My mother needed a boat

Boats make me do things I normally wouldn't do. Pick up after myself, clean my room, put my stuff away, say my prayers... If my mother had a boat, she could send me there... with or without dinner. I would shape up in a hurry, no doubt.
I spent the day (from 7am 'til 11 am) and (4 pm to 7 pm) putting up shadecloth and cleaning the Flash. I found that tripping over my tools, and trash, and broken pieces of fiberglass was no fun. Besides, I'm looking for tanks and I can't find them if they're under 100 tons of garbage. I found a big water tank under a sheet of plywood. How do I know it was a water tank? The big black hose that runs from the deck fill to the tank has printed on it "big black water hose" or something like that... so tomorrow, I'm going to take the gasoline powered high pressure washer I have out to the boat and blast away all the grime and dirt and soot from the fire(s). Then I'll take some more pictures and see if they look any different from these.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

I just turned 63 and I thought I should start working on the boat now. It'll be easier to remember how much time I actually put in on this thing if I just start now.
So, I was out at the ranch at 6:45 am, fired up the generator and started cutting fiberglass with my trusty sawzall. I was able to remove the old double cooler box/freezer, cut it in half and hoist it over the side. I cut out the bottom of the cockpit and am trying to figure out how to get it off the boat without giving myself a hernia. Me, the yard and the boat are covered with bits and pieces of fiberglass and at 10 am, I call it quits. Load up some of the trash in the pickup and drive back to the house. It was 85 degrees when I started this morning and it's time to get into the shade and cool off. But now that I'm removing the crappy stuff from the boat, it's opening up and everything looks just a little more possible. Like the story goes, I know there's a pony in there somewhere! For the next few days I'll be tearing out all the rotted and unwanted stuff. I sure am glad I'm doing this in Mexico... and I find that I LOVE this kind of project. The boat was designed to be big and fast. I'm going to use modern materials and techniques to make it faster, lighter, roomier and more agile. Also more ecological and self sufficient. It's great fun and a huge challenge.