May 3, 4 and 5th
I flew down and visited the boat May 3rd. First time I could see it on the hard in St Augustine. Bumpers and mooring lines were still left out and  the boat needed some attention, so it is good to come down soon after the boat is hauled out. Slept over on it 3rd and at the end of the day on the 4th, headed to Orlando so I had a safer spot for my flight back.  I also ran fresh water through the engines and then anti freeze as a corrosion protection measure. I put the name on the stern that Cheryl designed, moved the dingy below the boat, and put the engine on a stand. I also wrestled the main into the cabin and got it out of the weather. I taped up all the through hull areas and met with the fiberglass guy to discuss the work needed. I fired this work up when I got home and it was done by the end of May.  Also signed off on hurricane straps. If that was not enough, I reworked the cushions to get them all out of the way, and dropped the anchor and chain down to keep the tarp down and allow me to measure the chain (It is shorter than they said :-).  It is 130 feet in total, which I think I can work with.

July 7, 2017
I fly out early again (leave at 4am from home), and get to Orlando on time. First stop is the St John's county tax collector where we square up on sales tax and get the boat registered. They needed Cheryl's Drivers License and signature which made things more interesting, but we got it sorted.
When I got to the boat I noticed my swim ladder was missing. Found that in the welding shop. Also got a estimate list for the repairs we wanted done, not sure where it got hung up. The fiberglass work looked OK, they could have done a few things better, but it will work. I took some of the salon cushions to the Irish Sail lady and the Genoa. Hot day and I was sweating pretty good... Glad we will sail in the winter :-)

July 8, 2017
Fitted the helm enclosure and marked what was broken, brought it to the Irish Sail lady as well, with the rest of the salon cushions. Re wrapped the head stay, and rolled up the furler line. Noticed a birds nest in the cockpit shades so I took them down, washed them and stowed them below.
Also drilled and mounted the seagull water filter. Measured the anchor chain, tested the deck hatches (all seem fine except the two aft ones over the bunks.) Did some sorting and cleaning. It was a very hot day, but a welcome rain storm came in around 4:30 and cooled things down some.
At the end of the day I pushed on the hurricane straps, they came right out of the ground, tried the other three, all were easy to pull out, they were only in one turn. Most boat look like that, so the straps are a joke at best... Told the yard manager.

July 9, 2017
Fixed the seagull plumbing as the pipe was leaking and would leak a good deal if pulled around. Cut the tube shorter and tried to be more square. Also put the tube in deeper in the "T" fitting. This seems to have fixed the issues. Measured the mainsail cover and all the hatches. Made list of what needs to be replaced and will start work on sourcing those parts.  Boat looks a little empty/torn up, but it does not seem to be suffering in dry dock so far.

Sept 14th, 2017
I fly down three days after IRMA smashes Florida to check on things. My timing is pretty good as my original flight, booked two months earlier, would have had me landing in Orlando right as Irma was visiting the same area... The boat looks fine at first glance, but there are some odd items. The biggest concern is the dingy and the key jack stand it was chained to are now behind the boat. At first I assume this is from the wind, but the jack stand has been lowered and the bottom sanded, so the yard workers moved the dingy and jack stand before the storm to prep the bottom and simply never moved it back. Very careless, but typical of boat yards everywhere as near as I can tell.

I moved the dingy and put the jack stand back where it belonged. I mentioned it to the yard manager, but I do not think they really care, so I need to track this on my own. The stern jack stands were oil canning the far aft end of the swim steps and I loosened these two jack stands to solve this problem. The bow jack stands were loose, so the boat had settled a little stern down. I need to be more aggressive at adjusting these stands going forward as the yard does not check them.

The good news is the bottom prep seems very good, and they will put epoxy barrier coats on all exposed gel coat before painting so this should look good. The sail drives have been painted and boot seals installed.

The boat also seem to have picked up a  lot of black mold on any plastic/vinyl surface like winch handle holders or fiberglass trim work. Must be from the summer humidity and all the rain. The hatches above each bunk also leaked from the driving rain in the high winds. 6 mono hulls tipped over in the wind which is about 20% of the total number of mono hulls in the yard, and a few hurricane straps pulled out (I think these are mainly useless as the yard does not set them in the ground far enough to be of any value), but otherwise things were OK.  Had to sponge standing water out of the Port Bow cabin. A good thing was, despite being unsecured, the dingy did not go anywhere in the breeze and seemed undamaged.

I met up with the canvas folks in the yard, and agreed on new cockpit cushions. Also cleaned up some of the mold and and wiped up any water down below.

Sept 15th.
I had a late afternoon flight out of Orlando so it was a short day, but I did charge the house and engine batteries some and put on the new hatch covers Cheryl had made. I also aired things out and picked up the new sail cover, and rub rail for the stern. I installed the new toilet seats and dried all the bilges. I noticed oil in the bilge water of the engine compartments, I dropped an email to the mechanic about this. My guess is it is just from the service work, but worth checking. Sweated like a dog and then headed home!

Oct 1, 2017
Took the nice 6am flight out of Milwaukee but to Jacksonville this time. Short stop in Atlanta resulted in roughly the same travel time as the previous flights direct to Orlando. The big jobs for this trip were to pick up the helm station canvas and the Genoa from the Irish Sail lady and I also got one of the cabin cushions back. With some effort, I was able to get the dingy back on the davits. This will get it out of the way when they paint the hull.

I also test fit the new cockpit cushions, and helm seat which look good, and took everything off so it would not get dirty.
It had rained a good deal the previous two weeks, and all four hatches had leaked some. Two bow cabins seemed the worst. Not as bad as after the hurricane, but still not good. I decided to cut covers for the hatches from a Tarp, to protect them from the sun as well as provide a seal to keep any leaks from the hatches themselves. The logs do not mention hatch leaks anymore, so maybe this does the trick!

Oct 2, 2017
Met up with the canvas guy on the bunks. He recommended I break the zippers which were rusted solid, and wash the covers. The foam seemed OK, so this was the evening project. Hot work, but most of the covers seem good. Cheryl will decide in November on their final fate!
I also agreed to him building a dingy cover so the dingy can hang on the davits and still be protected from the Florida sun.

I also re blocked the stern of the boat as there was a jack stand under each transom that was oil canning the hull some there. Took these out and found jack stands that fit under the hull in more solid spots to replace them.

Oct 3,
Headed out to visit Mary and Jim near Tampa. Had good visit with each of them. Jim passed away a few weeks later, so it is good I was able to re-connect with him.

Nov 6th
Headed out with a full load of gear to bring to the boat and get the refit done. Took a few days to drive down and passed my USCG Captains test on the way down.

Nov 9th
Arrived in St Augustine and picked up my brother John who was on his boat in the St Augustine harbor. With John's help, we unpacked the truck and replaced the three tired 4D house batteries with nice new LifeLine units. The move to Tab connectors added some to the project as the old automotive connectors were hard to get off, but by the end of the day, the work was mostly done. Also installed the Link battery monitor at this time to take advantage of the batteries being disconnected. No notes on any water issues, so I think my tarp hatch covers worked.

Nov 10th
John helped once again and we removed the beat up and damaged stern rub rail and did some clean up on the battery installation. I also picked up the cabin salon cushions from the Irish Sail Lady. They look good and I just need to put the locking boards in on the bottoms of the cushions to hold them in place. That afternoon I put epoxy in all the old rub rail screw holes, and also filled in some voids in the laminate at the edges to clean up the hull joint for the new rub rail.

Nov 11th Saturday
John took the day off and I installed the new rub rail. I also installed the new cockpit hatch screen. The New 80lb Mantus anchor was put on the chain, the anchor chain marked and 40 feet of 5/8" rode added and spliced in and the new anchor was hoisted into position. A fairly productive day.

Nov 12th
Based on the trouble our neighbors behind us were having with their engines, I decided to try an start each engine. Got two out of three running. After buying a new engine start battery, the issue turned out to be the starter on the Port engine. This is being replaced by the local mechanic and I will also pick up a spare. I put in the new speedo/depth unit and ran the starts of a NEMA 2000 bus for the new instruments. Spend a good deal of time organizing all the spares and supplies into plastic containers and stowing them in the port bow so the boat was in better shape for Cheryl.

Nov 13th
Cheryl's flight arrived on time and John returned to help with the projects which included putting the name on the bows (note the old batteries off the boat as well), and re-striping the hull to remove the Moorings paint colors. As with most tasks, this one took longer than expected and the fairly stiff winds did not make the job easier.
Also started on the radar installation on the mast, with the big goal for the day of getting the radar cable installed in the mast and into the boat. This sounds easy, but with our approach, it took much of the day!

Nov 14th.
We met up with the canvas shop folks at the yard and agreed the plan for the new bunks and which covers needed replacements. Also finished the striping and name work and mounted the radar support as well as the radar dome itself on the mast. We jury rigged the electrical connections for everything and fired up the radar, speedo and display. It all worked which is very nice!  The Mechanic also visited and quickly decided the starter motor was no good and will replace it next week.

Nov 15th
Clean up time and we used the day to clean some areas inside and outside the boat as well as make final choices on the new bunk foam and covers. John joined us once more and we made some progress running the SSB ground planes and NEMA 2000 bus wires through various hidden areas of the boat. Also fired up the Starboard engine once more to be happy it will start in January. Since we had some issues, I will make one more trip down in December to verify things before we launch. Don't want to be sitting in a broken down boat after driving to Florida!

With a fairly successful week of work, and thanks to great help from John and Cheryl, we are in very good shape for launching. There are still many projects to work on once we launch like installing the new hatches and screens, and installing the AIS and instruments, but we have made good progress and all jobs that needed outside vendors are done as well as all jobs that had to be done out of the water. The refit over the summer is basically complete which feels great. When you look at the prep work on the hull, and before and after shots of the rub rails you can see the progress. A close look at the bows with a couple of before and after shots shows how much work was done on the fiberglass and gel coat repairs and bottom work.

Nov 16 and 17
Broke the drive back into 2 days. It is about 1300 miles and I did 850 of it the first day, so the second day was not too bad.

Dec 19 and 20th
Flew down to make sure engines worked, and to get a few more projects done. Added a registration plate to Dingy (Glued on), took off mainsail cover, put on the Genoa, added a wedge to the radar dome mount so it was more horizontal, and asked the yard to fix and re-glass a crack on the port stern that had been flagged in the survey. Short trip, with 6am flights each day.