Yes, There Is Still Work To Be Done

Raoul, The Free Spirit 'Sailing Master', is back again! Unfortunately, I have very few pictures of Raoul hard at work on the ship. But please know that he has been very dedicated to making our ship not only safer on deck, but all of his meticulously done rope work is incredible! And although he has been knocked around the deck quite a bit, he is always on top of all the sail changes and anchoring. The boys have learned a lot from all of his knowledge, and his patience with them is awesome. Thanks for joining us in our journey, Raoul :-)

Finally, there is enclosed storage space in the head (bathroom).... The black water tank is in the cabinetry directly behind the toilet, and also holds all the medical kits. The shelving above is all the extra toiletries and such. Dave is constantly doing his best to make things easier for me to store, and the kids enjoy working with him on projects. Thanks Dave for helping me to get rid of boxes and tubs full of stuff :-)

The shelf.....

We have completely broken Smyth tradition, and put a door on the head! Some of our readers will really understand what a monumental occasion this really is :-) When the installation is completely finished, there will be a fantastic fold up antique sink in the big open space on the inside of the door. So, when the door is open and latched the sink can be used conveniently from the shop area. When is is closed, it can be used by the person using the head.

As a joke, Dave glued these luan cutouts to the outside of the door. I loved them so much because they reminded me of an Alaska outhouse, so we kept them.

We salvaged a fantastic bimini frame from Glade's before we left, and my dear husband installed it along with the 200 watts of solar panels. The bimini cover really needs to be redone, and offers absolutley no cover from the rain, but does provide shade for the helmsman.



Now that we have a 'Ship's Carpenter', many jobs that seemed daunting before, are now getting done! I would have to say that the thing that Tamer dislikes the most about working on the boat is carpentry. Dave does a great job at finishing our living space, and we are grateful to have him aboard.
Above, Tamer's workshop/Lathe area was a disaster before this project was started. We cleaned out everything from around the Lathe and the big project began.



Hard at work, rocking out as usual!

The new and improved shop area!

The shelves on the left are just that, shelves.... The ones on the right are actually removable trays that hold sorted hand tools. It was quite an undertaking to do this part of the project, due to the fact that every shelf had was a different size, shape, and had different angles. The are also built so that they cannot accidently slide out while we are underway.

Like the removable shelves, all 10 of these bins are all unique, can be removed one at a time. All in all it was a huge undertaking, and a job extremely well done! Thanks to Dave, Raoul does not have to sleep with 300 pounds of tools piled around him in the library :-)