Category Archives: Boat Details

Ceiling replacement project

Finally sourced some materials – over a month of phone calls, emails coordination to get delivered to SXM (St. Maarten) from San Juan.

Loading 4×8 sheets of into the dinghy from the delivery truck in Phillipsburg, was quite the fun and then loading the 12 sheets from the dinghy into the mothership in the wind was like kite surfing holding directly onto the kite.  The shipping weight was 700lbs – tho each sheet only weighed in at 15lbs.

Taking down the deteriorating corrugated ceiling is more work than it looks like.  The panels are held in place by gobs of silicon adhesive, after first cutting them down, they crack and drop pieces every where.  But then the real work happens, removing all the left over silicone.

Its taking about a full day per panel and we haven’t even tried the ones with lights in them yet.  So at the very least it will take 7 days if we were to do nothing but work upside down.  That is taking one down and cleaning ( surface prep ) and cutting and fitting a new one, and running the tape.

Now trying to decide beige or white, as the material was pretty in expensive so ordered enough of both colors to try out.

The material is 3mm Komatex PVC foam sign board (we bought ours from Caribbean Signs) usually used for outside signage.  Will be held in place by 3M VHB tape.  Hopefully it will not deteriorate as in the heat and humidity.

Beige panels up and testing

Beige, I’ll paint the ceiling beige?

Will we like it? Will it grow on ya.

Definitely better than the crispy white headliners.

If blue tape can hold them up certainly VHB tape will be up to the task

Would it be too dark?

Beige test fit, color didn’t quite match with the wood

In the end decided to go for basic plain ole white, here you can see we have 2 left to replace, the white actually lightens up the space.  But I miss the character of the cracks and peeling. The goal was to have it finished by the Heineken Regatta,as that is some serious fun.

test fitting white

2 of 7 panels done, 5 more removed and ready to cleaned prepped and new panels cut

Midway progress, cleaning old silicone off was a chore and messy

Only 2 left, didn’t get quite finished before the Heineken Regatta

5 of 7 done, looking better

Made it this far, 5 of 7 panels before the Heineken Regatta. The wind just wasnt cooperating to take a small kiteboard out on deck to try and cut it.  On one occasion I tried, saw a break in the wind but only after getting all set up noticed a rain cloud, er squall, coming.  Placed the gallon jug used to clean the silicon on top of the sheets that was 1/2 way cut, whoosh the whole mess went flying. The sheet got stopped by the lifeline breaking the sheet at the cut and ruining one of the outlined panels.  The mineral spirits jug went overboard, Christine tried to get it with the new boat hook, but the wind was just too fast.  Dropped the dinghy to go retrieve in the down pour.  All is well, I had ordered extras, and I guess we could still go beige.  The knife I was using to cut the stuff also went for a swim. A day later when it wasn’t quite as silted up, tried to find it for an hour and two more times after that without any luck, you would have thought a bright red and shiny knife would stick out on a sandy bottom. Oh well, we have a back up of that too.

Carefully slicing through the silicone used to hold them up, and not to cut the old panel as it will be used as the template when cutting new ones.

Removing the last old panel without destroying it to use as a pattern

Now in St Bart’s, its gusty but the last two panels were cut and ready – time to finish this project. Test fitting and scuffing up the edges on the last panel and noticed a crack that probably happened when that panel tried to go swimming. Ugh, one more to cut and its gusty here in this bay. Grab Christine and 2 sheets of material, one white and one gray, gray for working surface and wait for a lul. No major issues last sheet cut and installed.

Almost done just the last 2 light fixtures to go

Just some cosmetic touches

Finished product at night

Even the lights are now in alignment

The real test will be to see if they last while sailing in big waves, as I’m sure there is some flex that goes on. If they do come down might just have to source wider VHB tape.

Electricity

We bought the boat in 2010. It was 9 years old then on its original batteries. That’s along time for batteries. 7 years is a great car battery. We never plug into shore power, all electricity has come from solar or engine alternators.

This trip I noticed the battery voltage getting weak in the wee hours on those late/middle of the night boat checks.

Seeing voltage down near 12.1 is not bad but less than ideal. One night I saw 11.9. Time for concern.

Today ran the Honda generator. Mostly all bulk load, 60 amps going into the bank. Voltage is up to 12.3 early eve.

Will need to run generator again. Seems the little Honda is out producing the master volt alternators, need more data to back that up.

The one thing that it helps quantify it is the house bank switch on the port side is being a little finicky which might cause some loss of current during charging.

Beautification and Maintence

As sugar shack is a boat, there is always something to do, maintence or repairs or modifications to make her more home. These last few months in St Lucia were no different. The difference between us and full time cruisers is we go back to work and let someone else take care of the chores. And trust that they get done correctly. Rodney Bay marina is run by Edwin, who used to run the yard, and always took great care of us and have definitely earned our trust. The new yard manager is Frederic and he is no different. They are always available to answer emails and questions and to make sure things get done on time/budget/schedule. Thats not to say its always ahead of time, but its is island time after all.

This trip, they hauled the shack out of the water and put a fresh coat of Island 44 bottom paint on her so she should be good to go for a while. This time Christine wanted red so the bottom of the boat changed from blue to red, course most is underwater so you will only see it when swimming at anchor.

While she was out of water they also washed/waxed and polished her, so we should just have to rinse her off a bit and be underway after getting some provisions and gasoline for the dingy.

We also had some wood work rejuvenated, the teak on the sugar scoops should be updated and the few places that were varnished revarnished. We were going to have the cockpit table redone as well, but waited a little too long to start that project and it wouldn’t be done in time for us leave the island. We shall see how that work turned out, we got photos of the polish and bottom job along the way, but never asked for or received the wood work photos.

We also had a cap tube filter installed on the freezer. We had a dickens of time tracking down the right guy to do that work. Finally when I was there in February, I made contact with Prudent, the expert, as I was just about to leave for the airport. We had the boat put back in the water 3 weeks ago, so that the freezer work could be done, Prudent is a super nice guy and eventually got the work done, yesterday morning. So much for leaving it running and testing it out as our original plan was, but hopefully the educated guess of what was up with the keel cooler and capillary tube will go well. The boat has to be in the water to use the freezer and refrigerator as they use the ocean water to cool off the compressed gas that makes the freezer cool.

A little more than an hour till touch down, its along way down, but the water is blue and the bahamas water sure is beautiful.