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The Boat at Night
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After several days of anxiety and filling the pond and wondering what will happen… the boat took float, one corner at a time.
The goal is to get the boat floating and then finish the rest of the pond. I think I’ll have her floating by tomorrow.
One of the final steps on the exterior of the boat is remounting the swim board. This is so people at the water level can get onto the boat. The old one was completely rotted and so a very skilled craftsman made this new one by layering plywood with glue and screws and matched the original exactly!
Here are the refurbished mounts, mounted to the stern:
I’ve decided to stop pumping the rain water out since it’ll be ready for filling soon anyhow…
The hole is starting to look like a natural pond finally as the bog filter gets piping added and lava rock for biological filtration.
The view from the road isn’t great but this will improve once the rock wall extends around the outside of this dirt berm, so it will look more like this:
The hull is all sealed, metal trim is cleaned and painted and re-mounted. Even all of the screens on the portholes have been replaced. Oh and the seals on the fore and aft hatches have been replaced as well. No more bugs or leaks!
I went back to a factory original style paint job and it’s coming along nicely after three coats of Smith’s CPES. Here’s a few pictures.