Rain in West Palm has brought all outdoor work to a halt aboard DW. Luckily, I have plenty of projects to do below decks, but I’m waiting for a lull so I can make a supply run. Forecast is for rain today and tomorrow. We’re planning to splash on Friday late afternoon, so it looks […]
Double Wide is “On the Hard” at Cracker Boy Boat Works in West Palm Beach (technically we’re in Riviera Beach, but who’s counting?) I have a number of projects to do before we can sit back and start enjoying the cruising life. Here are a few items on my list: New Bottom Paint: 1st coat went […]
We brought Double Wide back to Fort Myers after our 2014 Bahamas Adventure so that we could have several maintenance projects completed. Why Fort Myers? There are several good service providers there that we really like and we wanted to get the boat close to them so they could have quick access to the boat. […]
When Michelle and I bought Double Wide in 2005, we knew the navigation system, auto pilot, and radar was ready to be replaced, but I figured I’d bandaid the systems along until we were ready to do some more serious cruising. Over the years, we’ve made 8 Gulf of Mexico crossings and along the way, […]
It’s that time…the old B&G electronics package worked perfectly until about a year ago. Last fall, the wind instrument died. Then the bottom 1/4 of the cockpit monitor for the computer based chart plotter turned black. When we were crossing the gulf in the spring, the computer started rebooting at the most inappropriate times. I […]
I’ve been having some problems with the wind instrument on Double Wide. Several months ago I sent the part at the top of the mast off to be repaired and $400 later, it came back to me ready to reinstall. While that was going on, I had a rigger doing some work at the top […]
I got Michelle a new Helmsman’s Seat this past Christmas. Some of you may think that’s a bit like buying your wife a vacuum cleaner for Christmas/Birthday/Anniversary. I get it, but I can’t help myself — it’s in the genes, but that’s a story for another time! Actually, we really needed a new seat and Michelle and […]
It was supposed to be finished by the end of November. It wasn’t. Then it was supposed to be ready by the end of December. Nope. How about January? Nada. Definitely it will be ready in February. Uh Uh. March is do or die. Success!!!
One of the projects that has been on my list for a number of years was to replace the windows in our Main Salon. Our old windows had crazed so badly that you could barely see through them and it was down right dangerous to sit below and steer with the remote autopilot. The main […]
Fall around the Haley house means it’s time to think about maintenance projects aboard Double Wide. This year we have a number of projects that we want to undertake and some of the the work can’t be done in Ingleside, so off we go to Seabrook… Here’s a partial list of the items on our […]