2019-04-09 Some History Before We Leave

Hey Everyone,

Well we are coming down to the last things to do before we leave. We are hoping to be leaving on the last weekend in April although we have left everything somewhat flexible so that we can stay into May if we decide we need to.  

For those of you who don’t know our plan, we plan to head north along the coast of BC taking our time exploring the many inlets and fjords.  We will either spend a whole year on the coast before heading south, or head south this fall.  When we turn south we plan to sail to Mexico and then probably sail our way down the coast of Central America before making the crossing to Easter Island.  We will cross the South Pacific following the many Islands along the way including French Polynesia.  We plan to spend the hurricane season in New Zealand and then continue on to Australia before heading North towards Japan, and then back around to Alaska and back to BC.

Since purchasing the Red Witch in 2012 Jason and I have personally completed countless upgrades to her, both practical and cosmetic.  She has transformed from a bare bones hull to a ready-to-go cruising sailboat.  

Some of the more notable projects include:

-- Insulation

When we were first starting with projects on the boat we took the time to remove old carpet from the hull and insulate.  We are very glad that we did take the time to insulate the hull as it keeps everything much dryer in the winter months.  We did a three-layer system of reflectix, closed cell foam, and reflectix before covering everything in teak.  We found a guy who had lots of awesome old teak, and we went out and milled it with him. We then routered it ourselves and installed it.  

 

 The Red Witch pretty much as she was when we purchased her. Everything was white with carpet on some of the walls.

 

We cleaned out everything, removed the carpet and cleaned up the glue that was on the fiberglass.  We also sanded down all of the teak.

We used a three layer insulation system, reflectix, 1/2" closed cell foam, and another layer of reflectix which is basically foil covered bubble wrap.  We built ribs up the hull for attaching our teak.

Installing the teak.

Voila!!

-- Fireplace

Our wood burning fireplace is our prize possession during the winter.  A gift from Jason’s parents; we installed it early on, and have enjoyed it every winter since.  We got heat shielding fabricated and installed it around the fireplace before mounting it securely and installing the 4” chimney.   

 The first piece of heat shielding. There used to be a cushion here so we had to cut and modify it.

 Yay the heat shield is in and we are ready to install the fireplace.

 We love you fireplace!

 First Fire!!

-- Designing and building a custom pull-out fridge fit to the shape of the hull.

Starting with a plywood mold, we made a fiberglass interior of the fridge, we constructed a plywood exterior four inches bigger in all directions and suspended the fiberglass inner part.  We mixed two part pour-in-place foam, and poured it in to fill the gap.  We then covered the whole thing in fiberglass and painted it before installing it on industrial grade sliders and installing fridge baskets.  We installed a swing-arm compressor and cold plate.  We then constructed a lid once again using fiberglass and pour-in-place closed cell foam for four inches of insulation.  We cut out our desired opening and hinged the middle with a piano hinge before sealing the main part of the lid to the top of the fridge. A red laminate counter top above where the fridge stows, and some teak trim and access doors around where the compressor lives, brought the whole project together.

Pouring our two part pour-in-place foam.  The fiberglass inside to the fridge is in the inside, and the plywood fiberglass tabbed box is on the outside.  There is 4" around all sides of the inner box for the foam insulation.

The foam is all trimmed up, the top edges that we left open to pour the foam are all closed in with fiberglass and we are painting the entire thing. 

The fridge box is in place and on its sliders, and I am taking a nice relaxing fridge bath. :)

Cold plate is installed with the compressor inside the box that is mounted on the outside of the fridge, so that it will slide in and out as we move the fridge.  We also put in baskets for condiments and vegetables on the sloping part of the fridge.

Making the top to the fridge with the cut out pieces for the lid.

Our lid

Notice how it is cut on an angle so that it sits itself tightly.  We also put a gasket around the flat flange of the teak plywood to improve the seal.

Fridge is in!

The counter top is over the fridge when it is slid back against the hull.  We also built dishes storage and an area for books.

-- Cockpit porthole

In one of the walls to our cockpit there used to be a terrible old repair job from a couple of old engine gauges.  They were cracking and needed repair.  A friend gave us a beautiful porthole and suggested that we install it for added light and air in the galley, and also convenience for being able to easily pass things up into the cockpit from the galley.  The inside of the repairs was worse than we thought, and of course as boat projects always do, it turned out to be a much bigger job than we expected.  It involved much more fairing and sculpting than we originally thought.  We back filled, faired, sanded, and painted with Alex Seal paint to match the rest of our cockpit.  Now that all the work is done, we Love it! It lets the person in the galley feel a part of what is happening in the cockpit, it allows for easy communication, and it's a great way to safely pass items in and out, not to mention the added light and fresh air.  

 You can just make out the cracking circles from the old repairs. We have laid out the position for the port hole. 

 After cutting the shape in the outside layer we found how the repair was done. No wonder it was cracking.

 Hole is cut! The "ears" are the part of the cracking repair that we could not cover with the port hole.  We needed to properly repair those. 

 Back filling and repairing.

 All faired and ready to paint.

 All done! Hatch is installed.  This it what it looks like from the outside. We made it so there would be no lip from a dress ring, and simply made the back filled edge be the sill.

 From the inside!

-- Hatches

The front companionway hatch that came with the boat was make shift out of 2x4s, heavy, and awkward.   The aft hatch used to be a split hatch that someone had joined.  We took this back hatch that although it was cracking, the general shape was ideal and we faired it and made it into a plug, and made a fiberglass mold on it.  We then had a mold to use to make two identical fiberglass hatches which we painted, installed on hinges and gas spring lifts.

 Fairing and modifying our one okay hatch to be exactly how we wanted our new ones.  We used this as a plug to make our mold.

 Fiberglassing over the plug to make the mold, Jason is wetting out our layup.

 I am rolling out our layup.

 After being left to cure for a week we popped the mold from the plug.  It worked perfectly and we were left with a smooth black tooling gelcoat finish to our mold.

 Doing the layups inside our plug for our first hatch.

We let this fully cure for a week in the mold and then popped our first hatch.  You can see the black of the mold in the back and the beautiful fresh gelcoat white of our new hatch in the front.

 One of our new hatches!

-- Hinging Swim Platform or Swim Grid

Our boat had no natural swim grid and we really wanted a place to hang out closer to the water than up on deck, especially for getting in and out of our kayaks and for swimming off of.  We also did not want a fixed swim platform to catch waves when we are out at sea.  So we designed and constructed a hinging swim platform.  The frame is made from aluminum, round tube for the visible edge and square stock for the cross pieces.  We got this part welded for us.  Then we templated and cut starboard for the top and bottom and routered grooves for drainage and added grip.  We thru-bolted this and added a folding bottom mount boarding ladder.  We polished the visible aluminum tubing to look like stainless steel and installed it on our transom on the hinges we had designed.  It works great and we couldn’t be happier with how it turned out!

 After creating a template we got the aluminum frame welded.

 We used starboard for both the top and bottom of the swim grid.  We routered grooves in it to help with drainage and add grip.

 We polished the aluminum so that it looks like stainless steel.

 All ready to be mounted.

 We mounted it from our tender, which was not easy lining up the hinges and drilling and thru-bolting, and then hanging the swim grid.

 Looks like our girl has a whale tail.

 Standing on it for the first time.  Yay!!!

These are just a few of our projects, many many more would go on to include, wiring and installing a new electrical panel and charging system, including 600watts of solar and a wind generator.  New house batteries, two new water tanks, fuel tanks and a second racor filter.  A hydronic heater, Engle freezer, and new Raymarine electronics, including a multi-function display, depth transducer, wind transducer and radar. We completly renovated the entire interior, insulation, teak, paint, tiling, new floor, new counter tops, and new galley stove.  She is a whole new boat from 7 years ago!!!

So now the adventure that we have dreamed about since before even owning the Red Witch can finally begin.  

Starting this blog is one of the many items still remaining to be done before we leave, so when I post this we will be one item closer to leaving!  I am starting this blog with the hopes of being able to keep friends and family updated as to our whereabouts and maybe other people will enjoy following our trip as well.  We do not have satellite on board so my posts may sometimes be brief or few and far between depending on where we are, but I will do my best to keep you all posted.  If you wish to get an email when I make a post instead of having to check back to see where we are at, please subscribe.  Also if you have any comments please feel free to leave one.