The first thing I decided to do was have the boat buffed and polished above the gunwales. A local company did the work and did a great job. They also replaced all the lettering since their buffers took the old stuff off!
I polished all the stainless rails as well. After sitting in Florida salt air for years they needed it badly. I cleaned the hull to the water-line with some pretty powerful stuff to remove the brown Hudson River stains.
When I hauled the boat to get the props tuned to fix a vibration we have had since Florida we had a bit of a surprise. It turns out we had hit a submerged dead head on the Hudson River which neatly bent the port propeller shaft and a few prop blades. We remember feeling a few objects but none felt like damage had occurred. To cut a long story short, I had the spare props tuned to Class S before hauling then, after hauling, installed the spares and had the other props tuned to the same standard as well as had a new shaft made. This all, together with a new strut, lost us a couple of weekends but gave us a superbly efficient and smooth boat again. I was blown away by the difference in performance with the Class S props. It was a very worthwhile expense.
One of our visitors was Jon. I was looking forward to him seeing all the work Jo had done to clean up the inside. It was a very different boat from the one Jon had helped me take to the Georgia border in April. He believes he is a hex on the boat but when he arrived the battery charger, newly installed in Charleston in May, had failed and our 12 volt system was very low. We could not overnight on the boat. With no 12 volt systems we had no water, light or toilet flush. The next day we found an identical new charger in Kingston and I installed it the same day. As always on this boat, to remove and replace the charger required some contortions on my part. The old one has been replaced under warranty and I now have spare. It taught me how important the 12 volt system was and I am happy to have a back-up now.
The summer here was quite hot this year. We have enjoyed our air-conditioning and the swimming off our lovely dock. Our slip backs on to the open St Lawrence water and is a perfect location for lazy weekends.
Spooky has taken to the boat well. If only she took to the journey getting there and back as well!!
So, that's it for now. When Spring comes I will update again. I have a couple of through-hull transducers to install before launch and then we can get on with more restoration!
