This past Memorial Day weekend we were planning to make our first trip to Santa Cruz Island. Unfortunately, the weather was bad and LeeAnne was recovering from a nasty cold. Charlie decided to take the opportunity to complete Spray's portlight replacement project. The six original plastic opening portlights had opaque lenses, cracked frames, broken screens, mismatched hardware, leaked, and had some frozen knobs. We decided to replace them with six new stainless steel 4x14" opening port lights from New Found Metals complete with varnished teak trim rings and stainless steel bug screens. Charlie replace the three on the port side a couple of months ago and finished the starboard side this weekend. They took a lot more time and effort to install than we imagined (~5 hours each), but were well worth it! The port lights open and close easily and can be left cracked open for ventilation. The teak trim rings were varnished and coated with AwlBrite... so they look great and should hold up well.
Original plastic portlights.
Of course, the hardest part of the job was working on the boat while the rest of D dock was partying. The musicians were sounding particularly awesome this weekend. I especially enjoyed the beach beat rendition of Neil Young's "Like a Hurricane" led by the birthday girl Donna.. I was blown away!
We also had Mike from Boatyard Electric replace the underpowered Guest 5/5 amp battery charger with a new Xantrex 40 amp TrueCharge2 charger and separate circuit breakers for overcurrent protection. Mike did a great job with the installation and the new charger will do a better job of maintaining our house and starter batteries..
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