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Water-maker

This is about a DIY water-maker we made for our Island Packet sailboat. Monday, February 24, 2014. Water, Water Everywhere. The only concern is how much noise does this thing make? Right now (2-24-14) the plan is to begin collecting equipment and have this up and running by Summer 2014. I'll be updating this page as we go along so this may turn into a pretty extensive read. When it's completed, up and running I'll come back and edit to make this entry a little easier to get through. As children we were b...

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Anchors, Chain, etc

Anchors, Chain, etc. Monday, May 19, 2014. All About Our Ground Tackle. After we scrubbed it down three times we painted it white with a mildew resistant bilge paint. It looks really great now and our boat smells fresh and clean. It'll be really nice if it lasts for more than just a few weeks. Subscribe to: Posts (Atom). Use these links to cruise this site:. Main Page - La Vida Dulce. All About La Vida Dulce.

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Projects

Monday, January 11, 2010. Projects on La Vida Dulce. Listed below are links to some repairs, upgrades, additions and restorations we've done on the boat. Some of the explanations are excerpts from the running blog so it may become repetitive if you've followed from the beginning. The main reason for this page is to provide an easily accessed list of projects so we don't have to dig back through the blog for info. Espar D5 Forced Air Heat. Dinghy Derrick and Cradle. Replacing the Holding Tank.

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SSB Radio

Wednesday, January 21, 2015. Installing an ICOM M802 SSB Radio. Running these three cables turned out to be a major pain in the tukhus ( click here for more info. Gonna hafta move all my future projects over to the port side. We tried so hard but there's just no getting away from Microsoft. We'll see how it all works out when I get the radio up and running. The final connection is for the modem, in our case a Pactor-4 Dragon DR-7400 from SCS ( click here. This is a series of wires cut to exactly 1/4 wave...

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Saving The Old Cushions

Saving The Old Cushions. Making improvements to our boat. Trying to get some mileage out of our salon cushions. We stretched them out for a few extra years. In the end we found a better solution. Thursday, January 10, 2013. Doing it Right This Time. Monday, January 11, 2010. They sagged and drooped and looked pretty tired. When we checked into replacing them we found the cost ($5150) to be out of reach for our quickly dwindling "refit budget". We found that folding the foam into a V shape helped. The...

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Shower Water Dam

To keep the water confined to the shower on our boat we built a water dam below the folding door. Tuesday, March 23, 2010. When we first started looking at Island Packets we met Pam and A.D. Wilson, owners of Pappy's Packet, a beautiful blue hulled IP420. They invited us aboard and showed us all the great features of these boats as well as some of the modifications they had made on theirs. It was actually the time we spent with them that convinced us to buy an Island Packet 420. Subscribe to: Posts (Atom).

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Upcoming Projects

These are things we'd like to do, to add or change before we get underway in 2015. Thursday, September 22, 2011. The "Gotta Have It" List (with ongoing updates). We've gotten most of our electronics up and running with new instruments at the Helm ( click here. And Nav Station ( click here. This year (2014) we still a short list of must-have items before we head out in the Fall. ICOM M-802 single side-band (SSB) radio with Pactor 4 modem and KISS ground system. We also added a 6kw genset ( click here.

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Mast Mods

Monday, April 19, 2010. Projects for When the Mast is Down. I decided since I had to replace the light I might as well do it right. I invested in a tri/anchor light made by OGM ( Orca Green Marine. The new mast light combines the 3 navigation lights used on boats while they're underway ( Navigation Lights. Island Packet ran a length of braided cord through there to be used for pulling wires. What a great idea! What were they thinking? Subscribe to: Posts (Atom). Use These Links to Cruise This Site:.

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Interior Lighting

Upgrading the interior lighting on our boat. Tuesday, January 18, 2011. Had given us a really gorgeous brass anchor light but for the main salon we wanted something less nautical. We went to Annapolis Lighting ( link to their web site. There were actually 4 or 5 styles that were all very similar. They were all small which is perfect for on a boat. They all had brass stands and etched glass globes. Several were made by Waterford (cha-ching! Posted by Tom Cheri. Subscribe to: Posts (Atom).

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Forced Air Heat Installation

Forced Air Heat Installation. Living aboard our boat, we needed a better heating system to get us through the Winters. Detailed description of an Espar diesel heater on an Island Packet sailboat. Thursday, February 19, 2015. Note: For further info on the Espar heater see the archive at right. After a few days of this I climbed down into the cockpit locker and did some maintenance on the heater. I was pretty sure the problem was in the blower that supplies fresh air for the combustion process as well ...

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La Vida Dulce

We lived aboard our Island Packet sailboat for five years preparing it and ourselves for extensive offshore cruising. This blog is about those preparations and modifications to the boat. Sunday, January 3, 2016. What am I doing? I'm stuck in the dirt and I've become totally domestic. And I'm almost enjoying it! What happened to the boat? OK, so life does get in the way of our dreams sometimes. No problem. Just re-boot and we're back on track. Assembling the controls and components went quickly and I'm no...