Prism's Blog

On the HARD, PRISM floats again, test sail, IT ALL WORKS!!!!

Posted SV Prism

Departure date….well more like we are aiming to leave for Mexico depending on weather: September 27th – October 6th.  SO MUCH TO DO IN A MONTH! AHHHH

We finished the mast the night before we left for the BVI. We got all the steps on and wrapped it all up so the paint would not get damaged while we were out of the country for 18 days.
the mast in its final stages
Our trip to the BVI was amazing! We were joined  by Jon’s mom (Debbie), my aunt and uncle (Elly and Kelly), and my cousin and his girlfriend (Noah and Shay). It was 2 full weeks of warm waters, blue skies, booze and laughter… well almost, if you don’t count the 2 days of waiting out a tropical storm that turned into hurricane Burtha, and the squalls we had to fight through on our way out to Anagada. Needless to say the not so sea salty sailors on board were quite nervous as our huge Lagoon 44 catamaran crashed down on huge swells with sounds that would make anyone nervous, were thinking about pulling the life raft out and abandoning ship. But the skies cleared, the wind died back down (after we ripped the job sail) rainbows were shining down into the anchorage and all was right with the world. It was so nice to get away from everything and enjoy family with out any distractions. Here are some pictures from the trip:

 

Just landed in St. Thomas

 

Shannon and Momma Neely
Our view in Little Harbor, Normand Island
BVI sunset
Shannon and Aunt Elly

 

Jon and Shannon

 

DOMINOES! we are obsessed!

 

Soaking in the sun

 

Heading home
 We flew home on August 13th, got into SF around 10 and back to Berkeley around 12. I had work the next morning, and then we hauled Prism on that Friday:

All the things we needed to get done while on the hard:
-change the bottom paint from ablative(blue) to a hard paint (red)
-remove vacu-flush head system
-paint anchor locker, laz and head area
-remove rudder, attack blisters, new rudder bearing
-remove and fill 2 useless thru-hull holes
-change out all thru-hulls
-service all sea-cocks
-install rebuilt pumps, starter and new alternator on engine
-new exhaust hose and muffler box repair
-new exhaust thru-hull
-new prop- FEATHERING!
-new cutlass bearing
-new flexible coupler
-remove old fridge and install new water cooled fridge
-re-bed all chain plates
-hook up H20 heater to engine
-install new fuel pump/ polish system
-acid wash topsides
-buff/wax topsides
-remove name and have new one made
-install all new bilge pumps
– take out dripless system and put in stuffing box

We have been working our butts off while in the yard. I have work Monday through Friday so Jon has been spear heading the weeks by himself. However my big brother Sean did come to the rescue for a week and helped out in a life saving way!  We have been ass up elbows down hands working for 2 weeks straight with only taking 2 nights off to celebrate my birthday. We can not wait to be sailing on her heading to warmer water! wWe want to be in the water as soon as we can, living on the hard is tough! Luckily we were able to stay on Debbie’s ( Jon’s mom) boat for the first 2 weeks, that was so helpful!

Getting ready to be hauled

 

Up she goes

 

Jon and Prism

 

Hunting down all the blisters

 

there were some really big guys!

 

Its war: Shannon VS rudder blisters

 

Thru-hull carnage

 

there is STUFF everywhere!!!!!!!!

 

Old head out!
Thru hull removal
Time to start sanding

 

Jon trying to get pumped to start sanding bottom paint

 

Shannon sanding the keel

 

The hole made for emergency rudder (Plan B)
My brother Sean who came to help work on the boat!

 

Sean doing the hardest job of the haul out!

 

Sean and Jon prepping for gel coat repairs

 

Sean and Jon “Hard” at work

 

Anchor locker – Before

 

Anchor Locker- After
the huge crack at the bottom of our rudder

 

Jon investigating the crack on the bottom of the rudder

 

Jon working hard

 

1 of 2 thru-hull holes that we patched

 

 

Working late

 

LOOK its starting to SHINE!!

 

Jon prepping the coupler

 

new stuffing box, getting ready to install coupling and align the engine

 

in the laz waiting to install the coupling

 

Shannon hanging over the engine working on the engine mounts

 

Jon in the laz working the engine alignment from the back

 

Clarke brought us our rebuilt started and helped get the first coat of primer on!

 

Jon cutting fiberglass woving for the large blister repairs

 

 

Painting the first coat of bottom paint!

 

Bottom painting!

 

feeling a little light headed from the fumes

 

Bottom paint done!

 

Rudder repair with purple heart wood.

 

Shannon’s 27th birthday dinner

 

Berkeley Sunset looking out towards the golden gate

 

Round 2 birthday dinner

 

I spent 2 days in this spot: polishing all our stainless

 

before and afters

 

Jon doing a fiberglass repair on the bottom of the keel

 

More before and after polishing pictures

 

 

it feels like everything we own is out on deck

 

tools and stuff everywhere

 

up, and then down, damn I forgot something.. back up, then down

 

Boat yard view

 

Chainplates going back on

 

Mast rigging going on

 

all the rigging hardware

 

Rudder is done and ready to be put back on the boat

 

Jon in the laz installing the rudder packing and new bearing

 

its a small hole
Mast is up!
She is almost ready for the water!

Prism getting picked up

About to splash!

SHE FLOATS!

Jon finished installing the new head!

Everything is out of the pantry to install the new fridge

Painting our boom and bowsprit

Jon in the laz working on something….

the new fridge system: to the left is the thru-hull with the built in coolant for the fridge and above to the right is the compressor  unit

painting our gig harbor dinghy- prepping to sell it

we have a bowsprit and pulpit again!

Prism needs a bath.. bad

Jon: changing engine mounts

Jerry helping Jon change out engine mounts

this is how Prism looked for weeks

Engine running! and there is water!

Engine running!

Its coming together!

We had taken over the dock!

Staring to unload the dock box and finding homes for it on board

Jon at the top of the mast

Our first sail out on the bay in over 6 months! Out with the Fresno Yacht Club

She is such a pretty BOAT

Making the last provisioning runs while we still had the car

This is Jon “row towing” the wind boards back over to the Mason

Once we were back the water, the projects did not end. We had to finish quite a few things including installing the new head, re-install the steering quadrant (funny story on that later) well there have been so many I have lost track. On our way back to our slip we had some vibration at low RPMs, so we looked into our engine mounts… and its a good thing we did. We ordered 4 new mounts and as we were changing them out, the first one was completely sheared off at the bolt. AH! that could have been very bad! But now.. the engine is perfect!
We went out for our first sail in over 6 months on prism last Saturday and had a blast! Everything worked… well kinda…. Jon asked me to back Prism out of the slip, like I have done time in time before I started to back her out. I turned the wheel hard to port and put her is reverse. It went to hell real quick. Prism was not acting correctly and she backed out the completely wrong way, luckly we had people on the foredeck who were able to fend off the piling. Jon came running back to take over what I had “messed up”.. shortly after he takes the wheel, he realizes that prism is not going the way he wants her to be going and looks down at the rudder and it clicks…. When Jon re-attached the quadrant cables… he did not cross the cables. So Right was left and left was right. HA! we sailed over to TI reminding ourselves that we had to drive like we were using a tiller, which sounds easy but when your holding on a wheel your brain goes into auto pilot. We dropped the hook in TI, had lunch and JOn fixed the cables… All is right in the world! We found some old sails up in the studio loft in Madera and there was a yankee that fits our boat like a glove! Its the perfect size and shape. We have amazing weather for the sail.
Today we pulled out of our slip for good. We are slip-less! We sold our Subaru last week, We are so in cruising mode!  Tomorrow is my last day at work, and on Saturday we are having a going away party! Life is so good right now, we cant believe its finally happening!!!

AHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

2 thoughts on “On the HARD, PRISM floats again, test sail, IT ALL WORKS!!!!”

  2. Looks great! Is there a good way to get a hold of you guys?? We are about a year behind you and we are doing our major haul out in May and I plan to do almost all of the same projects. I have about a hundred questions and would love to pick your brains. Email Me at marineradam at gmail if you can. I would really appreciate it!! We have Wild Swan HC33T #26

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