O'Day 25

It's been a while since I posted something here.  4 months time.  The winter was just miserable.  No work on the O'Day or the canoe.  No boat work anywhere!!  To to make matters worse we had a monster storm that blew out my temporary shed.    I'm just now getting back in business.  What I did get accomplished  was to make some slats to cover the interior cabin.  I did a test with 5 furring strips that I got at HD.   They turned out ok and I'll make  some more.

When we were motoring to our new home we noticed that the outboard bracket was pushing the transom in.  It was a concern so we didn't push the motor to hard.  I don't have pix of that yet and I didn't take any when I took the mount off the boat.  The fix is going to be a 3/4 inch plywood backing placed on the inside of the transom.  I'll glue and bolt that backer in place.  More on that when I start the job. In the mean time I'm refurbishing  the motor mount and the spacer. The wood block is oak.  Tough to sand.  I'll coat it in several coats of resin then several coats of urethane varnish. This is the spacer. When I took it apart I discovered a crack at the lower section.  That was caused by the metal spacer being secured incorrectly.  It was on upside down allowing free space between the spacer and the transom.  I'll address that somehow.

The boat didn't have the vbirth cushions with it.  They must have disigenerated along the way.  I found a junk shop right down the road that specializes in marine stuff.  He and cushions fro an O'Day 27. The cushions fit just like they belonged in a 25. The color was 70's brown.  I bought them and then dyed them blue.  I used navy blue dye but this is all that came out of it.  It's light blue but it does blend in.  I also got the other bolster done.

Overall the boat is in great condition.  However, it does need cosmetic work in the cabin.  The fellow we bought the boat from is in his 80's and owned the boat for 35 years.  Over the last 10 years he didn't do too much with the interior and it shows.  It has the original 1970's flavor.  I'm going to try and upgrade that.  My first attempt is to recover the seat bolsters.  These attach to the interior hull  at your back height.    I used the old cover as a pattern and my wife's sewing machine and this happened.

Our neighborhood marina.  We're the only boat wita a big stick on the boat!

So I called the marina Monday morning and talked to the shop foreman.  I asked him to look at the motor and see what he could do,  This marina has a very good reputation with outboards.    He called back later that day and said he didn't know how you got as far as you did on that motor.  Proceded to give a litney of what was wrong with the motor.  We bit the bullet and had him fix it.  We shoved off for the Chester river early on a Wednesday morning.  Wind out of the NE at 12-15.  We flew across the bay at 5 knots and made the Chester river in an hour.  Another hour and we  were at our new home.