Holiday Greetings to you...!

Hello my friends......again, I begin a blog by apologizing for not posting for awhile....what can I do?....my life here has resorted to a unrelenting tedium trying to get everything done that is necessary to leave cruising. It looks like the final hurdle for me and Tana should be overcome in March......hope so.........those Islands are calling for us!   For now...............

We want to extend our sincerest wishes to all of you for a  Happy Holiday Season and a safe, healthy, and prosperous New Year.........talk to ya soon

My Girlfriend-Tana

Hello my friends.....I do know that there are a few of you who check in with ZOSHASWAKE on a semi regular basis and I do know that I have been remiss in my responsibilities of catching up with those of you who care about what we are doing....we have not left for the Caribe yet....just got the boat outta the yard for a bottom job and for some ordinary maintenance...thank GOD for giving me the insight not to have bought a bigger boat!!!! AMEN!!!! ............................You know?  Let me tell you something...OK???..................I got the BEST Girlfriend!!!..........What you say!!! Yeah....Whats makes the BEST GIRLFRIEND???...............In my opinion it's what kinda stuff they know about...everybody knows a little bit about nothing important or unusual....just crap... what celeberity is doing this or that...or what politico is doing this...or what sports team or star has this going for them...or what some reality TV personna is up to.............you know what I'm talking about??...you've been around  and conversed with these people.............HO HUMM.....the other day someone for some unknown reason  brought up the topic of North American /tribal Shamanism..........Well let me tell you dude, my girlfriend was all over it...........she knew everything about it...........from the prehistoric beliefs of the early cave men to the pueblo dwelling inhabitants of 18th century southwest.........Whoa, impressive, right?............coupla weeks later, we are someplace and someone mentions Chinese Numerology and.............well, TANA explained the significance of numbers and the meaning of certain numerical combinations and how they impact human endeavor......WHOA DUDE!!...........sometimes later......can't remember where we were but the topic of Astrology came up and ...........somehow my GF ended up explaining to all the basics and history and evolution of the topic............she reads TAROT cards..............She knows all about Vampires..............She is an established professional musician............she is a poet and author..........you wanna know about the mugrations of native peoples in ancient times?......ask Tana....she knows a whole buncho other stuff that I can't recall right now because I been drinkin' ...but take my word for it Dude....she's AWESOME..and I love her because she knows so much cool stuff and because she has the sexiest little feet in creation.
Take care my friends..........








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Keeping Track....

It's been a while my friends...........I've been so remiss in keeping this dialogue open....it's my loss.....I'm sorry................I hope this finds you all well, happy, and prosperous.....today, I was reading one of those minamalist blogs and the writer was talking about all the things in our lives that we need to keep track of on a regular basis............thinkaboutit???     If you really contemplate the subject, you come to the conclusion that peace of mind might be not having to keep track of anything.   Many of us dream of casting it all off and going sailing....talk about keeping track of stuff .... sailing around the place on a permanent basis is work! .....it's a myriad of permutations and combinations of critical details! ......wind, weather, communications, navigation, boat maintenance, engines, electronics, customs, big ships around you, waves, charts, waypoints, radio frequencies, tariffs, currents, unfriendly peoples and officials, money, radio protocol, family obligations, this list goes on and on and on and we've 'chucked it all to go sailing'?   In our case, we still haven't left .......I've developed some health issues that unfortunately for the time being I need keep track of ........................take care my friends.........

Disappointment, promises, and blues....

This blog has been around for a year or so and I've made these illustrious promises of taking you on a Caribbean adventure....I was supposed to leave months ago....but I am still here....! Don't abandon me my friends....I promise that I will take you that I WILL embark on the journey and will take you with me .... soon............!

You just thought that I went away........!

No......I'm here.......I've missed you all. There's been alot going on in my world in the last couple of months but unfortunately none of it is interesting and not "blog worthy".  Last Thursday July 14, 2012 was somewhat of a landmark day for me.....on that day I sold the last piece of my old life and now own nothing but my boat and a few clothes and my old truck......feels good!! REAL GOOD!
The plan to be outta here and start cruising by Spring 2012 has not happened. I'm still in Seabrook, Texas trying to get the boat ready. Now that hurricane season here, we will not be able to leave until after the first of the year........probably February or March 2013......just a year behind schedule....not too bad....really. Nobody ever leaves for cruising on schedule the first time out. That we are still going is what matters.
The teak deck is all off  and the hundreds of screw holes have been filled with epoxy and the deck has been pretty well prepped for the new non-skid paint and guess what?? The company from whom I purchased the first batch of the DOVE GRAY non-skid paint that I was so happy with has gone out of business!! They have dropped off the planet....no website, no email, no phone number......AW CRAP! if you know what I mean. In retrospect, I think that they were probably a reseller of the paint. They most likely purchased it from the manufacturer in big batches and re-packaged it in quarts and gallons for the recreational market.....I think!! So now my quest is to find that manufacturer if there is one and try to secure some paint......if that doesn't happen, I will have to redo those parts of the deck that are already done with whatever new non-skid paint that I find. AARRGHHH!! 
Y'all take care.....Next blog will have some pics..........seeya

Frustration, Aggravation, and the IRS.......

Hello my friends- Its been a while since we've talked. The last few weeks have been hectic. I picked up six weeks of extra work that took up alot of my time and so no blogs from me for a few weeks now.    The wi-fi signal in my marina is soooooo weak that its virtually useless. So my blogging has suffered from that as well. I haven't forgot about you though and think of you often.
Well its Spring 2012 and my plans to leave for Florida and the Bahamas are frustrated once more. The boat is not ready yet . I'm not ready to leave yet and Tana is not ready!  Its been said many times...... "the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry."  The IRS got a hunko my cruising fund on April 17th so now I have to work another few months to replenish the cruising shekels! Oh well, overcoming frustration and setbacks builds character. Doesn't it? 
The teak deck removal project on ZOSHA has been totally on hold  for the last six weeks while I was working extra but I started back on the project a couple of days ago right before the thunderstorms moved in........!! today is beautiful so am going to get started on the foredeck as soon as I finish this.
My next blog will have pictures of the progress  on the re-decking.
Y'all have a great day.........seeya soon.................

Open the BOX!!!

You know all the Shrinks say that its a normal emotion.....?
"What? what? what?" you say. "Whats this yahoo talking about now?"
The feelings of despair we get when we know that we lack something that we wish we had. Those feelings we internalize when we finally come to the conclusion that we are inadequate at something that we wish to be good at..............and then we finally realize that we could live as long Methuselah and that we would never acquire this thing that we wish that we possessed.  For me....its musical talent. I am totally devoid in any form of musical competence..........I'm tone deaf, can't carry a tune, suck at humming, can't remember or understand the words of most songs........I'm just a musical KLUTZ! Tana on the other hand sings like an angel! Actually, at one time, she was a performing professional musician and played venues with allot of biggies like Willie Nelson and Bob Hope and Dean Martin and Kristopherson and Captain and Tenile and the Cowsills and Soupy Sales.....I really don't know all the details but she sometimes talks about partying with Willie in his tour bus at the Houston Rodeo..............although she doesn't really tell me much..........anyways that's another story!
So how do I compensate for my lack of musical acumen? Well..........I'll tell ya......I listen to music and  appreciate and respect the marvelous talent of others.
"OK....good for you" you are thinking...."where is this going?"....you wonder.
We all have Internet access now.......I presume. Even our cruising comrades in the far reaches of the Bahamas and the Sea of Cortez and Mazatlan and Roatan and Belize and the Windward and Leewards now have Internet access. With the new generation of wi-fi boosters we can piggyback off of shore side wi-fi or off  the connection on multi million dollar yachts that are anchored downwind.
"OK Mr. 'IT' SO WHAT".....you're thinking. I'm thinking one of the greatest Internet inventions ever!!!
 PANDORA FREE INTERNET RADIO!! If you haven't already done so, check it out and if you really like it sign up for the premium version. Its only $36 per year. I've been giving the premium version as gifts............you don't need me to tell you how to find it online. Once you get there, you can play around and decide for yourself it this isn't the greatest music venue on radio and while you're there check out the music that these guys make: Walter Trout, Friends of Dean Martinez, Dick Dale, The Blue Hawaiians, Norman Blake, Peter Green, Calexio, and The Pizza Tapes by Jerry Garcia, David Grisman, and Tony Rice. If you're a music person, you should have many hours of fun on this site.
Seeya.................take care my friends

Dinner, Speed, and Disappointment

Every now and then we all get it I suppose.........what? you ask!!!  BLOGGER's BLOCK!! the inability to create something for your blog entry. Well I've got it. Trying to get rid of it but it's lingering....Well! lets see............haven't got any work done on ZOSHA for about a week.....the weather hasn't been cooperating......raining every day.....hopefully this weekend will be nice......Oh....ho-hum.  OK...how about this........Tana is really really disappointed today. Why?  I'll tellya.......about six weeks ago we were at a boating thing at a brokerage company and ran into an old friend of mine whom I hadn't seen in a few months. While BSing with my old buddy, he invited us to a party at his house on March 21, 2012 which is today. He said that we could meet Bob Bitchin who was going to be there........well let me tellya I thought Tana was gonna have a BIG O right there!  "Bob Bitchin!!!! OMG my dream man" she exclaimed..."Oh I can't wait." And it has been like this for the last six weeks. Almost every day she asks if I RSVP'd the date with my friend. She absolutely could not wait to shake ole' Bob's hand and visit with him and get her copy of Letters From the Lost Soul autographed by Mr. Bitchin himself. My friend's sweet wife emailed me this afternoon and.............you know where I'm going here don't you?.....yes, you guessed it........Bob won't be there! He got stuck in California and will miss the party tonight. Well Tana was devastated when I dropped this bomb on her!! She told me that she is going to stay late at work tonight so she will have something to keep her mind from her abject disappointment. "Why come home?"  she asked.
"Uhhh you gotta a cat here" 
"Oh its not the same not meeting Bob Bitchin! Life sucks" she bemoaned.
"We all gotta deal with life's disappointments" was my retort. "I never got my Vette or my 43' CABO Sportfish."
"Yeah I guess" said she.
On the sailing side of things......today I was surfing around the Internet and in between checking out the weather in the Caribbean, dropping in on my favorite cruising blogs, and looking for recipes for something different for dinner, I stumbled across a site that chronicled some boat speed records.
Check this out!!!!
1. Fastest 24 hour run in a sailboat:  Banque Populaire V -131' trimaran......908.2  miles !
2. Fastest all out speed in a sailboat: L'Hydroptere -  60' trimaran.....59.33 MPH!
3. Fastest circumnavigation: Banque Populaire V- 131' trimaran......45 days 13 hours  42 minutes!
4. Fastest monohull:  Mari-Cha IV- 140'........37.366 MPH
5. Fastest 24 hour run in monohull:  Ericsson-70'...........596.6 miles.....average speed....24.86 MPH
6. Fastest circumnavigation monohull: Fonica- 84'........84 days...average speed 12.41 MPH
7. Slowest circumnavigation monohull: SVZOSHA.....TBD
As for dinner??? still don't know what to fix tonight? I think I'll check in with Steve and LuLu at yodersafloat........they are always fixing sumptin' good.
Take care my friends..............seeya

Forum A-Holes..................

Is it me? In my vintage years have I morphed into a defensive, critical old fart? Hope not! let me start from the beginning: I subscribe to a number of online sailing forums as many of you probably do too. Alot of this information is useful, valuable, and well intentioned..however.....sometimes..... you encounter the "Know It All Forum A-Hole" who finds some kind of sick pleasure in attacking. A coupla of weeks ago I sent a query into one of these sailing forms asking if anyone knew the cost of bottled water in the Bahamas.....I didn't go into the fact that I can't afford a water maker and that I would have to supplement my meager H2O tanks with either jugged or bottled water.....all I did was post a inquiry....Well, the first reply was something to the affect that "people like you make me sick....trashing our environment with plastic bottles and polluting our beaches and waterways .....yada....yada...ya" this guy rambles on! Whats this all about? I thought. I'm a card carrying environmentalist.....I don't pollute.....I pick up other peoples crap!  Anyways, Only one guy answered the question. The other dozen or so counseled me on how I am not doing this right and I should do this or that...... Oh by the way ...the guy who led the attack....is a power boater on a 46' or 48' Defever which probably burns 20 gallons an hour at cruise......and adds unmeasurable fuel to atmospheric pollution as well as helping deplete oil reserves at an accelerated rate.....that boat is a seagoing Hummer I...........so much for this guys contribution to a green planet.  Ah well-I blew this off and probably won't do much with this forum. Down the road a ways, I'm on another one of these forums and some guy is blabbering about how my boat the Westsail 28 is the second worst designed boat in naval architecture!!!! and that it really was not designed by a naval architect at all. It was carved out of a Westsail 32 mold.....supposedly Westsail just cut 4 feet from the center of the W32 mold and stuck it all back together and Walla!! the W28 is born.  He didn't get into explaining how the differences in beam, draft, sheerline, etc came about!  Just another example of how anybody can put anything on the Internet. But I'm sure there are people out there repeating this nonsense. A number of the W28's have circumnavigated and many others have completed substantial offshore voyages....so if you hear this story about the W28, don't believe it......it's "Forum Know-It-All" drivel.  Oh! you wanna know according to this guy what the #1 worst designed boat is?  According to him its a MacGregor 26........hmmm.....I seem to recall a lady down in the Florida Keys who sails a MacG 26 all over the place......Marquesas, Dry Tortugas, offshore in the Gulf Stream and has video of these trips all over You Tube and, to me, the boat looks to be doing great......but then again I'm not a Forum Expert.......

SVZOSHA

Second worse boat design in history my A__ __!!! 
Take care my friends.........

Old Habits......

Old habits....!  Hard to break arent't they?   Some are very hard and almost impossible to dump. Just today while driving down the street headin' to the boat, it came to me that I needed some 80 grit wet/dry for the re-non-skid job on ZOSHA.....no big deal.... without thinking.....guess where my trusty F-150 automatically turned?   Into WEST MARINE.....still unthinking like a zombie  in a movie, I walked in found the sandpaper shelf picked up what I needed and looked at the price....$3.99 !!!!!! NOW!! that got my attention !! Four bucks for one piece of sandpaper.....you guys gotta be friggin' kiddin' me!!! No wonder West Marine  has had a 66% increase in the value of their stock since October 2011, $7.01 vs $11.62 as of today. ... Anyways I didn't buy the sandpaper but went ahead and looked at some plastic syringes for injecting epoxy into the screw holes on ZOSHA'S decks after the teak comes off, six bucks for three, oh yeah...I checked out some 5/16" galvanized proof coil anchor chain, $4.20 per foot!....so I walked out the door and hightailed it to the local hardware emporium about 5 minutes away and bought the sandpaper for $1.30 a sheet, got the epoxy syringes for $1.52 each and checked out their galvanized anchor chain at $2.52 per foot. Will I never learn? Two life lessons here: #1. When my wallet starts twitchin' at West Marine.....LEAVE NOW! and
#2.  Next time their stock gets around $7.00 or $8.00 I'm gonna buy some.  Oh the hypocrisy !!
I am truly ashamed......
Take care my friends.....thanks for reading my blog....seeya

"Lets keep looking for the light"......hmmm...hmm...hmmm....

Remember the old Jimmy Buffet song about the Poet and his ole' hound Spooner? .....and how after the poet died and left all his money to Spooner..........Spooner lived "on steak and bacon in doghouse ten feet round"......great song ...one of my all time JB ballads.......You know what happens when you live on steak and bacon dontcha?.....you get fat....your butt gets wrinkles.....you get lazy....you wear your fat-pants all the time.....well, this kinda describes my world right now...only difference is no one left me any money....and the "steak and bacon" part is of course a  metaphor for copious amounts of the old brewski and my "doghouse" is a situation where I am not making any substantial progress on ZOSHA towards getting outta here.....fat pants are fat pants.........AARRGHHH!!! Yeah I know its winter, its rainy, you can't work epoxy in the cold, the dog ate my wiring diagram, and some one took my bottom paint and..and..and yeah...Tana....where did you put that varnish brush? can't find it!! .....if I had a lawn.....you betcha I'd be out there yellin' at that those neighborhood kids to get offa it.......See what happens to a person suffering from Sun Deprivation?.........I think I'm going to que up on the
 I Pod player that all time favorite song of everyone sung by the awesome artist  Maureen McGovern from the epic film The Posiedian Adventure ..........The Morning After.......lets all hum it together readers.....................

This is Sophia.....my GD.....she's hummin' along.....cmon' everybody.....

"there is a morning after....hmmmmm....can't you see the light....hmmm...lets cross the bridge together.....hmm...hm..hm...we're moving closer to the shore....hmm..hmmm".......... AHH! I feel better..don't you....OH YEAH! man this is great isn't it??.......I'm revitalized  aren't you??.....I'm Invincible!!!  Bahamas here we come!.....Que tal Puerto Rico......St. Johns stand back!....look out BVI's!  ......get back Genedines! ZOSHA is on her way..........Just found out that Ms. McGoveren is re-releasing the song this year....lets keep that in mind for all the gifts that we have to buy in 2012.........you guys take care.....I'm gonna go play it again...............ABC's "you're mine"....................seeya.......

Correction to my previous blog.....sorry!!

The CUT OFF DATE  for entries to the 2012 Singlehanded Trans Pacific Race is May 1, 2012  NOT 2010!! .....Sorry..........seeya my friends..........take care.........

When do they stop being boats....???

Yesterday, there it was....just laying there in my PO Box waiting for me to pick it up, take it home, and eagerly tear thru its pages of nautical wonderment and expert sailing advice from a plethora of its staff  of world renown nautical pundits....Yes, you guessed it it is the March 2012 #1 Sailing Magazine in the WORLD....now that  is their editor's boast not mine but I'll take em' for their word.  Actually, in my opinion, this mag is becoming more and more like a monthly sales brochure for yacht brokers and boat builders than a real sailing magazine.....this months boat that we all must have has a spacious
U-shaped dinette in the cockpit that seats 6-8 people...WOW!....it has a hydraulic platform on the stern that lowers into the water to serve as a dingy dock/swim platform...WOW..WOW!...it has it has a spiral staircase up from the cockpit to a fly bridge where the "skippers business" can be performed...."skippers business??"...spiral staircase!!...DOUBLE WOW X 2!.....it has a "penthouse living room" with large L-shaped galley with a dishwasher, full size refrigerator/freezer, sole to ceiling wine rack, 32" flat screen TV on the bulkhead facing a settee than can seat 8 with a dinette table that lowers into a coffee table...TRIPLE WOW X 4!....it has 4 four staterooms each with its own head and shower.......GOGGLE WOW!!  Oh yes, there were 17 sentences in this feature article that mentioned that this was a sailboat and it had electric winches, a carbon fiber wheel, and a square-top main and there were mesh fronted boxes to stow sheet tails.....I wonder if the author really knows what a sheet tail is?? Oh Yeah...the article also mentioned the boat can get 6.5-7 knots @2000 RPM burning 1.3 gallons per hour on one engine......8 knots at @2200 RPM with both engines running.....Man what a boat.....right? this monstrosity is a sailboat isn't it?.....it has to be....it's in a sailing magazine....It never ceases to amaze me what a person can buy for $1,640,000.00......!!!!
In a couple of months, June 30, 2012 to be exact, the 18th Singlehanded Biennial Trans-Pacific Race from San Francisco, California to Hanalei Bay, Kauai, Hawaii will start. This race is 2120 nautical miles across the Pacific Ocean...ALONE!!! and is sponsored by the Singlehanded Sailing Society.
I thought that you might like an introduction to the boats who are signed up for this event as of the date of this blog:
Pearson Triton 28' -Darwind;  Crowther Catamaran 33'-Rainbow;   Ericson 27'- Little Bo Peep; Westsail 32'-Tortuga;   PJ 50'-Scaramouche V;   Express 27'-TAZ;   Open 50'-Truth;
Cal 40'-Green Buffalo;   Moore 24'-US101;   Moore 24'-Rushmore;   Wyliecat 30'-Bandiloot;
Nauticat 44'-Galaxsea;   Finn Flyer 30'-Harrier;   Tartan 10, 33'-Slacker.  A couple of things to take note of here: 1. This is REAL sailing,  2. These are real sailors,  3. Notice how many of the entrants are under 30 feet LOA, 4. Notice how many of the entrants are 40 feet LOA or longer, 5. Its probably a safe bet to wager that there is not a spiral staircase, sole to ceiling wine rack, dishwasher, vibrating settee for 8 or walk-in refrigerator freezer in the entire fleet!!  But then again the cut-off for entries is May 1, 2012...............the sun is finally out today so I'm gonna go down to ZOSHA and ........pound a few brews...its Sunday!!!
Take care my friends.............................

Don't Tread On Me....Part 2 1/2..

Its been raining for days....not hard or pouring just enough to screw up any plans to do boat work...tomorrow it's supposed to rain pretty good and then Sunday is purportedly going to be sunny....so maybe that will be the day that we can move forward with this re-nonskid project.
Last time I showed you'all the teak removal process.....remember all that "pound and pry" business. Today lets take a look at whats under that teak.....you guessed it....screw holes, copious amounts of caulk in various stages of its life cycle, dirt, mold, water!!, and little insect-type creatures...yep..some kinda itty bitty little bugs....not termites or ants...I don't know?? Its all a mess though...take a look:

There was water under most of the decking. It hadn't rained for quite awhile when this portion of the cockpit teak was removed. The backside of alot of the teak was saturated ......I'll get some pics on the next section that going to be removed.

Don't know why some of these pics came out black and white instead of color???

The caulk in some places is pretty thick and in other it is non-existent....no caulk at all? On my boat the caulkers did a haphazard job when laying the teak; however, so far there has been NO water penetration into the plywood core that I can find, Hallelujah....so maybe they knew what they were doing

The hard part of this whole job is cleaning and prepping the fiberglass decks for the non-skid paint....actually it's not hard at all....just tedious and very time consuming.....scraping that caulk off the deck and out from in between the thousand little grooves in the fiberglass non-skid...whatcha do is assume a zen attitude, don't think of the magnitude of the project...go after it a small section at a time and when you get fed up with the whole process..........QUIT!! for the day....grab a brew and visualize your new decks.

This little section took about 30 or 40 minutes to get to the stage where it will only take about another 10 or so minutes to get it ready for the paint.....its not done yet...but almost.....next time I will have better photos and show you the tools that I use and kinda walk you through the whole process again.....weather permitting....until then...........

Take care my friends.....don't forget to hug your loved ones today.....matter of fact, I'm gonna go hug Tanababy right now........seeya

PFD's...check, Flares....check, VHF...check, MOB...check, GPS...check, Running Lights...check, Junk Drawer...check!

Radio Free Darryl and Captain Thirsty have been on a rant again.....if you recall they were introduced to you all in the ZOSHAS WAKE entry of October 6, 2011.. you might remember that they had some interesting thoughts on how the Russians are controlling the world's weather with Nikola Tesla's secret weather machine that he developed for the Nazi's as a secret weapon in WWII and was confiscated by the Russians at the end of the War when they took control of Berlin.  Anyways, RFD and CT are ranting because the weather here of late has been horrible, rainy, cold, wet.....not conducive to boat work....or any other activity especially for liveaboards ......we hole up down below till it blows thru....often going a little "stir crazy"....as a result there is nothing new to report on ZOSHA'S deck re-non-skid project so I thought that maybe you guys would appreciate some comments on junk drawers. As long as I can remember, in every place that I have ever lived as a child, adolescent, or adult we, my family, or I always had a junk drawer. This drawer served as the repository for all matter of stuff....old screws, rubber bands, batteries, miscellaneous tools, gizmo's, whatchamacallits, doohickeys, thingamajigs, brackets, magnets, fishhooks, old candy, broken things, church keys, marbles, holy cards, springs, nails, pocketknives, etc., etc, etc. It was always  jammed full of goodies and packed to the very brim. More often than not it was hard to get open and shut because there was always so much stuff crammed in there. If you were like me, you never really remembered where all this stuff came from. Sometimes in a moment of  well intentioned orderliness you,  we, decide to organize the junk drawer and get rid of all the crap that we don't need.....RIGHT!!  So we  start out by making little piles of stuff: pile #1 is the good stuff that is going back into the drawer,  pile #2 is the kinda good stuff that we might want to keep,  pile #3 is the stuff we are not sure about yet as to what we are going to do with, and pile #4 is the stuff we are tossing away.  As we work through our treasures more and more stuff is taken out of pile #4 and put back into either #1, #2, or #3.....so after about an hour of screwing with all this stuff, we just say....."Aah, I'll do this later"  and dig down into the trash to recover those valuables that we did toss away and throw everything back into the junk drawer push it shut and grab a brew.  Does this sound familiar to you?? Man!! those big junk drawers are nice.....but now we are liveaboards and you all know that even quite large boats usually have little drawers and little boats like ZOSHA have minuscule drawers!!.... so what do we do for our sacred junk drawer? Its a dilemma all right!
In a house these junk drawers are often very useful and handy but on a boat a proper junk drawer can often mean the difference between life and death.....survival or not.....WHAT???  you say???  yes....listen to me .....boats are very complicated creations....some are engineering marvels....they are full of all kinds of paraphernalia that require specialized emblements to operate effectively. What happens when one of these things break and we don't know where to turn?  Where do we go ....you know it....eventually we end up at the junk drawer....looking for that odd piece of whatever that will fix our problem. My premise is that Junk Drawers are a critical piece of safety equipment for all boaters. It is impossible to try and purchase one of everything and keep it tucked away in the event that you might need it one day....most of us don't have the dinero to pull this off.....so we randomly replenish our junk drawers when the opportunity presents itself. Nothing wrong with that.
On ZOSHA there is no junk drawer........"Oh the hypocrisy" you say!!!  No ,No wait a second.......
What I do have is even better than a drawer.....I have a super dooper professional throw down Official Bassmaster Approved tackle box that serves as my vessel's junk drawer. You could live outta this thing. Its got drawers and bins and boxes and sliding compartments and trays and secret niches..... its a portable junk drawer on steroids. This thing is terrific; however, it does have an inherent dilemma attached......"how in the heck do you fill it up?"  When a little 1", #6, ss self-tapping flat head is twenty cents and a tiny ss hose clamp is over a buck at West Marine.....a person could spend untold amounts of the green stuff to properly stock a junk receptacle of this magnitude!  My answer is to become a scrounger.......my huny-bunny and I visit the local boatyards on Sundays or on Special Days like her birthday or today, Valentine's Day and walk the yard looking down scrutinizing.....  we find all kinds of treasures.....perfectly good stainless screws, lock nuts, fender washers, bolts, bronze screws and nuts and fittings, perfectly good hose clamps, all kinds of stuff.....we pick all this good stuff  up and it disappears into the junk drawer/Official Bassmaster Tacklebox to await the day when this obscure little item will save the day and complete the cycle and fulfill its manifest destiny.
Take care my friends..........Happy Valentine's Day........seeya

Don't Tread On Me....Part 2

Hello Everyone....hope your day is going well......OK..........Its time to demolish!!!!!

The first mistake that I made when starting to remove the teak overlay from my decks was trying to be gentle and first knock out the bungs and back out all the screws...........BOY!!!! was this a fantasy!!!!
First of all the bungs that don't come right out are in solid and require drilling and scraping out in pieces...a VERY time consuming process and when you finally get the screw head, they are almost invariably filled with some kind of solidified substance that prevents you from getting the screw bit into the grooves....so you try and force it and end up stripping the head...........a real pain in the ole' buttocks.....here's what you do....FIRST: determine what area you are removing....my advice is to divide up the project in manageable segments. On ZOSHA the first area was the lazzarette hatch and little aft deck.....the second segment was the entire cockpit .......the third is the port and starboard side decks ....the fourth and last will be the foredeck.....#3 and #4 have yet to be done on ZOSHA.

SECOND:  Examine the wood in the area that you are going to remove and back out all the easily accessible screws.....in my project, probably 1/4 of the screws could be backed out at this point ....on ZOSHA these screws were mostly 1", #6 self-tapping stainless steel pan heads.....these things are about 20 cents apiece at West Marine so save as many as you can. Once you have removed all the easy screws......get you circular saw.................yes I said CIRCULAR SAW!!!!!!  set the blade depth to almost the thickness of the teak and begin scoring the teak any which way you can. Watch Out for screws under the bungs- be observant here!!!  The more small segments you can carve out, the easier the removal process will be. See Photo #1

      

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THIRD:  Make sure you have a hefty pry bar......don't do what I did....start with a little wimpy 10 inch baby bar......trying to be gentle....see photo #2.......that little pry bar is cute but worthless.....totally worthless!!! Get a big pry bar.....the one I ended up getting was the 18" at Home Depot......$11.95....I think. OK...once the teak is scored, pick a starting point and  hammer the pry bar under the teak and PRY!!!!!  The wood will come up....sometimes easy and sometimes not. If you are on a screw.....PRY!!! the wood will pull through the screw and you can back it out later. What you will probably find with all this prying is that the wood is saturated underneath and will pull thru the screw very easily.  Sometimes the screw will pull out of the deck.....check these holes carefully for water penetration.......most of the screws that you pry thru remain secured screwed into the deck.....this is a good sign that your deck is solid.....in my entire cockpit there were dozens of screws holding the teak down but only one pulled out of the deck.....in all the other cases, the screw remained solid in the deck and pulled through the wood. To me, this was the FUN part...........see photos #3- #6:

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You'll get the idea now-just work your way thru all the teak hammer, pry, hammer pry...DA DA DA DA.....and before you know it, all the teak is gone and you are now looking at one of the biggest friggin' messes that you could ever comprehend and begin to TOTALLY REGRET what you have started.....this is where we will begin next time.....Good hammerin' and pryin' to you all.... Seeya

What comes first an "OLD DUFFER", an "OLD FART" or an "OLD GEEZER" ???

Hello everybody.....well, the day has finally come and gone. Yesterday was my birthday  February 3, 2012 and was the first day of my 65th year....OMG!!! Can't believe it!! We all remember, like it was yesterday, when we thought people this old were ancient, artifacts!!!.....but that all changes when you get to the point in your life when you have more years behind you than ahead of you. You acquire a new perspective on things......Heck, 65 that's not old.....60 is the new 40 right?....so 65 is the new 45.....YooHoo!! Didn't the ancient Greeks believe that youth ended at 80 years old??  OPA!!!  Einstein said the "time is an illusion"......Yeah! Yeah!.....Its Ok......my heart is young and pure.....excuse me for a minute.........................."quiet Tana its not funny!!"..............OK, I'm back.....
Got up this morning feeling great.....went into the bathroom to take a look in the mirror on this auspicious day........and you know who was staring back at me.................?

Have a great day my friends.................until next time..................

SEEYA

Don't Tread On Me.....Part 1

A few years ago when my heart went flippity flop over ZOSHA, right from the beginning of our relationship, I knew that there were ISSUES that had to be addressed.....but, being in love, they were overlooked at the time. Now the time has come to attempt to fix the flaws in her beautiful countenance.
When new, ZOSHA was given a magnificent teak deck. It must have been beautiful. Back in those days, the 1970's, boat builders like Westsail used real teak lumber not the 5/16" veneer crap they put on these new boats. The teak on the ZOSHA's decks is ............thick!  Somewhere along the line since 1978 those beautiful decks were terribly abused and/or neglected. They were scrubbed hard parallel to the grain! And you know what happens when one does this.....you scrub out the soft grain of the teak and gouge out long, deep grooves that get deeper and deeper over time....they collect water and dirt and mold and mildew and the bungs start popping and the more it gets scrubbed, the worse it gets. Its like scratching impetigo when you were a kid.....when ZOSHA came to my care, the decks were trashed....they were unsalvageable....half the bungs were popped and there no wood left to redo the bung job....the caulk between the seams was sticking up 1/8" above the wood itself and was breaking off and littering the decks with little black caulk pieces.....water was getting under the teak and bubbling up when you walked on a wet deck....making that squishy sound that you hear when walking on something really saturated with liquid. I knew all this and bought her anyways!!!
My intent, here, in the next few blogs is to document the metamorphosis of ZOSHAS decks.

Here she is waiting patiently in her slip for me to fix her............

Here is a shot of the teak decking on the port side cockpit......not pretty is it?........what a shame!!!

This view is of the starboard side cockpit.........makes you wanna cry doesn't it?........

This is a view of the foredeck.....its real squishy here........!!!

Well....these pics  will give you an idea of what the decks looked like when the project begins.....next time I'll get into the removal process.......until then....be safe....hug your kids and grandkids....call your loved ones that you haven't talked to in a while....and pop a Corona for me if you are so inclined....

Seeya........... 

Back to boat ownership reality.......Oh the fun!!

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Hope you'all doing well-its been rainy here for a couple of days but it looks like its going to clear up and we'll have a nice weekend.......some of you might remember me commenting on my rotted sea hood and how it had to be rebuilt..? Well its done, finally, so I thought that I'd do the before and after photos. If you look at the first photo, its so obvious that this hood has been rotted for a long time...unfortunately for me the jack-leg marine surveyor that I hired totally missed this glaring defect along with ALOT of other things. In retrospect, I'm sure that he and the other other jack-leg involved, the yacht broker, were in cahoots. I won't mention names but if anyone is interested contact me off this forum and I will be happy to tell who these guys are. Take a look at Photo #1. What a mess! The plywood core under the teak overlay was mush......I didn't know that teak could rot but some of the teak strips were dry rotted and basically sawdust-I totally dismantled the sea hood and thankfully could salvage the frame. Photo #2 shows partway into the rebuilding process. Photo #3 shows the project pretty much done and ready to finish and make look nice. I decided not to go back with teak strips over ply but to construct a laminate of 1/8 inch epoxy impregnated masonite peg board sheathed in epoxied mat and cloth. There are four alternating layers of cloth/mat/wood in the buildup. Its pretty much bulletproof.

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Just as I was about to put it all back together, on a whim I decided to peel off some Formica trim on the inside of the sliding hatch just to check it ........guess what ? ....you know it.....rotted as the bicuspids on an Eastern European hillbilly...so now the sliding hatch had to be redone.....fortunately there was some solid wood left and it wasn't such a major ordeal. Photo #4 after it was cleaned up so you can't see the magnitude of the rot.

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Finally it's done and reassembled, good as new, probably better than new, looks real good, Photo #5.  I finished the top of the sea hood and sliding hatch with the same nonskid paint that is going on the decks after I get all the teak off.......But that's another story.......

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Our target time to leave, Spring 2012, is fast approaching. I am moving aboard at the end of next month.....got just a few more personal belongings to get rid of....but there is a humongous amount of work still to be done with the teak deck removal and re-nonskid of the decks. Oh well-it will get done.

You guys take care and be well. I wish you all the best for the new year and wholeheartedly hope that all of your aspirations for 2012 come to be.

Take care my friends................................Seeya...........

Starting off the New Year well.....hope you are too....

HELLO MY FRIENDS- I've missed you! WOW!  2012!!  This ole' boy, here, has been trying to go cruising since 1983.....you would have thought that the gauntlet would have been thrown in by now.....my mother, bless her sweet now in heaven heart, was stubborn and hard headed.....and you know what they say...right?....."the fruit never falls far from the tree."........this is the year though.....it has to be....I'm running out of time. In two weeks I will be 65 years old...an OFFICIAL GEEZER.....got my Medicare Card the other day......Thankfully, I'm still strong and in relatively good health. Thank the powers to be for Corona, Diovan, Metoprolol, and Cialis!  But, actually there is no reason why I could not cruise for many years; except, according to this months sailing pundit in the number one consumer sailing mag in the U.S. , my boat is all wrong....first of all its too small.....Zosha is a Westsail 28. This GURU OF THE SEAS.....he's got to be 'cause his blabber is the feature article in the #1 sailing mag for February 2012 has all but doomed me to failure.  According to this expert sailor, cruiser, and delivery captain extraordinaire, I need  or, if you will? we need: ....now get this either a C&C 41 or a Swan 46 or a Hylas 56 or a Beneteau Oceanis 53 or a Catalina 445 or a Jeanneau 439 or a Hunter 50 AC or a Lagoon 450 or a Fountaine Pajot 41 or a Leopard 46.....there's more....we must have electric winches for all sails....chart plotters with repeaters......100 gallon per hour water maker......hot water for the showers.....center line head.......OK OK OK......yeah this is all nice....and as I've said before in this blog.....I'd go for it inna minute. BUT being 'sparse of purse' ....this is all out of the question.  I know that this guy is just another bucks up yachtie who assumes that we all are equally bucky, $,  too.... My axe to grind here is the influence that this so called expert Ya Hoo  has on new sailors .....newbies with limited funds but unlimited cruising dreams.....this kinda of crap is going to drive them away....discourage them before they even get started...... I was fortunate that my first sailing influences so many decades ago were Lynn and Larry Pardey and Wayne Carpenter and John Guzzwell and Robin Lee Graham. These are truly sailors extraordinaire who have completed monumental voyages in boats all around 30 feet or less LOA.  The greatest of all are probably the Pardeys because they are still out there sailing  the world in their 30' wooden, engine less boat.
Lets look at some facts......The Joshua Slocum Society International was created in 1955 to record, encourage, and support long distance passage making in small boats and to keep accounts of the adventures of small boat sailors. According to their website,  67 solo circumnavigators have been inducted into the Society as of March 2008.   Now this is remarkable:   58.2% or 39 boats were 35' LOA or less, 34.3% of these boats were 30' LOA or less, 15% or 10 boats were 28' LOA or less, and 13.4% or 9 boats  were 25' LOA or less. The smallest boat was John Guzzwell's TREKKA  at 20'6" LOA !   The four largest boats on the list are 85' , 70', 60' , and 53' LOA.  One last stat for you all: the average LOA of all the boats is 36.5' ! The Joshua Slocum Society is no longer. It was officially disbanded in June 2011. The website is being maintained for historical reasons. Go take a look.
For those of you that don't know, Joshua Slocum was the first person to circumnavigate the globe single handed. He completed a 3 year, 46,000 mile circumnavigation in his 36.75' LOA yawl SPRAY in 1898. He was around 54 years of age when he completed the three year voyage.
Sure those big, beautiful, comfy, expensive sailing machines are nice. But if you are as I....big on dreams short on cash, don't give up....there are wonderful, safe, comfortable, affordable small voyagers out there just waiting for you to come along and fulfill the cruising destiny of you both.
Keep the faith my friends....take care..