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I’ve wanted to change the cabin lighting in Sea Puppy since I first saw it.. The factory fixtures are a square ugly design and they also are old and yellowed.. even the lens on them is yellowed. Despite how bright the bulbs are it is not very bright in the cabin using them.. All in all they needed to go. 🙂
Being the geek that I am. I wanted to replace them with LED lights. However most LED fixtures are still fairly expensive and I didn’t want to spend a lot of money. Last week on one of the mailing lists I subscribe to someone mentioned cheap LED fixtures at Superlumination.com
They were right.. I purchased a bunch of 24 LED lights for 9.99 each. Plastic chrome with self adhesive backing and 30″ wire leads, wide angle 100 degree oval leds. They measure 3-1/2″ diameter x 1-1/4″ thick and operate at 10-14.5 volts drawing only 120 milliamps. They are rated to produce 480,000 mcd light output..
Jan 22 2006 I went out with Ben on Anago yesterday.. Winds at about 10 to 15 and seas 2 to 3 maybe… I was a nice day to sail other than being very cold… we went out about 11am and came back in around 5pm… I got to handle the steering wheel on anago for a couple hours…. it is still harder for me than a tiller.. it doesn’t give as much feedback to you and it is harder to tell where the rudder is pointing.. I had some problems with over steering and also wheel dyslexia.. I would turn it like it was a tiller and end up going the wrong direction…. 🙁 not happy abuot that but it’s getting better.
Well we have only gotten to go out a couple more times on sea puppy. I had the boat pretty well torn apart for a week or two with repairs and upgrades since the last set.
The last time I took sea puppy out was to single hand for the first time.. The sailing went well 🙂 10 to 15 knots wind and 3 to 4 ft seas and she handled great.. I cross sheeted the jib sheets accross the cockpit so I could adjust them from the high side and it worked very well. With this setup I can handle the tiller, mainsheet, traveler and jib sheets while sitting in one place. For raising and lowering sails though I still want a tiller pilot. It is tricky if you have to reach a hand for the tiller every once in a while to stay into the wind while rasing sails.. To many hands are needed.
Well it has been an intersting couple weeks.. I just bought Sea Puppy a Beneteau First 235 in the end of december. I helped Patty buy her last march and have sailed and worked on her since then with Patty. Patty is now moving up to a 323 and I was able to swing buying Sea Puppy.
Here is a picture coming into Little River Inlet at sunset from Sea Puppy.
Our first sail with me as new skipper was January 1st for the Hangover Regatta… what a blast … flat ocean and about 6 knots of wind. temperature in the mid 60’s.. we were racing a 30 footer and two other boats 36ft and longer. we kicked ass 🙂 Sea Puppy is a fast boat and handles beautifully. the 30 footer Anago would catch upto us on the downwind legs as they were running a spinnaker, but we would pull ahead on the windward legs.. at the end of the race we crossed the finish line just seconds ahead of them… The other two boats decided to go party before the end of the race as we and anago had forged so far ahead of them.
I seem to be able to get into the weirdest situations…. Maybe I should stay away from ebay? lol
I recently bid on and won a two ton chain hoist and frame on ebay.
 
So these were the pictures showing it on ebay 🙂 It looks big but not quite as massive as it turned out to be in person.
So I won this thing for $102.00. I didn’t think I would win it as just the hoist and car on the I beam is worth many hundreds of dollars. Buzz the guy that I communicated with at the company that was selling this told me I could pick it up or if i wanted they would disasemble the frame and ship it. Shipping came to about $350.00.. OUCH!!!! ok … we’re not shipping! I figured gas from conway to atlanta round trip would run about $110.00 in my GMC astro van (gas actually ended up around $130.00) and that I could just strap the frame work to the racks on the roof. Then I remembered a past adventure were we strapped a 8ftx8ft 400 lb hot tub on the top of my van and drove back from charlotte with it (maybe I’ll tell that story another day :)….anyway maybe on the roof isn’t such a good idea….. So I borrow my friend Steve’s trailer that he hauls a golf cart around with. It is exactly 8 ft long inside the bed (this is important 🙂 remember it.)
Raced on sea puppy. Anago hit and bent port push pit in first race… 🙂 we won though..
second race we ran spinnaker and did very well also… however since we hadn’t declared we were going to run spinnaker in the race there was an issue with our time… forget what the result was but was very happy with how well we sailed.
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I found the plans on the internet for building a green house using pvc pipe based on a geodesic pattern. The materials that I have used building it so far are five 20ft lengths of 1 inch pvc at about $7.50 per piece. I also bought one extra piece to rip into lengths to use to attach the plastic to the finished structure. So I will end up with 45 dollars worth of pvc in the finished green house. I also used ten 4.5 inch long 1/4 inch galvanized bolts washers and and nuts for about 4 dollars and change. I will be reusing the torn plastic off the old green house to put on the new one.
Well Gooney Bird has been sitting idle for a long time now, almost a year. I have finally started getting in some of the materials needed to start finishing her off. I’m really looking forward to putting her out on the water. At best it will be next spring or summer still for her. There is still a fair ammount of work to be done. Rudder built and installed, dagger board built, steering installed, a little bit of glass work. All the running rigging still to be setup and installed. I will be hanging out on ebay through the winter buying deck hardware 🙂
Raced on sea puppy Sept 17th patty as captain and jim and me as crew
did good. won 2 races if I remember right
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Well Comes Around Goes Around is finally getting back ship shape. She has been abandoned in the yard all spring and summer as I have been sailing with Patty on Sea Puppy and helping there with projects for Sea Puppy. I have to admit that Sea Puppy is a nicer and bigger boat to sail on. With better and more comprehensive sail handling gear, more sails, and being able to sail her out of the slip, she is much more convenient to sail than Comes Around Goes Around who requires you to tow her to a landing then step the mast and mount the rudder and engine. Quite a process for a day of sailing. Under ideal conditions your looking at an hour and a half total to put her together and then break her down for a days sailing.
This day we sailed back from bald head Island
see post
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This trip was in july on the 19th – 21st
Tuesday morning brought frantic last minute packing and fixing of stuff on the Sea Puppy. A full days sailing up the coast was planned. Little River Inlet, SC to Bald Head Island, NC. New territory for Patty and I.
I had made the same sail several times both there and back as crew on a Tartan 10 the WeBeJamming. This sail was to be with a more modest boat 🙂 at least in size. At 23.5 ft in length the Sea Puppy is 9 ft 6 inch shorter than the WeBeJamming. However she is a very stout boat for her size and I felt comfortable taking her out on the ocean for this 26 nm sail.
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