So we packed up the tubes, and the other 5 people, and headed out. I poured the throttle on to get up on plane, and then realized, WOW, what a difference adding passengers made. She wouldn't hardly plane at all until I had some extra weight in the bow. Finally got her planed, and backed off the throttle until about 2700 rpms, where she'd barely hold plane. We threw out the tube, and started tubing. This boat is nothing like my old 180 Sea Ray when it comes to tubing. This sucker throws out a wake like you wouldn't believe. Almost 2.5-3ft swells when coming off plane. I believe this was attributed to the large amount of weight in the stern.



Then it came time to take a couple sharp turns at the request of the tubers. This was a mistake. The weight was all misbalanced on the boat, and I had a couple close calls that scared the hell out of me. So the verdict is in, if I plan to tube with large amounts of people on board, I'm going to need trim tabs for the additional control.
We found a cove to anchor in, and all hopped out for some swimming & wading. The water there is beautiful, and is crystal clear. I could stand on the stern and see the blades on the prop. Amazing!

I took the boat out later that day and did some exploring. We headed down to see Norris Dam, which was about a 20 minute ride. We then decided to try and check out the wide section of the lake, to see how the sailing conditions were. Cruising along at about 30mph, (with only 4 on board), it was a smooth ride. The sky started clouding up the closer we got, and after a few raindrops, the women headed down into the cuddy for shelter. Joe & I stayed on deck, being the determined boaters. Here's the sky as we started to approach the storm.


It didn't get bad until the rain started hammering down on us. I tried to throttle through it, but the rain just was piercing our faces at any speed, and we decided to find a cove and anchor to wait it out. Joe & I headed into the cuddy to dry out. About 15 minutes later, the rain stopped, and we came out of the cuddy to face this. No color enhancement made, this is how beautiful everything was after the rain!


After gawking over how beautiful everything was, we turned around and headed back in. We went tubing two more times over the next couple days, and went sailing a few times as well.

I absolutely love this lake, and will be heading back again. I think we might head down again some weeekend and camp onboard, or rent a slip at one of the harbors. But if we're heading back with more than 4 people, i'm gonna need to have those trim tabs! Keep your eyes open here, there might be a writeup coming soon!

Another Outing

Finally I found some time to take the boat out again, this time with the digital camera!

The first thing I noticed was there was very few people out, and it was truly a beautiful warm summer evening last night. Not quite sure why there weren't more boats out, but it was a Monday night.
View up river.
As I headed up river, I began to notice the water level is much lower than before.

AND, the drift was extremely heavy. Everything from empty Gatorade bottles, to Styrofoam (from docks maybe?), Basketballs, plastic bags, etc. And the infamous "Outdrive Killers", as I like to call them, the hidden trees. Ranging in size from little twigs to full blown trees. Here's some examples! And you can see the visibilty of them off the bow. They're incredibly hard to see when driving into the sun.

So with the cost of gas right now, and the amount of drift in the river, I decided to take a casual stroll and plot out the marker buoys on my GPS. It's something I've always meant to do, because at night, they are virtually impossible to see until you're right up on them. So I traveled about 10-15 miles up and plotted their locations. Now I feel better for those late night rides back from the fireworks at New Richmond. Here's a shot of the buoy. Definitely wouldn't want to hit that at cruising speed, something about solid steel, fiberglass and 30mph doesn't sound healthy!

Now the sun was beginning to set. I started heading back, and this is the view on the way back. Can't beat a sunset on the water!
And since my first mate decided to ditch me for the Fall Out Boy concert at Riverbend, I decided to tie up behind there just to see if I was missing anything. Kicked back, had a beer, and listened to the music. Darkness grew over the water, and I ended up leaving about 10:00. I was headed back at idle speed, due to the drift. Right off Coney Island I noticed this, which was a great reminder of why I like to drive slow at night!


Memorial Day weekend's approaching quickly, so there'll be lots of stories to tell after that! Stay tuned.

First Run

So Saturday evening I decided it was time to fire her up and make the first run. I prepped the boat, removed transom straps, put the drain plug in, and was ready to be launched at the harbor. She started right up, and came off the trailer with ease. The harbor was a little crowded, and for some reason they decided to launch 2 boats simultaneously on the same ramp. This is typical of the "first of the season" behavior of my harbor. Not to mention the ramp was crowded enough with 6 boats on each side of the docks. I'll post a pic of the harbor so you can understand my concern.

But the boat ran good, it was fairly obvious the engine had been sitting a while. I'll run some fuel injector cleaner through it and clear it all out. Kept a decent clip at 2800rpm, about 25mph. Without trim tabs, it's hard to get the boat to plane at lower speeds. And I think this year's going to bring much lower speeds due to rising gas prices. So some Lenco Electric tabs might be added later this year if funds permit.

Ran through downtown Cincinnati, and then anchored up beyond Coney Island & River Downs for some sun! I dropped the ladder, took a few steps down, and realized, NO WAY. Water's only 62 degrees!

Anyway, being the first launch of the season, no one seemed to be observing the given "boater laws of courtesy", some people cut me off on the way out, and then another one damn near backed over me and caused me to nearly run into another boat on the way back in. Apparently May 12 must have been stupid boater day on the Ohio.

Lesson learned: Bring camera next time.

All shined up and ready to go!

So this past weekend I had some help from my friend Joe, for the exterior cleaning and waxing. I used the Meguiar's Flagship boat wash, cleaned it from head to toe.

Then came the 3 step Meguiar's Fiberglass Restoration Kit.

For $25, you can't go wrong!! Each of these bottles is in the neighborhood of $10-15 each. The initial step (Oxidation Remover) is a heavy duty gritty wax. During the waxing, I could already tell an immediate difference between the treated and non-treated areas. Step 2 was the High Gloss Polish, which I had done the previous year before, brought out the color in the gelcoat. Step 3 was a caranuba wax, that smelled like bananas, and was just about the same color as a banana smoothie! Here's the end result. I highly recommend this kit to anyone with oxidation, or anyone who just wants their boat to look brand new!!



So then I made a phone call to my dad to borrow his Escalade to tow it to the harbor. I'll be using this to tow to Lake Norris in a few weeks, so I wanted to get a feel for it. Tows great, but I think at some point I'll step up and buy myself a 3/4 Ton Diesel Suburban or truck to pull it. I just feel a little safer with heavier duty parts. Plus at the price of gas these days, a diesel might offer a little relief on the pocketbook. But that's a while away.



So she's down at the harbor now. The cockpit cover is getting measured today or tomorrow to see about replacement. I plan on taking her out this weekend!

She Gets New Eyes

So I conjured up this idea about swapping all my lights to LED's after an episode on the river last year that almost drained my batteries. I know LED's only use a fraction of what regular bulbs use, and put off much less heat. So I figured what the hell, it'd be worth a try.

I did some searching on the net, came up with a few limited resources. I found SuperBright LED's based out of Florissant, MO. I used to visit that town quite frequently and figured it'd be the place to order from, since it's only about 8hrs away.

The lights I needed to replace were the Nav Light, and one of the courtesy lamps. However, I went a little haywire, and bought a bunch of bulbs since they were pretty cheap, and I wanted to try a couple different options. I bought the following ones.

My nav light burned out during last year's Riverfest (probably the most important time to have a nav light), so it was first on my list to replace. I purchased the two styles as shown just to see which would be brighter. One has 9 LED's, and the other has 4. I tried the 9 LED one first, but once mounted in the fixture, the bulb became very dim on the port side behind the red glass. This fixture was extremely directional, so I figure that's why it wouldn't work as well. So I mounted the 4 LED bulb, and wow, what a difference! I was concerned about the brightness originally when the idea came up about swapping, but after seeing this, I have no concern whatsoever that my nav light could be the brightest one on the river!

Next were the engine lights. I wanted to use something bright, as it's a pretty important spot to have a bunch of light, just in case. So I found these 5 LED fixtures that seemed to be good for projecting light in all directions. I bought the "Bright White" . They worked great, and I decided that I'd purchase two LED "strips" (like neon tubes) for the engine bay itself just so I could project light in there. I found a great deal on ebay, so I couldn't pass them up. Here's the final outcome of the engine lights, both the 5 LED fixtures (mounted in the transom), and the LED strips in the engine bay.

So then came the courtesy lights. I used the same 5 LED fixtures as the engine lights to project light in a wide angle. I bought both Bright White, and Red. The white is a little harsh in complete darkness, so I went with the Red instead. It's definitely easier on the eyes. Plus it looks pretty cool. I kept the whites onboard just in case I decide to swap.

I tried to replace the transom light in the rear with an LED, but for some reason it didn't work. Maybe I got a defective bulb, or maybe it just doesn't like LED's. At any rate, i put the standard bulb back in, and moved on.

Finally, out of curiosity, I took apart my anchor light just to see what size it took. Just my luck, it took the same size as the courtesy lamps, so I popped in one of those Bright White 5 LED bulbs and WHOA! Brightness in all directions and it's really WHITE!