New fabric on interior cushions

We were never really crazy about the interior fabric on the cushions. We took the plunge and redid them ourselves. Sandy and I tore them apart and used the pieces for the pattern. We reused the bottoms which is a gray sunbrella and the zippers. Sandy then cut the new fabric and I did the sewing machine work. It took about 10 yards of fabric and 60 hours of labor. Cost was about $200. A lot better than the $4500 that a shop would have charged.

New equipment

I have added a Garmin network. It includes the 5212 chartplotter, XM weather and a fishfinder sounder. The sounder transducer also has speed and temperature. I will add the GMR18 HD radar next year. A Kato radar mount is mounted on the mast. I have also added Kato davits and engine lift. The engine will mount on an Edson motor mount.

New Dinghy

S/V Xperience has a new dinghy. It is an AB 9VL rigid inflatable boat (RIB). This is the light version which is only 106 pounds and 9'6" long. I added a Mercury 9.9 HP 4 stroke engine with a power thruster attachment. The engine weighs in at about 90 pounds. It will easily fit on my davits. It gets up on plane quick with two persons aboard. I haven't checked the speed with a GPS just yet but it should be able to hit about 22 MPH. That's flying in such a small boat.

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Exterior wood refinishing

After 6 and a half years our exterior wood needed to be completely stripped to bare wood and refinished. We had regular Cetol and Cetol gloss covering the wood. We decided to switch to a new Cetol product, Cetol Natural Teak. It is much lighter in color and has a UV inhibitor to protect the wook. It looks great, just like wet natural bare teak. The job was painful in that we had to get into all kinds of strange positions to reach every inch of wood. Sure glad it is done though.