The goal is to get at least 1 good, clean fuel tank. Then we need to fill the clean tank with fresh diesel and get that diesel all the way back to the engine so that we can HOPEFULLY get the engine running again.
With a combination of hose, pump, drill, a...
Join us for a long, slow ride against the current of the St John's River as we draw nearer to the marina where we will haul out the boat and spend a sweaty Summer getting her ready for new adventures.
~ Ben, Tambi, & Molly | "SAILBOATSTORY"
Don't f...
She always wanted to climb the mast and the perfect opportunity presented itself when the headsail halyard became wrapped around the furler. I, being one who does not enjoy heights as much as some, was thrilled to assist her in ascending aforementioned mas...
We bought a Westsail 42 sailboat and we'd like to show you some of the projects we'll be working on through the Summer to get her ready for longterm cruising.
She's a super-solid old girl with a whole lot going for her, but in order for her to be safe and...
The sailboat refit has officially begun and that means that we have to take a lot of things apart before we can start putting it all back together again. We pump contaminated diesel fuel out of the boat, take off the Max Prop, disassemble the shaft coupler...
I cut open a 44 year old sailboat holding tank with a sawzall. While I'm at it, I also cut large holes in our fuel tanks to install larger inspection ports. Despite their destructive nature, these are actually necessary steps as we refit our old sailboat a...
The windlass that is currently installed on our boat is wrong in many ways.
First of all, it's a vertical windlass, but a horizontal windlass is what was really needed.
Secondly, it's location puts the motor obtrusively in the middle of the forward cabin...
The time has arrived to get started on rebuilding the forward cabin of our Westsail 42. It's current state is one of general disarray and incompleteness. Really, the only part that's even partially finished are the boards on the wall, but most of those are...
To keep the momentum going on our sailboat refit we bring certain things home with us so that we can keep working on the boat even through we're not at the boat. In this video I repair a damaged floor board, remove the old anti-fouling from our propeller, ...
The Swabby, AKA Molly, AKA my best boat helper, accompanies me to FL where we get to work replacing a worn out cutless bearing, reinstalling the shaft, and installing a brand new PSS dripless shaft seal.
Thank you for watching!
~ Ben, Tambi, & Molly ...
In this video, we install our Maxprop propeller. Prior to this video we removed the propeller, cleaned off the old antifouling paint, degreased it, and added 2 more degrees of pitch. Now, we put it back on the boat. Thankfully Molly is on the job to ensure...
Some days you just have to go after some of the smaller boat projects that tend to accumulate. We remove the vinyl graphic from the side of the boat, rebed a leaky deck prism, remove an engraved belay pin board thingy, and work on our busted up cap rail. T...
The refrigerator in our boat, even though it's essentially brand new, is in a very sad state indeed. When we opened the lid for the first time, we were shocked to see that there was a very disgusting, albeit very cold, colony of mold that was happily thriv...
Just a short video showing our homemade cowling that allows a window a unit AC to be used on a boat hatch. This is a simple DIY cowling that we made to help keep the boat comfortable during the hot, humid Florida summer while we work on refitting our Wests...
Ben heads back down to Green Cove Springs, FL for another round of boat work. In this video, Molly's forward cabin gets the boards put back up on the walls, the splintered cap rail is repaired using an epoxy wood putty, and a rotten bulkhead in the galley ...
The hull to deck joint on our sailboat is very leaky so we are about to embark on the most in-depth boat project we've ever taken on. The teak cap rail has to be removed to access the hull to deck joint which will need to be thoroughly cleaned of 45 year o...
Work continues on our leaky hull to deck joint as we do battle with 5200, contort our bodies to remove hard-to-reach sailing hardware, and ultimately stop the leaks using neat epoxy.
Along the way we discover that's it's entirely possible for a person to ...
We've ripped off the old teak cap rail, cleaned out 90 ft of hull/deck joint, and now we begin to fill and fair the joint with thickened epoxy. It's HOT work doing this kind of manual labor in the intense Florida heat, but between the 2 of us, we set up an...
Tambi and I lay on 270ft of fiberglass cloth onto the bulwarks of our Westsail 42. The fiberglass we use is 25oz double biased mat. We make 3 laps around the boat with my job being to wet out and lay the fiberglass strips into place and her job being to mi...
It's time to start making our hull to deck joint and cap rail pretty again. What that means is that we have to get it shaped right in order to paint it. Unfortunately, the process of getting a 90ft hunk of fiberglass shaped right means a considerable amoun...
There's just something special about that moment when you finally get to see the results of your massive efforts finally pay off... and that moment is in this episode. In this episode we finally apply paint, and let me tell you, the end product looks soooo...
Before we could repair the leaking hull to deck joint on our Westsail 42, we had to remove all of the deck hardware that was mounted on top of the cap rail. Now that this boat project is complete, it's time to put all of the sailing hardware back onto the ...
Our aluminum 130 gallon fuel tank has some suspicious looking spots on the bottom. It doesn't leak, so we want to do what we can to keep it that way. As a preventive measure, we coat the inside of the fuel tank with G/Flex 650 epoxy.
~ Ben, Tambi, & M...
We build DIY inspection plates to give ourselves complete access to our fuel tank. Previously our diesel tank only had 1 inspection plate installed, but the tank has 3 chambers created by 2 horizontal baffles. This means that only 1 chamber was truly acces...
Projects continue as Ben installs inspection plates on the diesel tank, repairs rotten wood in the aft cabin, and generally works towards preparing the boat for new voyages. It's been a long, hot Summer of non-stop boat work and if he doesn't get to go sai...
The Lofrans Tigres horizontal windlass is one of the most common electric windlasses in use on cruising sailboats. It's time-tested, reliable, and spare parts are typically easy to come by so it seems like a great fit for our Westsail 42 sailboat. The inst...
The forward cabin in our Westsail 42 has zero ventilation. There's no dorade vents, no hatches, and no portlights - nothing. This is a big problem because the forward cabin is Molly's room and she's going to cook in there if we don't do something about the...
We upgraded our battery bank with UNOWIX Defender X100 LifePO4 batteries. I'm SHOCKED at how light they are compared to the 62lb batteries they replaced and they're packed with the same safety features as the Battleborn and Dakota Lithium equivalents. The ...
The rudder post on our Westsail 42 is leaking and knocking... but WHY? In this video Mike comes out help Ben out with boat projects. Together they complete a whole slew of projects, many of which were not shown in this video, but overall it was an extraord...
Hi guys. We're trying to get things set up to make some "Youtube #Shorts". Working out the bugs. Speaking of bugs, do you remember the time 10 billion bugs attacked our sailboat?
~ Ben, Tambi, & Molly | "SAILBOATSTORY"
Don't forget to SUBSCRIBE and...
We'll soon be installing solar panels on our sailboat. To get ready, we run the wires and install Blue Sea Cable Clams. We also mount long sections of stainless tubing between the pushpit and stanchions to provide a mounting location for the forward pair o...
If morale of the crew suffers then the risk of mutiny is real. This must, of course, be avoided at all costs so whenever I find myself in this situation I quickly employ the most foolproof tactic I know. I give them snow cones until crew morale improves.
...
Our blue water cruising sailboat can now regeneratively charge its batteries by soaking up energy that has traveled 93,000,000 miles through space. This fantastic ability has been made possible with an installation of 720 watts of solar panels from a compa...
Installing a DCDC charger allows us to keep our alternator separate from our lithium battery bank. In this way, we can charge our house batteries while also protecting the alternator from the extremely low impedance of our lithium batteries. The challenge ...
She is in LOVE with her new custom bed from Mattress Insider. It's soft, supportive, cool, and amazingly comfortable. The tricky part about getting a new mattress in a boat, RV, or tiny home is that the space available for the mattress is often oddly shap...
We install new ceiling panels in the forward cabin and Tambi demonstrates new boat yoga poses while simultaneously operating a hot glue gun. With the completion of this project, Molly's cabin has finally reached a state of completion where it no longer has...
Something AWESOME is coming!
Be the FIRST to know⛵
Sign up for exclusive updates and be the first to hear when we go live!
Get sneak peeks, exciting announcement, and special content straight to your inbox!
By clicking “Accept All Cookies”, you agree to the storing of cookies on your device to optimize our website, personalize and measure the effectiveness of advertising and collect statistics on usage. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Technical or Functional cookies
Always active
Technical or functional cookies are essential for the basic functionality of the website. They are necessary for general web administration, session identification, website security, and presenting optimized content based on your devices. They also improve the general usability of the website, enabling features such as logging in to your account, adding products to your shopping cart, and checking out securely. These cookies are crucial for the website to function properly and cannot be switched off in our systems. They are typically set in response to actions made by you, such as setting privacy preferences, logging in, or filling in forms. While you can configure your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, please note that some parts of the site may not work properly if you do so. It’s important to mention that these cookies do not store any personally identifiable information directly related to your identity. We may place these cookies without your explicit consent as they are strictly necessary for providing our service.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics or Performance cookies
We utilize statistics cookies to optimize the website experience for our users and gain insights into its usage, such as the number of website visitors, unique visitors, visited pages, and traffic sources. These cookies enable us to measure and enhance site performance by identifying the most and least popular pages and tracking visitor movement. This data aids us in understanding and analyzing website performance for continuous improvement. All collected data is aggregated and therefore anonymous. Disabling these cookies hampers our ability to monitor site visits and performance effectively. We ask for your permission to place statistics cookies.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing, Advertising, and Tracking cookies
On this website, we use marketing, advertising, and tracking cookies to personalize the advertisements we show to you, ensuring they are meaningful and relevant. These cookies also allow us (and third parties) to gain insights into the effectiveness of advertising campaigns. This is achieved by creating a profile based on your click behavior and Browse activity both on and outside our Website. These cookies link you, as a website visitor, to a unique ID, for example, to ensure you do not see the same advertisement repeatedly. The information stored in these cookies may also be used by third-party ad providers to show you ads on other websites you visit. Because these cookies are used for tracking and marketing purposes, we ask for your explicit permission to place them.