June 20, 2011

Because I needed to bring the dog to the boat this weekend, during the week I built a new dog ramp using the lumber I bought and cut to length last week and the sketch I had made earlier. I used some old indoor-outdoor carpet I had around the house to cover the boards and some left-over drywall screws to assemble it, so my only cost was about $18 for the lumber. A nice break from all things labeled "marine." It is stronger than it looks (I can walk up it and it flexes very little), yet light enough to move around easily. My big old dog was skeptical, however. His legs have gotten so bad that he had a lot of justifiable fear about negotiating the ramp. I had to make the ramp narrow enough to fit in the companionway so I can get him into the cabin for the night, but because it's narrow he would often stumble off the edge. Whether you're a dog or a human, getting old sucks. With lots of help and heft from me, though, I was able to get him on and off okay.

I also brought the restored and refinished panel with the new footrest and the new steering wheel hub cap and installed them first thing Saturday morning. The big project for the day was installing the new ceiling panel in the doghouse. The entire afternoon was spent cleaning the boat inside and out in preparation for possible visitors from the Summer Sailstice Party scheduled for the evening.

Despite staying up late partying and eating and drinking to excess Saturday night, I was up at 5:30 am Sunday morning. I was a bit bleary-eyed of course, but still enjoyed a lovely dawn. As soon as I had my morning coffee, I started in on the day's project: mounting the radar, VHF radio and chart table/cockpit light on the new ceiling panel. Locating each item correctly took some doing since I wanted things conveniently and optimally located for use, but also in a place where the mounting screws would go through to one of the backing blocks I had bonded in place a few weeks ago. It took quite a bit of measuring and re-measuring, but with the help of the paper pattern showing the location of the backing blocks, it all worked out nicely. I hooked up the power cables and antennae temporarily, and fired everything up. It all worked fine first try. The wiring would still need to be properly routed and secured, but that would have to wait for another day. Both the dog and I were beat, so after a quick lunch of potluck leftovers, I put everything away, cleaned up, and headed home.