So I picked up the battery (gel AGM type) at West Marine this afternoon, and hooked it up into the electrical system… and bingo! The autopilot humms and whirrs, the pushrod activated by command. Cell phones charge from the cig lighter, and the solar panels, well, they don’t do very much, but I have every reason to believe they are working too.

The autopilot has a nice home at the aft end of the cockpit, safely tucked away when not in use. I bolted a metal strap onto the undersurface so that I could shockcord a hook to hold it in the boat. THAT would be an expensive splash!

I’ve started loading gear and food into the boat, and found that the beach rollers (think 7 ft by 1 ft yellow inflatable fenders) used to launch the boat from the above-the-high-water-line start tuck nicely under the aft deck and in one of the storage benches. They will be inflated once stored, to provide reserve bouyancy. The anchor, evicted from its tupperware box forward to make space for the battery, has a new nylon bag which is lashed securely to the floor of the cockpit.

I tried out the new bivy sack… man is it nice! It has a pole which keeps the bug or gore-tex liner up and off your face while sleeping. Sweet setup. Hoa will get that one, and I will use the basic model.

Today I braved the chill and put the boat back on the trailer, and mounted a bracket to hold the new spare tire and wheel. The boat cradle did its job perfectly, and the transfer was surprisingly quick. The cradles are now under the (NEW!) deck.

Next I removed the floorboards and the water ballasting system, and in so doing rather quickly solved several other problems, such as:

— the spare oars will stow nicely under just the rear set of floor boards on the floor of the cockpit

— by leaving the front set of floor boards out I have plenty of room for clothes storage

— I replace the weight of the PVC pipes of the ballasting system with gear and the anchor, keeping the center of gravity low.

I strapped down the battery box (I pick the battery up on Thursday at West Marine). It is a small gel battery, but adequate for my needs. I put two additional buoyancy bags up front under the deck, a maneuver that required the skills of a contortionist with an electric air pump. They are behind a supposedly watertight bulkhead, but as I’ve learned, there is nothing like positive buoyancy up high in your boat! I mounted the tiller pilot stanchion base and 4200’d the sculling oarlock into place. That thing is solid! I rigged a final version of shock cord that holds the oars in place when not in use, and strapped the box of flares on the aft floorboards under where one of the seats usually rests.

The watertight bags that we’ll be using in the cockpit to hold our things have a stiff fabric pan on the bottom. This pan fortuitously wedges under the floor board support in the cockpit, so that it is pretty much stuck once jammed in. I can also strap the bags in using the water ballasting tie downs, but just for insurance. Could not have planned that one better! The sleeping bags and bivy sacks will be in watertight bags in the storage locker forward. Food and cookstove I think will be in the side cockpit seats.

I’ve found lodging in Key Largo, spoke with my shore contact (who gets a BIG shoutout: THANKS HOANG!) who is going far and above the call of family duty. I think he is worried about his sister getting eaten by an alligator in the Everglades while I am staring at a GPS wondering where the heck I lost her…

Holy cow! What a productive weekend!

Since Friday I have spent some 19 hours working on the boat! Started with a trip to West Marine, where I loaded up on bits and pieces for:

1. An electrical panel for the boat complete with fuses,

port for a Raymarine autopilot, jack for hooking up the Garmin to power and the autopilot, two cigarette lighters sockets for accessories and fuses for the whole shebang

2. A solar panel, which plugs into a cigarette lighter socket

3. Straps for gear storage

So I gathered my courage, and starting my weekend by drilling a 1 inch hole into the transom of my boat for an oarlock for sculling or use as an emergency tiller. This required fortitude, because it is only 1 1/2 inches thick below the lip, and so being off-angle had significance. I planned on my incompetence, however, and so I drilled between the motor mount on the starboard side, so that if I did go off reservation, I wouldn’t create a cosmetically apparent injury to the boat. All went well, but it turns out I needed a slightly bigger hole, so out came the Dremel and a lot of fussy work.

When drilling a hole for this sort of a gear, it is important to understand that the hull of a “cored” fiberglass boat is like a sandwich, with a hard shell on either side and a lot of soft balsa wood (like the tomatoes and cheese) on the inside. Just drilling a hole is no good. The core won’t support the gear, and just a little bit of water getting inside starts the boat rotting from the inside. So what you must do is drill out twice the volume of core that you plan to fill with gear in order to make a solid platform, and then fill that with fiberglass. THEN you can drill a hole the exact size of the fitting through the puddle of fiberglass, confident of its strength and impermeability to water.

The next job was the electrical system. Fortunately, I found a wonderful little fuse panel at West Marine for cheap that had six separate circuits, more than I need at the moment.

Using a hole saw, I drilled a series of holes into a simple watertight box. The cigarette lighter sockets went through one side, and the autopilot the other with the battery cable and the line out to the GPS. The wires run to the fuse box and out to their respective device, and it all tucks nicely inside, with some silicone sealant to protect the water-resistant apparatus. I put some velcro on the inside of the face and also the fuse panel so that nothing shifts and its weight is supported.

I relocated the anchor to in the cockpit (where it is more accessible) and will store the battery in the front locker, lashed to the deck. I ran the battery cable under the deck to the  forward bulkhead and fished the wire through, then plugged up the hole with silicone.

Finally, I cut some Starboard (marine “wood”, to create supporting brackets for a solar panel which plugs into the electrical box to charge the battery. With a nifty combination of bolts, washers, nuts and countersinking I was able to fashion a sweet mounting solution. I had just enough velcro cord holdfasts to secure the wire to the bimini rig.

Thanks to Hoa for dealing with the kids while I was getting all of this done! Hopefully the autopilot will allow us to navigate more effectively and concentrate on the 50 other things that make sailing long distances in strange waters safer and faster!