So the boat is back from Miguel's boat repair. I know you east coast people have cheap labor, it was $11K to get it *perfectly* color matched, epoxy paint not powder coat, that paint will out live me, Miguel also patched up the holes where the former hard top was attached and you can't tell he was there, he fixed up some boo boos I did on my deck and he perfectly matched the non skid, he fixed up where the powder coat on my swim platform had bubbled, he did a great job. Did I expect $11K, no I did not, I brought him $10K in cash and he was willing to let the rest go (cash is king). I'm gonna pay him the rest because so long as I live I'm gonna take the boat to him every few years and say "fix it". And he will.
I need to get you guys pictures but my buddy Peter and I have been putting it back together. You would be lucky if you have a friend like Peter. There was a lot of cable drama, we had to pull them up to the box up top and down to the cables in the clam shell in the cabin. I got frustrated over and over and Peter was just "I've got this, let me do something". Putting it back together without him would have sucked big time.
What I did right was I printed labels for everything we took apart. Radar 7.5 amps +, 942 7.5 amps +, etc. So it's all going back together very nicely. It's almost done with the electronics. All 3 screens work, I did what Jens told me to do and made an extended NMEA bus up in the upper box, that works, radar works, spreaders work (and I wired them to a real switch so I can get the blue lights), nav lights work, pretty much everything works. I've got some GPS hockey pucks I need to put in, need to cinch down the nav light, but I'm mostly there. Gonna run NMEA to my radios so man overboard is more accurate, then a ton of cable management, then the windows, then fish!
I have some stuff I would do differently if I did it again but I'm behind of a few guys who did this and they say I did better.
I'll get pictures up soon. It definitely looks like something Grady should have offered, it's sharp. It's close to perfect for chasing tuna in the Pacific.
