Prepare to launch!

It's official! The boat will be launched on Saturday, April 19th! Crunch time has officially begun! Chris and I once again made the trek up to Sandusky to finish the winter projects. My credit card has begun feeling the pinch from all of the new toys and supplies; including a depth sounder, Windex windvane, outside speakers (magnetically shielded to avoid throwing off the compass), topside paint, accent lights, and lumber to build the new locker seat doors. First things first! We needed to enlarge the existing holes (from the old wind instruments) to accommodate the speakers, and add a new one for the depth sounder. If you've never done it before, taking any kind of saw or drill to your boat the first time isn't easy. However, it becomes old hat after the first cut! We then proceeded to cut two new holes for the accent lights in the cockpit.

With the cutting finished, we did a dry fit of the speakers and depth sounder. Wow! Imagine how they'll look with fresh white paint on the decks!


Speaking of dry fits, a couple of weeks ago my good friend Mike helped me make some new locker doors. While they aren't finished yet, I wanted to place them to make sure they fit. While there are a few mods needed, they will be ready for next weekend! I'll make the cuts, do the sanding and finally stain and poly them this week.

Now the fun begins: saying goodbye to SHAZAM and hello to LUNA SEA!* The process started with removing the vinyl lettering from her hull. Unfortunately the previous owner used some kind of crazy, industrial strength vinyl and adhesive and it ended up taking the hull paint with it! Not a big deal... I have the brand name and color paint used so I'll buy a quart next weekend and fill in the gaps. The new name will go in the same place so any variation in the paint won't be too noticeable. We also removed the generic OH numbers. I laid out a new design for the numbers and logo, which Chris (who owns a vinyl printer) fabricated and started applying. First the new numbers...
Then it's onto new hull striping, which I bought at West Marine. Chris had a hell of a time placing it! Keeping striping straight is not an easy task! To cap off the ends of the stripes, we added a Columbia logo and badge. It's amazing how adding these small touches really finishes out the boat!

This week the boat will be moved outdoors so the deck painting can begin! The good thing about being outside is that we will no longer have limited access! Chris, myself and our buddy Jesse will be up in Sandusky for a full weekend so there should be no problem finishing up her paint!


* For those of you who question my sanity in changing the boat's name, I plan on a full renaming ceremony