Since our new boat is located in Florida and Jason and I are still living in Washington for a while longer, we really can’t start any actual work. When we made plans to spend a week down in Florida on the boat, our goal was to measure and preliminary design a few of the systems, remove all of the previous owner’s stuff, and do a very thorough deep cleaning! The boat was previously owned by an older Canadian couple who would spend winters in the Caribbean, but it had been a few years since they had seen the boat. The husband had unfortunately just died so I think the wife just left the boat as is to sell it. This is understandable but also meant that there was a lot of stuff on the boat that had never been gone through.
These pictures show what greeted us when we stepped foot onto the boat!
Most of Day 1 was spent just filling trash bags with junk, garbage, broken and ruined things, etc. Since it’s a boat, things just get moist and that ruins paper product pretty fast and leaves anything fabric just feeling gross. I threw a lot of stuff away just because I didn’t think it was worth the time to clean it. I also realized that I’m suuuuper grossed out by other people’s random kitchen tools. I did find a few things I think we would use and kept, but the rest of it went to Goodwill. I don’t need your used spatula, thanks.
Because of the scope of work that we already knew the boat needed, we wanted to remove literally everything from the boat while we did the work. So everything from the couch cushions, to mattresses, to spare parts, tools, rolling pins, and tupperware all needed to go somewhere else.
While we were sorting and tossing crap, Jason and I also bought some large storage tubs for things we wanted to keep. I also used my cell phone to take an inventory of everything that went into the tubs. This is a decent sized boat at 42′, but she has a TON of interior storage. Sometimes there’s storage above, below, and behind the regular obvious storage. It’s borderline ridiculous. I hate knowing I have something and not being able to find it and in a boat like this that’s going to be likely to happen. I’m going to work out a tracking spreadsheet so everything that gets put back onto the boat get inventoried, tracked, and located. Not that I’ve started that yet! 😉
The boat also has a large canvas enclosure for the cockpit with windows and everything, however it had been removed while the boat was in storage. (We also washed and stored that stuff in storage… it’s filling up fast!). We have plans to redo the structure on the back of the boat because there isn’t a lift to hoist a dinghy out of the water, but there is pretty much everything else. The solar panels are on their own foundation and there’s a separate foundation on the inside of that one for the canvas dodger, so there’s just a LOT of stainless bars back there and it’s cluttered and hard to get around. The boat also has a large antenna/radar mount and a hydrovane wind powered autopilot. We don’t want the autopilot and we’re moving the radar to the mast, so both of those things need to go away as well. Unfortunately they’re both mounted through the hull of the boat and will require fiberglass repairs to properly remove, so we left them this time.
We’re pretty much done for the day (exhausted and in dire need of showers). I did get a few pictures of the outside of the boat! She’s a full keel boat so there’s a lot of hull under the water, which means that she will be slow, sturdy, and safe even in larger seas. The newer boats will beat the shit out of you. I’m hoping to be able to drink coffee on deck and arrive at my destination relaxed and comfortable! 😉
