Resistance is Futile

Back to the GREEN FLASH to remove the coaming/cockpit this morning. Cheese croissants only a faint but pleasant memory.

This is a picture of the wireless controller for the crane on the back of my pickup truck. The 5 peso coin is there to show scale... (you don't know how big a 5 peso is, eh? (evil chuckle) OK, then... A 5 peso coin is the same size as a US quarter. I just don't have any US quarters here because nobody takes US coins for payment in Mexico (although I've seen beggars asking for them). I keep all my US coins in a 55 gallon drum on the other side of the border. As I drive across the border I throw whatever US coins I have accumulated into the barrel. Nobody can lift it so I'm not worried about it.

Back to the FLASH- I hoisted up the old cockpit onto the starboard side of the boat until it teetered there, then I propped it up with some 2x4s so I could disconnect the hoists. (I didn't want this thing to pull the entire boat over because it was still attached to the boat by way of the hoists).

The one remaining line was connected to the electric winch on the truck, so I could stand up on the boat and control the process using the remote.

I found I could edge the thing over an inch at a time by just tapping the remote... so everything kinda went in slow motion before it fell. And fall it did... so now I can concentrate on getting some serious shade on the FLASH, get all the junk out to the junkyard, and get the small bits of rotted boat cleaned out.

Feels good to be this far along right now.

And I gotta' thank Mike and Cynthia (see First Mate blog) for a great dinner at Los Barcos last night. The shrimp tacos were wonderful. We were squeezing Italians into our little car and tried to thank them before we drove off, but the moment was a bit chaotic.

Pastries and heavy lifting

I'm not ready to start bringing workers onto the boat yet... I am dismantling the previous owners' work on it, cutting off rotting decks and cabin tops. This stuff is really heavy- about an inch of plywood with a half inch of fiberglass & resin, plus framing and hardware. So I've been using a series of hoists, and rope and pulleys to move it around. It's too heavy for me to lift so I need the mechanical advantage of levers and blocks. Today I had hoped to remove the remaining cabin top/coaming from the FLASH. The piece is large and no longer attached by anything but gravity. I propped it up with 2x4s and attached the crane from the pickup to one corner with the idea of rolling it off the boat.

Everything was lined up perfectly and then just before I pressed the button on the wireless remote for the crane, the First Mate drove up with a bag of cheese-filled croissants. My concentration on the pastries, I hit the button and the cabin slid sideways into the boat.

With the croissants in hand, I locked up the work area and headed home for a cold shower and air conditioning and ice water... as Arnie would say, "I'll be BOCK!"

BTW, it's too late for pictures of the croissants.

The work goes on...

We are getting into the real heat of Mexico summer. The First Mate took my photo as I was leaving for the Green Flash... here's the summer fashion for this morning: cut off sweat pants, tank top, cheap but sturdy sandals, iPod, kerchief headband to keep the sweat out of eyes, super-dark sunglasses (prescription). What you can't see is the sheen of spray-on sunblock by Banana Boat (great idea), but you can see the sheen of sweat already starting at 6 am.

The sun comes up early here- we're on the eastern edge of the combined Mountain/Pacific daylight savings time.

Over the past couple of days, I've been putting up more vertical supports and using them to haul the cut-up deck sections off the FLASH using block and tackle systems. I also built a frame for the front gate to the area.
Later today I'll haul up four deep cycle 6 volt batteries and build a battery bank in the bathtub. I'll rig the wind generator to this bank and run a 2000 watt inverter to power my electrical tools and lights if I should need them. I also have an Onan 4kw generator and a Honda 2000, but if I can work without the noise and the cost of gasoline, I'm happier... plus I can hook up my stereo and listen to my favorite music if I want. Hmmm. Maybe it's time to get the 12 volt fridge fixed?

Yet another "Before" picture of the GREEN FLASH. The bathtub circled in red.

1st Mate's BD

Today is the First Mate's birthday... so if you have her address, send her a comment, a greeting, a card, some cash, etc. We're going to take Chica for a walk and get strong coffee beverages. More later.

An email from a legend.

Today, as I was surfing the net, I came across a quote in google that "Nelson/Merek did NOT design this vessel..."

I had seen this come up in a forum before, and hoped to get to the bottom of it. So, I found Charley Morgan's email address in Florida and posed the question. Here's the copy of the email & reply a couple of hours later:

From: Jim Cochran [mailto:mxsailor@gmail.com]
Sent: Tuesday, July 08, 2008 12:17 PM
To: Charley@charleymorgan.com
Subject: The 43 CC mid to late 80s

Dear Charley,

The 43 CC mid to late 80s
I am restoring one of these boats.
There is much discussion about who designed this boat. Could you clear
up this issue?

Thanks,
Jim Cochran

proud owner
33 O/I 1973
43 CC 1987
San Carlos, Sonora, Mexico

From: charley@charleymorgan.com
Subject: RE: The 43 CC mid to late 80s
Date: July 8, 2008 11:51:10 AM GMT-07:00
To: mxsailor@gmail.com
Reply-To: charley@charleymorgan.com

Jim,

The model is not my design.

It has always been my understanding that the design was by Nelson & Merrick, but since I was long since retired from the scene, I cannot be certain. Nelson & Merrick was a top-flight design firm.

From first hand accounts by those who delivered some of this model to the charter fleets, they were fast, seaworthy and well behaved. I believe that Catalina made a variant or two from the basic design.

Hope this is some help to you. Cheers and smooth sailing ~ Charley Morgan


Charles E.(Charley) Morgan

And although I didn't get an absolute answer, I feel like I'm closer to the truth than the guy who keeps saying this boat wasn't... etc. BTW, this person never does reveal WHO he thinks did the design. I know that the same hull was used for the Morgan 44, and that N/M did design the Catalina 42 (Catalina had just bought Morgan Yachts around the mid-80s), of which there are over 1,000 hulls. I wonder if N/M will answer this question? Check back.

From the desk of Bruce Roberts

Bruce Roberts is a yacht designer who has the same vision as I. He likes big, fast, roomy yachts. Although I hadn't spent a lot of time familiarizing myself with his work, I found that a quick jaunt to Bruce Robert's website provided a number of drawings and photos of features that I like for the FLASH.

The "poop stern" offers volume and easy passageways below. I also want a deck saloon. The FLASH version of this design would offer a sugar scoop transom and a hydraulic swim platform/dinghy storage (more about this later).
One design element I really like is the small twin chair/table setting in the deck saloon...


Here is an unfinished hull/cabin done in aluminum. It's his "DS 495" and what I was looking for in a design for the FLASH. I'm willing to give up the wraparound windows (note to Rob) because this look works so well.


Starting to get excited about this again. OooooWeeeee.

Saloons, boats and bars

The deck saloon design is the one I'm favoring right now. Wraparound, reinforced, tinted windows. This design suggests the raising of the stern quarters to add volume below and easy passage from the saloon to the masters cabin astern.
By the way, some people may chuckle at my use of the word saloon. The truth is back a couple of centuries ago, a bar owner in Colorado (I believe) decided to furnish his bar like the interior of a yacht to attract high class customers. He borrowed the word saloon- the main cabin and social gathering place on a yacht- and soon, many tavern owners followed his example.