Spring 2017 Modifications

One of the members of the Yahoo group came up this idea for extra storage. I modified his idea and built this storage cabinet. This uses what is essentially  unused space and provides a good deal  of extra storage.

Any extra storage on a boat is always a plus. The angles were pretty fun to match. The louvered doors were available online. The lower shelf is also very useful and is easily removed to access the anchor locker

We replaced our kitchen sink and faucet. I decided to replace the short galley faucet with the long gooseneck. It sure makes it a lot easier to wash dishes.

I found NMEA 2000 cables that connect directly to the twin Yamaha's. They send information from the outboard's computers to the NMEA 2000 network and allow me to use our Garmin 5212 to view fuel flow, alternator output, water temp, speed, hours, rpm etc.

Bought a king size 8" memory foam mattress and used the existing v-berth cushion to layout a pattern to cut the foam. Used a cheap electric knife to actually cut the foam. Apparently I should have bought a less "cheap" knife as I burned out the plastic gears. Sailrite sells all you need to do a much more efficient job, all it takes is money.

This should be a whole lot more comfortable than the existing cushions.

Got sick of not knowing how full our fresh water and black water tanks were, so I installed the Sensa Tank II level sensors and display. The black water tank was pretty easy to mount the sensors on. The fresh was a bit more of a challenge. Reaching down through the access hatch and attaching the sensors would be easier with longer, skinnier arms. Sure is nice to be able to check the levels, so you don't get a rude surprise.

Bought a hotel style safe at Harbor Freight and mounted it above the hanging locker. Great for stashing wallet, boat registration, SD cards for the chartplotters.

The previous owner had painted the Armstrong brackets with Copper based bottom paint. Unfortunately this can cause major corrosion and had started some serious pitting. I stripped the brackets to bare metal, sprayed with zinc chromate and then primer and topped off with white enamel.

We will see how it holds up.

I did some tailoring of our 2 shower surrounds to make our privacy surround more aesthetically pleasing and functional.  I was quoted over $2000 for someone to make a surround for us. I made ours for under $300. Leaves me money for other boat projects 😁

Gulf Shores

Early September 2016 we hauled Cloud Nine 800 miles down to Gulf Shores,  Alabama. We stayed 10 days at Lulu's Homeport Marina. The Marina is located at Mile Marker: GIWW 155.0 mi. EHL by water or 200 E 25th Ave, Gulf Shores, AL 36542 by land.

We cruised from Lulu's to Mobile bay to the west and Perdido Pass to the east. We also used it as a home base to drive to Biloxi and New Orleans.

Here we are headed towards Perdido Pass and my first foray into the gulf. Perdido Pass is a busy narrow pass with strong currents. It was actually a bit scary for a river rat like me.

Here we are returning to Lulu's from Mobile Bay. Lulu is Jimmy Buffet's sister and along with the Marina there is an outside play area for kids and the Bar\Restaurant with live entertainment. This place stays busy.

Got a kick out of our neighbor "Blue Heron" They had a Great Blue Heron fishing off of their dock finger most every day we were there. 

Heading west to Oyster Bay to watch the sunset.

Sunsets on the water are one of nature's most beautiful settings.

The evolution of our cockpit surround. We bought a hanging shower enclosure and found that if we unzipped it completely it provided privacy for about half the cockpit. We purchased a second one and zipped them together, providing privacy for the entire cockpit. It still needs a little bit of tweaking. 

Lake Cumberland

We arrived close to sunset at Holcombs Landing State Park boat ramp after a crazy drive in the countryside around Lexington and a nerve wracking non-launch of our boat at Lee's Ford Marina and Resort. I was sure that a strap was going to snap and our boat was going to shoot off the trailer and go flying down the way to steep access road. By the time we finally got her in the water we were looking for a nice anchorage pretty fast. We spent the rest of the week in the same cove. We had the Moon coming up every night at one end of the cove and the sun going down in the other. Talk about the beauty of nature!

Our evening view for the week. Great weather and beautiful sunsets. We only left our spot twice during the week. Once to stock up on ice and beer and once when a thunderstorm broke loose our bow anchor. We looked around in the same cove for a possible better spot and ended up back in the same spot.

When it was finally time to leave our efforts to make sure we were securely anchored almost cost us our stern anchor. I had apparently gotten it well stuck in the rocks. After various different maneuvers and about a half hour I finally got it loose.  

On the way back to Franklin Furnace someone may have thought that they saw a UFO. We lost our saucer shaped tv antenna somewhere along the way. All in all a great couple of weeks on the water. We got to try out a cockpit shower surround and hope to improve on it. We were amazed by how comfortably we could spend so much time on our Rossi, looking forward to more.

Charleston

Our first cruise of the year we hauled out Cloud Nine and trailered her 60 to miles Gallipolis, Ohio. We left early to hopefully meet up with the Columbus Sail and Power Squadron at Winfield Lock and Dam. That was the last time we saw them till we got to Charleston.

Unfortunately most of the boats are standard planing hulls and need more speed to get on plane than we can achieve at wide open throttle loaded for cruising. It appears our days cruising with the Squadron may be in the past.

One of the first things you see in Charleston heading upstream is Haddad riverfront park and amphitheater, it has free weekend  concerts.   Then there is of course the lovely golden domed  Capitol building. This was the first time i had ever seen it from anywhere other than the interstate.

We stayed at the Charleston Boat Club right underneath the 35th and 36th street bridges. The marina was in pretty good shape considering that just weeks before, the docks had been up in the parking lot, due to major flooding. We were given a covered slip just downstream from the office.
A section of the covered slips had their roofs destroyed the previous winter when a snow plow sent tons of snow off one of the bridges crashing down on the roofs.

Some boat club members came over to check out our Rossi and invited us to a party that the club was having. One of the things that I enjoy most about cruising is the kindness and hospitality you see from total strangers. Not to mention lots of good food and drink. The view of the Capitol building from the party dock was really nice.

We were blown away by how many Stern Wheelers there were in several locations on the river. It was a beautiful run back to the Mighty Ohio. At the mouth of the Kanawha is point Pleasant of  Mothman fame. We will have to go back some time and check out the museum.
Next stop Gallipolis to haul her back out and down to Lake Cumberland.

Spring of 2016

This spring I have been very busy getting things ready before hauling Cloud Nine down to her new slip on the Ohio river. I used the hole for a rod holder that had been covered over to put the post for my Weber Q grill.
I purchased  an Eccotemp L5 tankless water heater and mounted it on some leftover fiberglass from the head door. I plumbed a shore water inlet to the sinks and the water heater. I mounted the shower head on the dinghy crane.
As I am writing this post I am patiently waiting for my L5 to be returned from the factory. I am hoping very much that it performs as advertised when I get it back. I was having problems with it not staying lit and experiencing frustration with Eccotemp's customer support.

We found some nice exterior fabric an Jo Ann's Fabric and reupholstered some existing cushions and the passenger seat. So far everyone really likes our choice of  fabric.We also replaced some old lettering and updated the new home port.

Personal Modifications

     The winter of 2015-2016 has mainly been quite mild so far, lots of mild weekends for working on the interior of Cloud Nine. The previous owners have made many nice modifications most of which I will keep in-place. Many of the modifications that I have done so far are electronics oriented. The Humminbird chart plotter from my previous boat is much more functional than the sonar unit onboard, so I decided to switch them out. Also added a sound system, a amplified TV\FM antenna and a 12 volt TV with a DVD player. 

  

              When I purchased Cloud Nine last September, the owner included the head door which had never been installed. I told him that I would figure out something to do with it. He had built a very nice platform to hold a Honda 2000 and a couple of gas cans across the dual Armstrong brackets. Unfortunately parts of it were suffering from water intrusion and needed to be replaced. Here's what I came up with. I cut the door down to suitable size, placed it rough side up on the brackets and marked where to cut so that it would lay flat. Cut the slots and attached it. The rough surface of the (inside) of the door seems to be pretty non-slip. I ran the AC off the Honda for a while and it stayed perfectly in-place.

                     



I cut the  door with a regular circular saw. It probably didn't do my blade a lot of good.

I placed it on the brackets to see where I needed to cut. I used a small hand saw to cut the strips out for the angles coming up on the motor mounts. The hand saw seemed to work better than the circular saw.

My next project is setting up the Honda for extended run using the boats fuel tank.