Poolio's sailing and travel blog.

Three months, three thousand miles and some cold weather have passed and I’m again in Beaufort North Carolina working on my boat at Bock Marine.  The past months of visiting family and friends, celebrating the holidays, and all of the many other adventures have been great but it may be even better to be back on the NC coast.

While away I continued my steady research on sailboat restoration and accomplished a lot towards getting the Pearson 28-1 that I am restoring back into shape.

Sourcing new foam and fabric for the interior cushions was one of the bigger tasks that I accomplished.  I worked with Meredith Tollison of Keep it Casual in Tupelo Mississippi to pick new foam and a sunbrella fabric (cork canvas).  Meredith was a big help and didn’t seem to mind all of my questions and my trying out many of her in-store cushions and foam pieces and in the end her prices were as good or better than all of the others that I checked.  The new foam and fabric will be for the cushions in the main cabin but I decided to turn a barely used futon that I have had in storage for years into my new v-berth mattress.  The resulting mattress is a great fit and couldn’t be any more comfortable.  Time will tell if this was a good idea but I couldn’t resist trying it.

Beyond all of the furniture work one of the best finds was for connecting to wireless networks from the boat.  Since I am an information technology contractor by trade being connected to the internet is a constant necessity for me. Online reading led me to the devices made by Ubiquiti Networks.  I now have a NanoStation2 (NS2) with an 9dbi omni antennae at the top of my mast, and more importantly I now have a fast, reliable internet connection all around my boat.   The NS2 can be mounted anywhere and it only needs one cat5/ethernet wire to function.  This cable provides your connection to the device and supplies the NS2′s power through POE.  I setup the NS2 to connect to a wireless router so that the internet connection from the NS2 can be shared with any computer within range of this on-boat wireless network.  For a great guide on setting up one of these devices yourself check this page.

I’ve also found a new source for led lights and am pleased with the lights from them that I am currently testing in my camper.  The lights are brighter and much warmer color than the slightly blue leds that I have purchased in the past.   From the selection of different bulbs that I am trying the most impressive are the “LT series SMD LED Light Tubes” which can be found on this page.  If they prove to be reliable I will probably by more for use as the primary lights for the boat interior.

Now that I’m back at the boatyard I’m spending more time working on the boat than researching online.  My current project is to rebed all deck hardware.  This project includes removing all deck hardware, sealing up the deck’s core with epoxy and then reinstalling the hardware in a bed of new sealant.  The boats decks are solid except for a few small spots so this is a fairly straightforward project.  I’m optimistic that I’ll have the biggest leaks sealed up before the next heavy rains come in.

Here are a few photos of the deck hardware work, and one of spring on the coast.