With Wild Horses still on land (more on this later), Mike and I have had the chance to finish several of our boat projects.  In the last few weeks, we have designed, deconstructed, painted, glued, mixed, waxed, sanded, washed, taped (oh so much green painter’s tape!), sawed, plumbed and organized.  To say it has been a mixed bag of work is a huge understatement.  But such is boat work!
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What has all this amounted to?

Most of this work took several days to complete so we were multi-tasking to use our time efficiently.  At one point I think we had all our tools and materials out at once!  And the most important part of the work we have finished is that it was all critical work that has to be done with the boat out of the water.  No, wait, the most important part is that it is now in our rear-view mirror 😉.

We are thrilled with our completed boat work but the big news for us is that we now have a launch date.  This has been a complicated puzzle to navigate between lockdowns, dock installation, and the house closing date.  Suffice to say, there wasn’t a direct alignment between the Ontario government allowing boating and Wild Horses being in the water.  But we have found a window that works!  Wild Horses will be launched June 10.
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So, are we done with our boat projects?  Nope!  We have two weeks to launch and several more projects to do including installing our new solar panels, lithium batteries and upgraded alternator and, yes, a little plumbing work with our waste tanks.

As of this past weekend (May 1), we are finally able to go back to the boat to begin work on getting ready to launch.  

Ontario’s latest restrictions to tame the 3rd wave of Covid were announced mid-April and both Loyalist Cove Marina (where Wild Horses is stored) and Trident Yacht Club (where our summer dock sits) sent out advisories that they were closed to the public and to members.  That meant absolutely no on-the-boat work could be done.  We didn’t sit on our laurels though!  During the last two weeks we have been finishing off a few administrative tasks needed for international travel by boat.

The good news this past week has been the clarification from the Ontario government that boat owners can go to their boats to complete any maintenance or launch prep work.  This is being done with lots of restrictions to keep us all safe, including allowing access to the yard by appointment only in order to limit the number of people.
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Since we are now able to go to the boat and do some launch prep, we are switching from administrative and research mode to “let’s get some stuff done” mode.  The next week looks like it will be sunny and warm which means we can really dive into our above-deck launch prep work.  Besides waxing and applying anti-fouling, we have a few things to install including the new PlasDECK inserts (read: fake wood) for the swim platform.  Lots to do but thrilled to be back at the boat and making progress!