Mischief Afoot: 2013 and Underway (figuratively speaking)!

While the holiday break for this law student may not have been as restful as he (me) would've hoped, it certainly was rejuvenating! Boat maintenance and upgrades may drive some owners crazy, for me it has provided a much needed environment of tranquility and needed therapy. The process of conceptualizing, planning and carrying out your work in an orchestrated sensible way used to be somewhat challenging for me. Fortunately, one of the side-effects of law school (aside from a heaping dose of stress) is an enhanced critical thinking ability that helps make once complicated tasks more understandable. I don't think my mother was impressed by my comment that law school has so far improved my carpentry skills. Plan B? Hah! This sailor still has a lot to learn! Now on to the boat!

Since a boat is a very limited space and to maintain perspective, it's best for me to approach each project one at a time and try to finish each one as close to paint ready as possible before moving on. Since the Mischief is located at the family boatyard (i.e. our farm) 3 hours from my school in St. Petersburg, projects have subnames that consist of "Christmas Break," "Spring Break," "Summer Break," etc.

"Christmas Break 2012" consisted started off with building a work platform and stairs from an old set of scaffolding and surplus fencing materials we had on the farm... My "head, shoulders, knees and toes" are very grateful to be rid of lugging tools and equipment up and down the ladder.

Next was lengthening the companionway entry. This was done to remove some wet rot that had developed in the area under the step and to make egress more user friendly for this old bag o'bones.

The wet rot above reared its ugly head during some freezes on the Potomac when it began oozing the dreaded brown water!

Be gone wet rot and hello circa 1960's wiring (not in use no worries!)

After opening up the companionway (well during since it was the holiday and I had to wait for my epoxy provider to open up) I moved on to shortening the engine box. Since repowering 2 years before, my engine compartment had enough room to to park a scooter (so it seemed anyways). I was able to move the box 8 inches aft which provided a ton of room in the galley and main cabin area... seems like a new boat already.

This made another project which was having to add cabin sole to cover some of the bilge where the engine box used to live and make another access hatch to be able to easily service the bilge pumps.