As all marine products typically are, outboard stands are way over priced for what you get. It is literally a few pieces of bent metal and a piece of plywood while West Marine would not hesitate to charge you $120 for one.

That is why I decided to make my own little contraption. It’s no work of art but it’s serving me well so far. A couple pieces of wood and some galvanized hardware that costs me just around $12 and a Saturday morning later, I have my own little collapsable outboard mount.

It uses exactly 2 pieces of wood: a 8 foot 2×4 and another 8 foot 2×6. It is made to hinge so you can fold it flat when you are not using it or for easy transport. Straps at the bottom keeps it from doing the splits when the motor is mounted and I am even gonna mount some wheels on them so it can also be used as a dolly. All that for under 20 bucks. Take that West Marine!

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I am attaching two photos of the mainsheet relocation to the center of the cockpit. I actually have not yet installed the traveller. I wanted to see how this would work, and also the $160 for the little car and track sort of put me off. as it is I do not think that will make much of a difference speed wise. My design, however, will accommodate the track and eventually I will add it to it. But for now I will spend that money on things more usefull, like the jiffy reefing controls.

I also got you a picture of my new companionway. Regular plywood, TONS of polyurethane, seems to be holding!

I finally decided to drill the 2 holes on the forward hatch of the boat. It is a few more inches forward on the deck then I’d like but I figured it would not really get in the way of the headsail during tacking and a hatch is made of solid fiberglass and easily replaceable so my deck core will be safe from water penetration.

I prepped it by simply measuring where my holes needed to be and applied masking tape to the surface to be drilled.

Once the holes are drilled I applied marine silicone sealant and inserted the connectors. I used stainless machines nuts and bolts to secure the masthead light connector and the PL-259 coupler is just secured with the standard nut and washer I got from the hardware store.

After some more splicing, soldering and taping, I have my thru-deck connectors in place.

Electrical tape doesn’t look as pretty as it can be but it will work for now…

The radio as it was posted on eBay.

After splicing some wires and cables I got the antenna setup on the side of the house with a cable running into the house. Using a 6 amp converter I have 12v power as well. I connected everything up and turned the switch to the on position…. Nothing…. Not even a click. This was pretty irritating. I email the buyer from eBay to let him know that this thing was not as described. While waiting for the response I figured I may as well try to do some trouble shooting.

I first checked out the connections and immediately found that the inline fuse also has a lot of corrosion build up. I scraped off both ends of the fuse as well as the terminals in the containing and put it back together. This time the radio turned on! I was thrilled. I was thinking that I would email the seller back to let him know that I had fixed the problem. Before I got that far I picked up the microphone to make sure I can communicate with my handheld. After setting them both to channel 71 I tried to press the button on the mic…. Nothing again. This is starting to piss me off. The button on the mic doesn’t even move. It is permenantly depressed but the radio does not transmit although it receives just fine. This radio does not have a detachable microphone so replacing it is pretty much out of the question. I didn’t want to go into that much trouble if the seller would just let me return it.

Later that day the seller emails me back apologizing about the mistake in the posting and agrees to refund me. Great. I write back asking for the time frame and the method of refund but got no reply for the next 24 hours. I wrote back again. This time I suggested that I should get my refund before I have to send the radio back since that is how I first acquired it from him. Makes complete sense to me as this would be how the transaction would be done if I was to sell it to someone else on eBay. You get the payment for the item then you ship it. This solicited an aggravated response from the seller. He writes back.

“I have allready told you to return the unit and I will refund the purchase. You must return the item first or nothing. I will not go back and forth on this, just do it my way or nothing. This is my final offer, I will not answer again. If you leave feedback I will leave feedback immediately positive for positive or negative for negative.”

WTF??? This guy is nuts. I looked further into the history of this sellers history and saw dozens of negative feedbacks regarding DOA items. One of the reasons that triggered this research was that he wrote me back using a different eBay account than the one I originally contacted him with. The inquiry showed that this guy had another eBay account that he had been using since 2001 that has a rating of 631 but 16 negative feedbacks. His new account has only been established since 2005 and it already has 4 negatives. I figure this is not gonna go down quietly.

I began an onslaught of research and record keeping through both eBay and PayPal. I was prepared to drop this guy his 5th negative feedback of the year and hold on tight for the aftershocks. Well, not so fast I thought. This thing has the potential to drag out forever. Do I really want to do that? I may not see my money back and I’m stuck looking for another radio on eBay unless I want to take the blow and buy another new one. I decided that I may want to give it a shot at fixing the microphone. I figured it couldn’t hurt since it is already broken.

I opened up the microphone casing and find further corrosion of parts. Its not completely hopeless as most of the parts seem to work fine. Specifically it is the push-to-talk actuator that suffered the brunt of the damage. It was corroded pretty badly and it is also the reason why the push to talk button was stuck on as it no longer has the ability to push back. I ran down to the local radio shack and picked up a replacement microphone for 25 bucks and came home and opened her up. There was the exact part that matched what I needed to replace in my marine radio. I just don’t know for sure it the internal schematics have changed that would require me to wire it differently when I resoldered them back up. I went ahead and started disassembling anyways.

The microphone showing in this photo is the one I sacrificed for the radio.

The new microphone disassembled. The object to the right with all the wires going to it is the part i needed.

The original part that needed replacement. The black part on the right goes in and out when the push-to-talk button is pressed. This one no longer moved.

desoldered the old part and ready for disposal

The new part prior to desoldering and removal of wires.

After awhile of fumbling parts around and making sure nothing gets shorted out I managed to rewire the old mic with the new part and placed everything back into the little compartments inside the mic casing.

Reassembly of the old mic. The new part is installed and soldered with the correct wires as I know it.

Now came the moment of truth. I started with a useless radio and soon I may end with with another useless microphone. I plugged everything it and clenched my teeth as I pressed down on that PTP button….

The radio turned on and ready to be tested

The PTP button depressed and transmitting!!!!

Hooray! It worked. Note the red light under the LCD screen. It worked. I am pretty glad I don’t have to find another radio. But I still have this eBay guy to deal with. At this point I have spend about 80 bucks into fixing up the old radio and for another 20 I could have bought new. I guess you live and learn. Maybe this ebay guy will agree to refund part of my money for the repairs. I’ll write an update when I find out.

This is what’s left of the now useless new microphone from Radio shack. Note the old PTP module on the bottom left.

After tracking the package online with UPS I finally was expected to deliver yesterday. However I experience something I’ve never seen before. The tracking website showed and exception. It said it didn’t have the correct suite number. I called their 800 number and they setup a time for me to pick up at their distribution center in town. They were suppose to call me when it was available before 7:30 PM. Of course that didn’t happen. I just decided to drive there and see if I can find this thing. Apparently after the customer counter closes, the entire UPS office turns into a mad house. People are playing basketball in the parking lot, people are talking to their buddies on their cell phones, people are horsing around yet these packages still somehow manage to find its recipient. Mostly anyways. They finally track my package down after 15 minutes or so and I was a happy sailor.

the box the sail came in.

I was happy to find that the sail came with slugs already installed. It is also amazing the quality of a new sail vs. my old one. Everything is constructed very solidly and materials seem to be of high quality. It includes one set of reefing points which is something I didn’t have on my old sail.

Reefing point clew and batten installed.

What this sail has the I was not going to get with Porpoise Sails is the insignia of the boat. It is not that big of a deal but its always easier for people to find you out in the water. If I wanted to have my hull number on the sail I will have to make it myself. Maybe another day. At this point, I just want to sail it and see how it performs.

O’Day 22 insignia.

Head of sail with sail slug.

View of the sail. The cut is much fuller on top than my old sail.

Came with a nice sail bag.

Sails East logo by the tack of the sail.

Reinforce clew of the sail. Note the little pocket about the clew.

I couldn’t wait to test the fit on the boat so I went there last night before I went for my daily jog. It was a perfect fit. The old sail was loose footed but I think this new one fits better using the rope. At least for going upwind. I think it will perform much better going upwind but I will have to wait to find out tomorrow. I will take some photos of the sail on the boat and post it here as soon as I can.

CDI flexible furling
Schaefer Snapfurl
Aladous Nautica

All the other one seems to be almost double the price of the above 3 choices. Does anyone know of other brands between the 400 to 700 price range? I have posted a message in the forum asking for people’s opinions so please contribute if you have any expertise in this area. Thanks.

Click here to go to forum post.

Airguide Marine Compass from eBay. A steal at $26 plus $15 shipping from NY.

This is one of the solar panels I'm using to charge the battery. I have 2 x 5 watters and 1 x 20 watter. Luckly these were already owned so I won't have to add to my ballooning cost tally  

Teak is the hardwood of choice when it comes to marine projects. But teak is pretty expensive. I understand if they chose to use another type of wood thats cheaper but at they at least should have covered it with something to repel moisture. Since they fail to do that, condensation and moisture naturally found its way into the cabin and eventually destroyed the plywood. The vinyl layer against the interior of the hull began to peel back and that helped trapping moisture behind and it dripped down to the edges of the plywood bunks.

Here are some photos of what it looked like:

Note the black mold in the corner of the starboard quarter berth against the bulkhead.

The old rotted wood removed and vinyl side covering peeled off. I will probably just paint the interior walls instead of replacing the vinyl. 

Port side of the v-berth where the vinyl hull interior collected water to cause more mold and mildew build up.

The same port side v-berth with the old wood removed. The space underneath is full of positive flotation foam. There are also stacks of this stuff under the cockpit sole. I will need to somehow add more if I want to install the additiona lead ballast in the bilge. 

My low-cost replacement:

Well, I can't afford teak. So I went shopping at my local hardware/lumber yard. I got some standard structural fir plywood that was more in my price range. After removing the old wood from the cabin and traced the outlines to the new plywood, I cut them out with a saber saw. I also decided to seal it with Thompson's water seal which I bought at the store for about $15. After more of less soaking the new wood in as much of this stuff, the results were pretty satisfactory. I shot a little video clip of some of the wood under my faucet to show the water repelling abilities of this combination:

This is the stuff I bought to seal the wood:

The next step will be to cut storage hatches and mount them inside the boat. I may be able to do that this weekend but looks like the weather may turn on me again.

I also bought a 4 ft x 2 ft piece of birch plywood, apply a similar liberal portion of the sealer and made new companionway hatch boards. I will take some photos of that next time I go to the boat yard to post here. They will give me a good test of how this sealer holds up especially if it rains this weekend.

As of the last purchase which is the parts for the square tubing for the tongue extension I was at $5293.37. The following purchases where made towards the tally since:

1. $27.28 – Straight 2×2 trailer tongue coupler: This is the end of the tongue extension that will connect to the hitch on the car. The other end will either u-bolt to the trailer itself or I will weld/bolt on a 2 inch ball to connect the trailer to the car.

2. $24.04 – Red and Green side navigation lights: Now this is a good deal. I went to West Marine friday to see how much the replacement perko lights were. I had these 2.5 inch diameter side-mounted round lights with holes already drilled on the boat. I didnt want to have to drill new holes. They were $90!!! So this is a steal from eBay.

3. $50.40 – Deep Cycle battery: I looked all around for batteries for a good price and I suddenly remember Costco. I really wanted to get AGM or Gel batteries but that was going to be 3 to 4 times as much as I spent. I have capacity for 2 batteries with my eBay Perko switch so maybe later I will splurge….

4. $92.46 – Miscellaneous electrical parts from Fry's: So this includes a diet coke and a couple of small things I needed but I was too lazy to substract that from the total on the receipt. It is a necessary purchase as I will need lights for this vessel to be legal and I will need wires and switches to enable the battery i bought.

5. $76.75 – 30 ft of high-tensile chain and 2 stainless steel shackles: This completes my heavy duty anchor and rode. This thing all put together is heavy! I mean now I'm thinking I need to spend more money getting an anchor bow roller and chain deck plate just to be able to use this. I am not going to like to have to drag this thing out of anchor without it. I bought a 50 ft piece of yellow nylon line to use as a trip line with an old fender tied to the end. I will really need that in place to be able to be able to unset the anchor this size. I think I will just use the smaller fluke anchor that I already have as a primary and use this on overnight trips as needed. The bow roller will have to wait.

6. $129.99 – Garelick outboard motor mount: I have been looking for a way to fix my current motor mount and also just looking to see if I can find one on eBay. People are really retarded there. It is unbelievable how many people have the I-will-over-pay-just-to-win attitude. It is a buyers market when it comes to things like this. As I was watching some guy pay up to $115 on a used Garelick I went shopping elsewhere. Amazon had the exact same one, brand new for $129.99 shipped and no tax. This will come in handy with the new motor. I really didn't want to half-ass the mount and as I was looking at it today, it just needs to go.

That pretty much brings me up to date with my weekend spending spree. the total is now $5642.97. There is one saving grace so far. The mainsail order from D&R Marine is still on backorder. That is priced at $510 with is figured into this total. I called Porpoise sailing in Florida and they told me that they can have one made for me from Thailand for as little as $375. If we figure the difference of $135, My total would actually be at $5507.97. That is still over my budget and god knows I have a long ways to go before this is all over. I am just going to keep it as is until further notice. I am keeping my toes crossed that nothing else turns up needing major repairs….. Ciao.