Boat Work 2024 Begins

 

Kat and Her Boat

 Ah spring, when a young persons fancy turns to boating.  Work is hard and heavy on Kat Boat this spring. With the boat in the yard work has to be better planned and executed due to it being an hour and a half from the old boat yard, which was my house. First thing up this year was getting the mast pulled.  Faithful readers will know of the Sandell Tabernacle my boat came with. An ingenious device that allowed the raising and lowering of the mast while on the trailer with ease.  As a yard boat these days the setup was not as desired. The fact is the mast was never as straight without being in the bottom of the step as designed and a catboat wants a straight mast. And with the mast being hollow it was easy enough to swing it up and plant it in the step. We sailed like that for the majority of the last season and the boat behaved very well. Slightly better I think then before.  Sail peaked higher, lifted the boom that extra bit and wanted to go to weather more readily and closer to the wind. It was great. And at the end of the last season we tried pulling the mast for winter. And tried again. And again. It was indeed quite stuck.

  But this season we are at a boat yard. With a mast crane. A few half hitches later we were in business. The strain was put on. And then a little more. Then a few more half hitches. The bow started coming off the trailer. The lead yard hand jumped lightly on the cabin top. And the mast popped free.  It was an interesting forty five seconds, that's for sure. We are making sure to ensure this won't happen again before the mast goes back up.

When in Doubt Add More Force

 Last year in a blinding rainstorm I discovered that my cabin hatch was not in fact waterproof. And the dripping water was a rather large annoyance. So one of the projects this spring has been fiberglassing the hatch. It's amazing how well a random orbital sander will clean up the job. It's far from perfect but I am a 2nd Class Boat Builder. That is to say I'm not afeared of epoxy and I know enough to get myself if not into trouble a job done. We await the possibility of painting later this week and we'll see if it worked. We hate to lose the look of the natural wood but it's worth not worrying about keeping the water on the outside of the boat. 

Will Look Good With Paint

 And what of the Whoa Nellie you ask? Well we got the skeg on and we've got a few little things to tidy up on the bottom, then paint and flip. The changes we're working on are making the side decks 6" as per the Beetlecat that inspired it. We also got rid of the rear "seat" as full hull lounging room is desirable. Sliding around the bottom is a key component to the sailing I think. We're hoping to splash before September and get a sail or two in this year.

Always Impressed With Her Lines

 And now it's little things. The work on Kat Boat this summer is being broken into two parts: The Making It Work part and the Making It Pretty part. Goal now is to get the vessel sailing. Then in July we'll haul it and take it up to the old boat yard and make it pretty.  The hope is by our Wild Horse Island Regatta she'll be looking find and hopefully be able to be used as our committee boat. The lady will appreciate the ability to take a Kat Nap during the proceedings.  We hope to launch the week I right this but the weather may not cooperate. No harm done there, it's simply another week to get the boat ready and we'll launch the weekend of our yacht club opener.  It's going to be a great year.

Starting To Look Like My Boat Again