Blog Posts

Ornament

• William Estep
• Ten year plan

A friend gave me this cool metal sailboat ornament to decorate the boat for the holiday. Love it! I’ll have to find it a permanent home.

Coffee!

• William Estep
• Wandering

I’m surprised more of my posts aren’t coffee related. Nice fresh pot for some weekend boat work.

Recent Travel Drinking

• William Estep
• Travel

I haven’t posted in a while, and want to get back to recording my thoughts and fun hobby activities.

I was recently in Pensacola for a week of work, and had the pleasure of visiting a fun whisky bar, Old Hickory Whiskey Bar.

Some of my favorites.

Rigging Repairs

• William Estep
• Ten year plan

Rigging repairs on the boat are done. Nothing major, I had a short list of items I wanted repaired/replaced. The secondary supports for the port and starboard spreaders, and the running backstays. All done and everything is looking great!

The work was done by Jason of Argonaut Rigging. Great vendor! Highly recommend him.

Ten Year Plan Number Plate

• William Estep
• Ten year plan

s/v Ten Year Plan received it’s official number plate today. U.S. Coast Guard documented boats are assigned a lifetime documentation number. The requirements are the number be affixed to the interior of the boat in such a way as altering them would damage the numbers or the hull. Folks solve this problem in a varieties of ways, including wooden plaques, plastic or metal carved plates.

A friend of mine, Al, owns the AutoMetalSkin company, and offered to make a number plate for me. Using a jewelers saw, he cut out the numbers from a sheet of metal, then using his unique finishing process, coated the number plate with brass. He left it exposed, without a clear coat, so we can watch the metal patina over time. See the video below to see more of the reveal process.

Live Life

• William Estep
• Qotd

Vive la vida y deja vivir

New Boat Arrives

• William Estep
• Ten year plan

My new Tender arrived today. So of course I had to set it up in my living room. 😁

It’s easy inflate and it all fits in the provided bag. It’s the PHP-310 Air Floor Inflatable from West Marine.

Looking forward to many years of service from this great little boat.

The question has come up several times regarding what to call the little boat. Is it a tender, or a dinghy, a zodiac or a skiff? Here’s a rough definition of each as I understand them:

Comfort Without the Bulk

• William Estep
• Ten year plan

When I was looking to redo the V-Berth on my boat, I researched mattress options, and ran across several ‘under-mattress’ systems and ended up going with the Froli Modular SleepSystems.

The big challenge is ventilation under the mattress.

• Affordable and well made
• Easy to follow instructions
• Easy to assemble and use
• Comfortable and adjustable
• Great ventilation.

As others have noted, it can be a wrestling match with the Froli to get to the lockers under the cushions in the V-Berth. What has worked for me so far is keeping the overall pieces small enough to handle, instead of creating one large connected piece, I have three smaller pieces: One on port, one for the bench starboard locker cushion, and one for the center key piece.

Boat Renovations

• William Estep
• Ten year plan

Since purchasing the boat, I’ve been focusing on internal renovations and minor updates.

The first big change was getting the v-berth updated. I took out a couple of small shelves, refinished the drawers, and made a key board and mounting rails. The biggest job was making the cushions.

The next big project was ripping out the cabinets on the starboard side of the main cabin and creating a pilot berth.

Ten Year Plan Boat Cards

• William Estep
• Ten year plan

Thank you to Lindsay S. Powell Designs for the great boat cards. Another item checked off the list on the Ten Year Plan 🙂 I’m very happy with how they turned out.