Accomplishments

We've now owned this boat for seven years. In those years we've restored every single system in the boat. We've put in a new steering system because the prior owner neglected to tell us that the hydraulic steering system was leaking in to the pantry. (When the outside of an unopened jar of peanut butter is oily, you've got a problem.) There was a massive leak where the propeller shaft enters the boat, which we fixed last season. We ripped out the water tanks and installed new ones, along with new hot and cold water lines and an electric hot water heater. (Our diesel engine also doubles as a hot water heater.) We take our hot showers in a newly tiled shower as well.

This season, so far, has been riddled with big boat accomplishments. I've shown you the paint job already. And we've also installed new canvas around the cockpit, so it'll stay nice and dry in the rain. The cockpit often doubles as the living room when aboard, and it's nice that the rain doesn't get on our couch or easy chair. We fixed the auto pilot, and now we can have a mini computer keeping a course for us. We can also steer the auto pilot from a Gameboy sized remote control as well.

There have been two nagging projects that we checked off the big list this year, and we crossed them off over the long weekend. One of them was installation of brand new dinghy davits. The davits are these poles that stick out the back of the boat, and we can now hook up our dinghy to them and hoist the dinghy out of the water. Like so:


Extra special thanks to my brother Kaz and his mad machining skillz. My brother MADE these davits (the curved poles in the picture). He made them. With his own bare hands.


Now that we've painted the boat with the black accent, you can see the dragons near the bow of the boat. For some reason, I crave Chinese food every time I am aboard now. I can't quite put my finger on the reason why.

The next nagging project was putting the correct name on the boat. The prior owner had named the boat "Tara Vana" which, allegedly, means "Crazy Man" in Tahitian. I am usually very suspicious of names and characters in languages that I cannot understand. For seven years, the name plates read what might possibly be "American Asshole" in Tahitian. Not anymore. I present to you you, Sabine, with her given and proper name emblazoned on her:

But wait, there's more!

In this one you can see the full enclosure over the cockpit. The panels are rolled open here, but when they are all rolled down the cockpit is completely enclosed.

And now all I want to do is spend every single waking moment aboard my dry, shiny boat