Another Day

Started the bilge panels today.  I precut the bottom prior to fitting this time which seemed to work a bit better.  The back half of the bottom panel doesn't seem to quite fair up right on the stations and had a real difficult time with this working up against the ceiling on the last hull.

Almost

The kids have this funny Rafi song called "Who Built the Ark?"  The Chorus sings, Noah, Noah; Abby sings "no one" "no one" and John has pretty much decided that he's over it.  Unfortunately, the "new" car has a broken CD player so the current edition of Rafi is a 1979 cassette I found in a resale shop in Harbor Springs and no longer able to skip that track. Should be OK for this year, but the water did get pretty high when Sandy passed offshore.  Will be ready for the 2 by 2 next year.

Closing In

Just about have all the side planking fitted. Glassed up a second forestay thimble today and have gotten both motors running. Turns out the Maine Cat was put into charter towards the end of these engines use and the former owner tells me the higher use engine only had around 1500 hours which in in-line with how the powerhead appears when going over it. Anyhow, have now sold the whaler and am very happy to have these engine.

MO?

Lily is very vocal for her age and here favorite word seems more which she pronounces "MO!" Her middle name is Moana and we joke that MO! Is here middle name.

So it ended up being a day well spent going out in the whaler last Friday instead of working on the boat. There are several larger cats here, but only 3 cats with outboards and the Maine Cat 30 is the only one similar to the Vardo engine mounting wise. The owner was washing it when I stopped by to look at the engine mounting. Turns out he had just bought new Yamaha 9.9s. As you can see, later that afternoon after a few glasses of wine his old Yamaha 8s found there way into my car! He does some charters with the boat so they are well used, but one has a newer gearbox and the other a new powerhead. With a bit of work they should be fine for a few years and will likely make themselves into one newer motor with the additional of a newer 9.9 later on. The new 9.9 is based on this vintage 8. So another problem solved.