The long awaited bow rails are finally installed. A very tedious job involving about one hundred trips from deck to fore cabin and back to align and finally get the rail bases bolted down. Even some blood letting from attempting to reach into unreachable places to screw on and tighten retaining nuts. Tomorrow will get the nose piece formed and installed.This can be rotated out of the way to allow lines to be repositioned without being taken aboard if necessary. Forty eight bolts closer to finishing construction. :-)
Foul weather and a laundry list of house repairs has caused a pause in boat work for the past week or so. We replaced 11 thermopane windows and completed a number of interior details left over from the hurricane Ivan rebuild. Because the windows are custom built in cedar frames we had to break them out and then painstakingly remove the bits of glass, metal insulation strip and original adhesive, a 2-3 hour process per window. NOT FUN. We also pressure washed most of the exterior and will re-stain the washed areas over the next few days. Hopefully by the weekend we will be able to do our long delayed mini shakedown to Pensacola.
In the Year 2000 Joan and Larry began a two year project to build a cruising trawler to complete their cruising dreams begun in the 1980"s. Six years later "Charis was completed and the cruising has begun. This blog is provided so that we may share our dreams and experiences with family and friends as we continue this long planned adventure. Last year we cruised from FWB to the Chesapeake Bay and this year we are enroute to in Canada. We are having the time of our lives enjoying God's creation.
Charis is 42' built in 1974 as a working lobster boat designed by Royal Lowell and built by Bruno-Stillman. After an unknown career we found her totally gutted in Panama City Fl in Nov 2000 and fell in love with her classic lines. What was planned to be a 2 year project to construct a modest pilothouse design got out of hand and six years later after 18000+ man hours she floats again as a quite tidy little coastal cruiser with ample creature features and a delightful interior crafted from 300 board feet of teak-hand sanded four times by Joan. Along the way she soaked up some 300 gallons of fiberglass resin, hundreds of yards of fiberglass cloth, several truckloads of plywood and 12000 stainless steel screws. She handles like a dream and is well found to begin fulfilling phase II of our cruising dreams.
