The Annual US Sailboat Show was in town last weekend, and boy was it fun times downtown. The show touts itself as being the largest and oldest in-water boat show, featuring over 100 sailboats – about half of them being catamarans. Matt’s company had the largest and best in show display with all of the brand new Beneteau beauties we’ve been lusting over all lined up like ducks in a row. See, that’s the best and worst part of these shows… seeing all of the beautiful brand new boats, fresh from the factories oversees, with their shiny gelcoats, polished stainless and new boat smell. It makes it hard to come back to old faithful, with our torn up floor and swanky teal suede cushions after being immersed in the hulls of heaven all weekend.
Speaking of our cringe worthy interior, I did see a boat that had the exact upholstery I have been searching for – a very handsome grey tweed. Pair that with some bold graphic pillows for a fun pop, and our boat will go from freak to chic.
We met up with our friend, Collin, the same one who joined us on the commercial shoot, and had some fun in the vendor tent. I think this set up by Harken simulated a winch and timed how quickly you could raise a sail. Collin gave it a whirl and placed at #2 on the board. I think his final time was 7.40 or something crazy fast. I told you this guy was legit.
Although, apparently not as legit as Josh, who held on to the top spot, despite repeated attempts by our friend who tried to knock him down the board.
In other boat news, Matt is installing a 3 way valve to separate our main Heat/AC unit in the salon from the two in our hulls so he can remove the main unit while he works on repairing the fiberglass floor. We need to cut out the fiberglass and balsa core where screws were drilled to hold down the Heat/AC unit. Matt says then we need to pour a little acetone and let it sit for a while to let any residual moisture to dry out. I know I tend to poke fun at us and call us out for the amateurs we are, but I must admit, Matt has gotten good. It took us nearly a month to do our first oil change, and now he’s rerouting AC units like it’s no big deal. Wow, look how far we’ve come!
Meanwhile, we still can’t find an exact match for the flooring we removed. Looks like we may have to start looking at other options, none of them being easy or cheap. As I was wondering if we had finally bitten off more than we could chew, I stepped outside and got a look at this. Talk about making it all worth it. Guess we’ll stick it out for another day….
