S/VFika

Monterey

California, USA

Home port for the refit. Fika lives on a mooring in the harbor while we get her ready to go.

Monterey has been home base for the whole refit. Most of the work in the journal so far happened here, on the mooring and in the yard.

Journal posts from Monterey

  1. A new water tank

    Fika's new freshwater tank is lined, plumbed in, and nearly ready. A cheap webcam turned out to be the most useful tool for the coating job.

  2. A wood stove on a sailboat

    Fika now has a Dickinson Newport solid fuel stove that can burn anything from driftwood to coal. Cutting a hole in the deck for the chimney taught us something about how she was built.

    The Dickinson Newport solid fuel stove mounted on a stainless heat shield on Fika's starboard bulkhead, its chimney rising to the deck

  3. Starting on the aft head

    The aft head is getting a full remodel. First step was stripping and repainting the sole.

  5. Cleaning two 150 gallon fuel tanks on a mooring

    Fika's aluminum fuel tanks were gunked up and had no way in. So I made access hatches, cleaned the tanks out with a pressure washer fed by gravity, and gave them three coats of a fuel-grade epoxy lining.

    Both of Fika's yellow fuel tanks under the cabin sole, each now fitted with five bolted aluminum access hatches

  6. A fuel polishing system

    A rebuilt engine deserves clean fuel. We built a fuel polishing system into the engine room that can filter diesel from any source and send it anywhere aboard.

    The fuel polishing manifold on the engine room bulkhead, with valves above two Racor filters and fuel lines running down to the tanks

  7. Trading induction for propane

    An all-electric galley looked great on paper. A Thanksgiving dinner aboard a friend's boat changed our minds, and now Fika cooks with a Force 10 propane stove and oven.

    The new Force 10 propane stove and oven installed in Fika's galley, with a blue kettle on top

  8. Rebuilding the Perkins on a mooring

    Seawater hydrolocked Fika's Perkins 4.236. Several months later it's rebuilt and running, all of it done aboard on the mooring, with the main boom as our crane.

    The rebuilt Perkins 4.236 back in Fika's engine room, freshly painted blue

  9. The journey to readiness

    A year and a half of refit work on Fika, from the lithium bank and all-electric galley to rebuilding the bottom of the boat.

    Wade grinding old bottom paint and fiberglass off Fika's hull in the boatyard