September 24, 2015

I finished the holder for the binoculars, air horn and drink, but the week was really all about the dinghy.  Mounting the new BeachMaster beaching wheels turned out to be a long, tough job.  Yes, figuring out the exact positioning was tricky, and it took a bit of time to get backing plates made and find the right-size access hatch.  The real bugaboo, however, was that when I cut the hole for the access hatch, I found that the entire under-seat space was filled with foam.  Digging it all out was a long, miserable, bruising job.  But I did it and eventually got the wheels neatly and securely mounted.  The wheels are a great product, definitely worth the money.  The engineering is brilliant:  easy one-handed deployment and folding up.  Unfortunately, the dinghy is still VERY heavy, so hauling it up the beach is still tough, even with the wheels.  In soft sand or mud, the wheels sink in so much they are useless, even though the tires are good-sized.  Sigh.......

September 6, 2013

Time warp this week thanks to the three-day weekend.  Everything was pushed back (forward?) a day.  I still managed to get done the major project for the week:  mounting beaching wheels on the dinghy.  Part of getting ready for the next cruise.  It was every bit the project I anticipated, the one "fly in the ointment" being that the kit had two left wheel/axle sets instead of a left and a right.  That would explain why it was less than half the normal cost.  As you'll see in the photos, I did manage to "adapt and overcome."  While the result isn't perfect, I believe it will prove to be good enough.

In the "final touches" category, I was able to find a suitable breaker switch label at the local chandlery for the breaker that controls the new AC outlet I wired last month for the new Geneva music system.  (Somehow the existing "air conditioner" label didn't seem appropriate.)  In looking through the label selection, I noticed that labels for "wine cooler" and "spa" were available.  Wish I had a boat that needed those!