Newport Memorial Day 2017

May 27-29, 2017

Start time and hours                           8:44                 3248.55

End time and hours                             10:54               3250.81

Start time and hours                           9:15                 3250.81

End time and hours                             11:20               3252.94

     We opened the 2017 season with a cruise to Newport RI http://cityofnewport.com/ for the Memorial Day weekend.  We cruised with Barry and Suzanne Shapiro on Spray and Manny & Joanne on Movin Up.  The cruise to Newport was good weather and good seas.  We had a tail wind and following tide.  The ride back was in a light drizzle but the seas were calm and the wind and tide was at our backs.

The ride down to Newport RI

     In Newport, we stayed again at the Newport Marina http://newportmarina.com/ on Lee’s Wharf.  This is a great marina within easy walking distance of downtown.  It has a heated pool, very clean showers, laundry, grills, and picnic area.  Steve is the manager and runs a great pla 

My view from the cockpit

I am at the end, Spray is in front of me, and Movin Up is in front of Spray

Tied safely in Newport Marina

Beautiful sunset over Newport harbor and Newport Bridge

     On Saturday, we walked around downtown Newport and visited all of the usual shops.  It was the holiday weekend and the town was crowded.  The weather was sunny and in the 70s.   On Saturday night, we all ate at O’Brien’s Pub https://www.theobrienspub.com/ on Thames St.  Very good food and OK beer menu.  It was still warm and we sat on the patio where Lucy could sit with us.

     On Sunday, we walked over to King Park   http://www.cityofnewport.com/visitors/king-park

along the harbor.  It is a beautiful place with a great view of Newport and the harbor.  On the walk back we came across the Coronet restoration project http://iyrs.edu/our-boats/coronet/ .

I have been to Newport many times and never knew that this was here.  It is right next to the Newport Marina.  There is a catwalk in the shed that you can walk around and see the restoration as well as artifacts that were removed during the work.

View of Newport from King Park

The Coronet in action

     On Sunday, we grilled at the marina and enjoyed dinner on the boat.  There is a grocery store and wine store about ½ mile from the marina that has all we needed.

Flybridge renovation

Water was leaking into the salon from where the helm chair was through bolted on the flybridge.  We took this as an opportunity to make the flybridge more comfortable and better looking.

We first removed the two original back to back seats, the helm chair and the pedestal.

I used a circular saw to cut the top fiberglass and foam core into sections.  I know foam was not original to the mainship so this must have been done by a previous owner.

He should have used plywood under the helm chair as the foam compressed and caused the leak.  The foam came up pretty easily.

Chisel, prybar, and a small putty knife worked well.

I sanded and cleaned the cut out area.

Ready for the 3/4 marine plywood.  I filled the old bolt holes with thickened epoxy.

 I did a lot of sanding to smooth things out as much as possible.

I cut the plywood to fit the hole and coated with three layers of west epoxy.

I filled the gaps with more west epoxy and then faired the edges.

I put three layers of glass and two extra layers over the edges.  After it dried I then used thicken epoxy to smooth out the whole thing.

I removed the old indoor-outdoor carpet that lined the inside of the flybridge.  It was just rough fiberglass underneath.  I did some sanding of the very rough spots and made it as smooth as possible.

The carpet went all around the inside and was falling apart and making a mess of everything.  It came off fairly easily.

I used two coats of Pettit epoxy primer and two coats of Pettit EZPoxy paint.

The four coats of epoxy paint and primer smoothed out the rough fiberglass walls and really cleaned up things on the flybridge.

I then put the pedestal and helm chair back on.  I through bolted the pedestal and used lots of 4200 to seal the holes from leaks.  So far, so good.

 I ordered some pontoon seating from Veada Industries.  http://veada.com/  A 26" seat and a 28" radius fit perfectly between the rails of the flybridge.  These are the Regatta series.

 I then added a 55" seat to make a great seating area.  I bolted the seats together but have not screwed them into the deck.  There is storage that is waterproof under the seats.

 We got this wonderfully comfortable helm chair from Arrigoni Design at the Newport Boat Show.  https://www.arrigonidesign.com/  It fit on our existing pedestal and is invaluable for long cruises.

 I found this table top mount that is very adjustable at https://www.lagunusa.com/

I had a starboard table made at http://www.deepbluemarine.com/

This is our new dining area in good weather, and bad weather if we put the side curtains down.

 I covered the flybridge with one coat of Kiwi Grip cream color.  http://www.pyiinc.com/KiwiGrip/

 I found it easy to apply by following the instructions.  One gallon covered most of the flybridge with very little left over.  I did not do under the pontoon seating or the corner behind the ladder.  If you needed to do this you would need more than one gallon.

 You can apply Kiwi grip over old non skid.  It does a great job of hiding messy decks.

 You can choose how rough you want the finish to be.

This is a close up of the dried Kiwi Grip.

I also removed quite a bit of dead wires from the flybridge.