After a month in Marathon, we’re nearly finished with our DIY bimini. With just a few more finishing touches, including modifications for the backstay, the radar pole, and the solar panels, we’ll be ready to take off to The Bahamas.
We broke out of boat jail (aka the boatyard) and are sailing south! On a frisky upwind sail across Charlotte Harbor, we break in our new headsail from Precision Sails; then our way to Fort Myers, we get a chance to fire up our Spirit 1.0 electric outboard from ePropulsion.
The water is so close now we can smell it. After trailering Soulianis out of our landlocked boatyard, she’s now poised and ready for launch — right after we finish painting the centerboard with bottom paint.
Remember the horrible arch saga? Well, we’re officially putting an end to that chapter… and nope, we didn’t hire another contractor — instead we decided to build a bimini ourselves.
First, I'd thank everyone for the concerned questions, comments, sincere emails and vicarious anger regarding our arch project. I'm hopeful this post and video will answer all your questions, and we can finally put the "arch saga" to rest.
Does the boat project list ever end...? It must. It has to. Or else our boat may as well have a mailbox next to its jack stands.
While researching Coppercoat, one of the biggest criticisms we heard was: "It's so expensive!" (Sailing Soulianis Patrons get a discount!) Upon further investigation, this appears to be only partly true--and only for some people.
Of all the boat projects we’ve done so far, this is probably our biggest: a brand spankin’ new bottom job. New… literally allll the way down to the bottom...
Believe it or not, this ONE TINY little hose clamp is all that’s keeping our boat from potentially sinking to the bottom. It’s part of our centerboard operation, and unfortunately there’s not much we can do to improve it, except to ensure that the clamps and hoses are in good condition.
Most of you who have followed our journey for some time are familiar with our somewhat infamous centerboard issue, where we ran aground in the Illinois river in 8' of water when our boat should only draw 4'. We'd like to take this opportunity to talk a little bit about the pros and cons of the centerboard system and shed some light on how we've been using it with real life examples.
