Tank Getting Close

Here is a shot of the finished bottom of the tank. the sun was wrong for the top. It should be ready to glue on top this afternoon. The inspection ports are glassed in.
The deck is almost ready for the primer. Notice the bamboo posts. It is scrap wood here. It is laying all around.

The shower walls are also ready for the primer. The drain pan didn't drain well, so today they made a false bottom that angles over to the drain pipe.


The aft cabin celing, like the rest looks a little shabby with out the covering. I am looking at making gel-coat fiberglass sheets to snap in.
Looking starboard in the galley floor. Looks like a long ways to go.

Laptop Photos

Since I lost the camera I've had no photos. I used the laptops webcam to catch the layup of the new fuel tank. It is 6 layers of cut mat fiberglass with polyester resin.

The center divider is a partition to make it two tanks. The others are just baffles.
I had them make depressions in the bottom of each tank to trap water etc. The tank pickups will be right in the center if these 'sumps' so any water immediately winds up in the water separator filter. Also, you can almost see the area for the wiring channel just above the center partition.


The baffles have holes large enough to clean the tank through.


The wood will all be removed before finishing and putting the top on.

New Tank

The new diesel tank is coming along. The bottom was laid-up Wed and seems to be curing OK.

This being Easter week, things are slow, what with Holy Thursday, Good Friday, (special) Saturday, and Easter Sunday. There may even be a Hangover Monday this week, who knows! Needless to say there's no more progress.

The power went off in the apartment yesterday about noon, (no fan and a hot day) so Trinda decided we should take the bus down to Cebu and catch a show in an air-conditioned theater. We arrived an hour later at a closed gate. The mall is closed for Easter. The power was back on by the time we got back, two one hour plus bus rides.

Did I mention that the average Philippino is a much smaller person than I or Trinda? The bus has 3 seats on one side and 2 on the other like small planes, BUT the bus is only as wide as the average 9passenger van! So 2 1/2 hours with only one cheek on the seat and my knees shoved into the seatback in front of me is a great way to spend a day.

No Pictures

Well it may be boring here for a while... I lost my camera. It seems to have fallen out of my pocket on a bus ride to Cebu. There are others here for sale, but I haven't found the "right one" yet.

We joined the local affiliate of CostCo. They let Trinda use my card twice then insisted she have her own. Only $10 US more...

The deck is almost finished with the rebuild and fiberglassing where the teak was and under the mast steps.

Repaired the wall in the shower that was rotten and almost finished glassing the walls so it can't happen again.

We plan to start making the fiberglass fuel tank this week.

Removing the Old Fuel Tank

It might be better to start at the bottom, as the photos loaded in the wrong order.


The galley side of the floor without the tank.

Trinda found a carrot in the market in Cebu. She did find more reasonable sized ones to buy. We went to town on Sunday just to get away and watched a movie at the theater. Bad movie! The popcorn had no salt too. It was an hour to Cebu, 20 miles away, in a bus with poor seats for $1 each. Then a 9 passenger van with 12 seats, but 22 people on the way back. They charged us double,$1.30 each, because we took up room for 4 short brown people!

Carrying the old tank to the beach/dock.

Preparing to lift the tank out the hatch in the roof. We had to take out part of the hatch so it would fit.
The closet side of the galley floor with the tank still there.

The closet taken out but the floor still there. Our shop vac is 110 volt so we either use my batteries and inverter or a step-down transformer.

The galley side with the cook stove out and the shelf under it torn out. There was lots of rotten and oil soaked wood that we'll replace in the process.

The tearing up went really fast. The rough finish restoring is going fast too. I have heard that as the work needs more precision it really slows down! Here's hoping its not too slow.