1984 was a good year, the first Apple Mac went on sale, Sonny released its first commercial CD players, Ghost Busters was in the theatre, Phil Collins was on the radio and in 84 DevOcean was built in France.
I tried to research some history on DevOcean and the Beneteau for this blog and really all I fell upon were beautiful yachts, with beautiful, people dressed in white, sipping champagne or leisurely doing yoga on the spacious fore deck. Trust me I haven't worn white for the past month, I will save the champagne for new years and if crumpling yourself in semi erotic poses to twist a screw in an impossible space is yoga then I am solid on that front.
We are doing what seems to be the yearly converging of the cruising community in working yards, living on the hard. Boaters gather to sand, wax, paint, repair, renew, rebuild, remodel their boats to keep them safe and seaworthy. It aint sexy, it aint pretty, and it aint fun, Its necessary.
In my limited experience, boat yards are dirty places, with many tired people scrambling for parts on questionable internet, sleeping in the same space they work in from sun up to sun down all trying to get there boats back in the water so they can go sailing.
In my summer fantasy of returning to DevOcean I thought I would return to her gleaming in the boat yard, do a little “pretty," socialise and leave. Reality bit my butt.
Due to the cracked port lights she was damper than expected. We easily and quickly dried her out with ventilation (quite simply, open hatches). We took all of the cushions out and left them in the sun to dry out thoroughly, washed all of the covers etc. Bleach, vinegar, vinegar bleach, It didn't take long to completely dry her out. Our major problem was the unexpected cracked port lights, replacing them and finding Chicago screws. Ok, not finding the screws but getting the screws. I could write a whole other blog on that and the bad service from www.chicagoscrews.com but that just wouldn’t be nice. Suffice it to say we still have not received an order placed almost a month ago. Thus one of the main reason for still sitting.
Side One Of Two
So we turned to replacing the famous Beneteau sagging head liner in the bow berth and salon with a crisp clean white pcv board. In my head easy peasy right? Why don’t I listen to my inner Marc? After much scrubbing, scrapping and sanding the bow berth is beginning to look beautiful, the salon brighter. My new and most fantastic gift Marc gave me was two new port holes, one above the stove and one parallel on the starboard wall for cross ventilation. Love my new port holes.
My View Last Night From My New Port Hole Cooking Dinner
So where are we at? Marc is finicky with the engine and it is being finickity back at him. I have resorted to provisioning and staying out of his way. If we don’t launch by friday which we must do with a working engine we will not be able to launch until the New Year. Being in Jacksonville is no hardship but we would much prefer being in the water. As always boating people are, gracious, helpful, so as much as being on the hard is hard, life is good.
Old Saggy
Pictures To Follow If I Ever Get To The Pretty Part
Many chores have come from normal wear and tear sadly some from the abuse of others While at dinner on a mooring ball in Key West last year we were hit and the anchor rollers ripped almost completely off. So Marc replaced them from the sailors exchange in St Agustin. I wonder what the other boat looked like?
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