In Which We Are Four Months Behind Posting

Well, hello again!  Long time no see.  It's been busy around here - we are not going to attempt to bring you up to speed all in one shot.  We'll pick up where we left off, in the V - Berth, still demoing (spoiler alert: in real time, we are all done with the demo!).

Items found in the bow locker: old moldy baseball hat, old moldy socks, old moldy plastic bags, old moldy crab pot buoy, old moldy Stevens - I mean....

Down to the ceiling boards up forward.  Over Eli's shoulder you can see an area where we have started scraping paint.  We've since stopped because it's soul sucking and it gave me tendonitis and it looks pretty much the same.

Either working in a tight spot or practicing for his torch lounge solo.  You can't ever tell with this one.

Working on this thing requires you to call on your inner spider monkey more often than you would probably expect.

Dismantling the refrigeration plates

This is the aftermath post cold locker removal - lots of rot.  It looks better now, but some of those ceiling planks will eventually need to be replaced.

We are tired.

Tearing out the galley.  It Did. Not. Want. To. Go.  Approximately eighty billion and twelve screws were involved in holding this thing up.

Ha!  Take that nasty abrasive floor from which I now bear permanent scars!

How To Exacerbate Vertebral Disk Herniation, or, That Time Eli Moved the Iron Stove Out of the Focsle by himself.  Don't try this at home.
No really.  This is a public service announcement.

(+): No more stove.
(-): Lots of rotten break beam.  Will need replacing.

So now we're down to the tanks: the forward one is the water tank, and the big black steel one is a diesel tank.  It was built specifically for the boat, and is relatively new.

We really wanted to keep it, figure out some way to put it to use.  But the truth was that we just don't need the extra 900 gallons of diesel.

The 3000 gallon holding capacity we have in the engine room is probably fine (don't do the math on that, it hurts).  Although now we will not be able to circumnavigate in one shot.  We will have to stop in Cape Town.  Lame.

So the final step of demolition in the v-berth is taking out this gorgeous specimen, and selling it for scrap.  To do so we needed to have the bulkhead beams out of the way, but that's okay...

...turns out they weren't doing much anyway.

In our next episode: will they have to dismantle this beast with a Sawzall, inch by laborious 1/4 inch -inch, or will Eli talk Kate into renting a plasma cutter and tearing it effortlessly to shreds?

Cliffhanger.

(Not really.  Anyone who knows me knows that the odds of me standing casually around with a hose waiting to put out fires on my wooden boat approach those of a snowball in hell.)

(Also, please read the aforementioned 'they' as 'Eli'.)