Finished?

I spent several months this summer working on an IP-38.  I thought that I had seen everything that could possibly be installed wrong, jury rigged, kluged together - I was wrong.  I saw some new things this week when we moved the boat back to Islamorada.

This boat could be used as a poster child on how not to do things, how not to maintain a boat, miracle the boat did not just sink.

I'll post some photos and a more descriptive writeup later but to make a long story short we left Burnt Store Marina Monday morning - we were motor sailing with the staysail up and we had a squall come along - most of the running rigging on the staysail was shredded, the canvas is not waterproof anymore, I managed to hand steer the boat for about 45 minutes till the storm died, the we went up on the foredeck and completed damage control (how do you spell wet?).  Tied things down and recovered rigging fittings where we could.  The engine was overheating so we shut it down to add coolant and when we restarted the engine the starter hung and it was fried - luckily no fire - miracle - so we called Boat US and they towed us in to Marco Island (Rose Marina).

Replaced the starter and tried to determine what had happened but starter circuit checked good.  New starter in and tried test starts and running and all was OK.

Got up early the next morning and started the engine - you guessed it - starter hung and another one bites the dust.  Decided to go anyway and hope that we did not have any issues with overheating requiring a shutdown as we would not be able to restart hte engine.

Trip South was good, storms were mainly onshore and we arrived at the dock in the Keys at about 9:30 PM.

Next morning was touch up, cleanup and installed a few new lights, installed a start button to bypass the start switch, fridge shelf, etc.  Found two new galley sink drains so replaced the old ones (yep, the old ones were improperly installed) so now the sinks drain better.

The new freezer and reefer work great and the boat is coming along - lots of work ahead for the owner but the boat is already 100% better than when purchased.  Bilge pumps now work, sump pump works, new genset works, tanks level sensors work, anchor light works, things work again and the wiring and plumbing is all new.

Nice to be home now - I worked on bathroom renovation today - Lesley is happy!