209: EIGHT Boat Projects THAT CHANGED OUR LIVES on our LEOPARD 44

If you don't know how to tie a knot, tie a lot. Shredded? What are you talking about? Shredded wheat? Me, Tarzan. You, Jane. And we're uglying it up. And multifunctional. Guys, it really helps if you subscribe. If you hit the like button. Share this. We really appreciate you guys. Enjoy the video. Good morning. We come to you live from Kaio, Komodo. We've got four months here in the Rio Dulce. And we've just put together our boat projects list. And if we don't get them organized and calendared, they won't get done. We've been in Guatemala for five and a half months. And we have accomplished a lot of boat projects. Oh my goodness. We're gonna have all the spicy details that make it so rich and meaningful to you. If you're thinking about coming here or you never come here, you can experience it through us. And our boat has literally been transformed throughout the process. Because we have used this boat for about two years. And you really have to use your boat to figure out what you need and what you want to improve. The Rio Dulce is a great place to get work done. Labor is very inexpensive here. And materials are fairly easy to come by. Sometimes you can't get things, so you should bring them with you. But for the most part, they can get things shipped into the Rio Dulce. In this video, we're going to share with you eight projects that we accomplished. We did a full salon facelift. Installing a dinghy fuel filter. Scraping our dinghy engine cover. Oh my goodness, I'm putting a new windlass in. Creating dinghy chaps. Putting a hole in the bimini to collect rainwater. Changing out our life raft. Doing a full rigging inspection as well as repairing our gypsail. And then we made some changes to our inverter and battery compartment to make the inverter more accessible. And in our previous videos, we showed you our rudder work, which we also did here. And general maintenance on our generator and engines. And the last thing we'll cover is what we learned by doing work here in the Rio. So let's jump in and talk about our salon facelift. After a year and a half of living on our boat, we've decided that we need to make some changes. And the first change that we want to make is a facelift to our salon. We made some plans this morning. Worked with some cardboard to try and figure out how big a table we want. And we've come up with what we think is a perfect solution for us. And you will be able to see in this video how what we have done has made this space much more user-friendly. And multifunctional. Our salon was very uncomfortable for a number of reasons. The table was way too big. It just took up the entire space. So you didn't want to sit in the seating area. And if you did, you only sat on either end, not in the middle. So it was very rarely used. And we basically just used the table to pile stuff on top of. I made the seating area right in the very middle look brand new like because nobody ever sat there. And if we didn't need all this table space, we certainly needed some more counter space because we have more appliances than we did when we first bought the boat. Yeah, and the design of the Leopard 44, we love it, but it has on the top of each hole where you go down the stairs. It's very open in the top. We're basically taking that table and we're repurposing it. Also, our upholstery after two years started to rip because people only sat on the end seats of the L-shaped seating area. Those two end spots were actually angled downward because the foam was just getting crushed in those two places. Let's talk about how we went about changing things. First of all, the counter extension. We needed more counter space and we didn't need the table. So we took the salon table and we carved it up. This is our old salon table that has been cut into two pieces and the two pieces are going to extend our countertop here in the salon and then we're going to have a new table created for that one spot and that area is going to be a nice lounging area with more sofa space. This is going to be a great salon when this is done. That was our counter extension and it worked really well to have it match everything and we have been using every square inch of it. The people that we used were recommended by a local. It's really important that you find the right person and they were really good with cabinetry. We're really proud of the job that Otoniel did. They really were very good. It looks like the factory did it and we're really always concerned about the integrity of the boat. One day we're going to resell it. We don't want it to look like a hodgepodge of just projects, do-it-yourself stuff. So really glad that we hired these guys. Yeah, they were excellent. So that was our counter extension. Then we moved to the salon table. They crafted out of fiberglass a brand new smaller table for us and now we can do overnight passages by sleeping in the salon because there's actually a place to sleep. Yeah, and we can pivot the table too and because these guys work with fiberglass, they used gel coat on this and they matched it perfectly to our interior. So it's super tough and durable and maintenance-free. The big project of the salon was the seating and we brought in several people to take a look at the area and our ideas and we finally settled on Jessica's Canvas because frankly ever one of the partners was just brilliant in how to make the seating area work to be able to have access underneath the seats still but then have a comfortable seating area. So what we did was we designed and created a lounging area and then we also lengthened the seating area that was in front of the table to support the backs of our legs and make it more comfortable to sit there because Brown and I are very tall. So we want to have more depth. We also changed out the upholstery and we use ultra leather which is expensive. Oh, but you know, it's such a crucial place for us and it's just it's going to last a long time. It looks great and it feels great. It's made in Japan and it breathes and it is made out of polyurethane and not vinyl. So it's just every time I see it. I'm like, I'm so glad that we spent the extra money for this and we got high quality foam inserts because you know, we don't want this thing to like wear out another four years. And so hopefully this is at least a 10-year fix. Yeah. Well, we can not speak highly enough about Jessica and her team. They did a phenomenal job. It looks great. It feels great and we could not be happier. She speaks fluent English. She's fun. And she also has all kinds of creative ideas, which I love. If she's going to do your work, you need to get that job started right when you get here because if you wait until October, November, she's going to be super busy. Get any type of canvas job started right when you get to the Rio. Another thing that we added to our dinghy, which is a very important piece of equipment, a fuel filter. Every dinghy needs a fuel filter because you get water in your fuel and we were trying to figure out a place to mount ours, given our setup of how the dinghy is pulled up. We have these Dyneema lines at an angle, which makes it very difficult to figure out where to put this. Alright y'all, we're knocking out another project. Here I am up in the dinghy gavet. Hopefully I'm not too heavy and this thing crawls through. We are attaching a fuel filter onto the transom of our dinghy. Probably 85% of outboard engine issues have to do with bad fuel. Creates gummy carburetors and more work and corrosion and bad performance. All these things. And then it shortens the life of your engine and we don't want that either. The only way it's going to fit is to put it in this area, which I've marked off with a big Sharpie and we're going to use a piece of starboard to put in there. But first we've got to rough this surface up. We've got to rough this surface up. We have to acetone, acetone, and then I'm going to do a chemical weld with epoxy, use a West Systems epoxy and bond this thing to the back of this. We've roughened that up really nicely. We used 60 grit by the way. You could use something even a little rougher for this purpose, but that's as low as we had to go. The way that we're going to bond this piece of starboard to the aluminum transom is we're going to use the West Systems epoxy system and they make it really easy because you do a pump of this and a pump of that and it mixes it in the correct ratio. We have the extra slow hardener right here, which if you're working in a tropical area and you're not that good and fast at working with this stuff, you want to get the extra slow. That's the 209. This will chemically bond. It's super tough stuff. We're going to mix some filler with that and then we want to mix it to the consistency of peanut butter. So all different types of fillers for different purposes. We're going to use four and four and some of them are sanding. Some of them are lightweight. Some of them are really strong. Looks like buttercream frosting. So we're going to take this and really get it laid out at a consistent depth and then we're going to adhere it to that. That piece I used as a spreader, just a piece of the tide of that odor container and it really works well. All right, sometimes you just got to be creative. If you don't know how to tie a knot, tie a lot. That's kind of what I'm doing here. So that maybe the combination of everything combined with my lack of skill will make this thing work. We want to keep it from sliding out. The good thing is you can see where we've got some epoxy in these holes. I think that's really going to help hold it also and now it's just a matter of time for it to set up and then we'll screw in the Raycor unit and then we'll also adapt the fuel hose so that this thing's working really well. So there we go. So what I'm doing right here is kind of opposite of what a lot of people do. I am taking the labels off of our shiny year-and-a-half old engine. It is a 30 horsepower. It says 30 horsepower on the back, no longer. That's all. I'm taking these stickers off right here and the Kia's also changed this which is our Navilite. So that's going to pop in here. It's a nighttime navigational light and you have your dinghy parked at dinghy dock. You don't want to look like the nicest, newest, most powerful dinghy out there. So that's why we're taking off. This is a two-stroke, 30 horsepower, highly sought-after. It's a Nissan Marine. You're no longer going to be able to know that. And then what we're doing is we're taking some 30-grit sandpaper and we're coming in and sanding. I just started on this. So we're going from this shiny finish to this really old look. It's kind of, it makes it look like it's, you know, 20 years old. What they really want is the engine, not the dinghy in these islands because this is what people use day in and day out. They can put it on any boat. Now we're all finished and just look how not pretty this engine is, top and bottom. And so people are going to look at that and say, you know what, I'll steal the engine next to it. If your dinghy gets stolen and you're in a remote area, first of all, it's super expensive. Ours is tricked out just like we like it. I mean, I would cry if we'd be in a heap of hurt if our dinghy was stolen. So this is just one way of hardening the target. When you first start this, it's like, oh, what am I doing? It's so pretty and new and I'm just scuffing it up. The next project that we're going to talk about is our windlass change. And back in our episode in the Abacos almost a year ago, we had our bolts sheared. Once we took the windlass apart and had to put it all back together again, we realized that the charter company had really screwed up. The original windlass was a thousand-watt quick windlass. They upgraded, thank goodness, to a 1500-watt windlass. However, they had to re-drill the hole in there. They also chose the cheapest model, which was the non-manual retrieval. They could have spent 300 extra dollars, but they didn't. And they drilled the hole improperly. And to shore it all up, they used starboard, which actually cold flows under pressure. So this thing's like sliding around all the time. And under charter, people don't really know how to use a boat and they're using the windlass to pull in the chain and extra stress. Well, it just happened to fail. And we also bought an 80-pound anchor. So we've increased the chain to 300 feet. And now we have this windlass that is sort of mediocre at best. And we just thought, this is really stupid to have all this great equipment for ground tackle and then not have a proper windlass. And when you're upgrading your windlass, stick to the same family. Therefore, the chances of all the connections being compatible so you don't have to get in there and doing some rewiring because that would be a major deal, as important as the wiring is. Switching that out, we're guaranteed to be able to bring it in by hand. It's brand new, reliable. And the great thing is, since it's from the same family and it's the same wattage, we've got the old windlass as spare parts in case things break down in the future. And it's a matter of time, not if, but a matter of time. We used Atonio to do this job as well. The same team that extended our counters and made our tabletop. And they did a great job. So they fiberglassed the locker and then drilled all of the holes for the new windlass. And then we also added G10. It's a thin sheet of high-integrity fiberglass. And it's just a way to make the fit and finish and also strengthen considerably the whole unit. One thing we also had to do was shave down the wood inside the anchor locker door because the new windlass sits a little higher as well as we added the swivel back to our mantis because trying to get the anchor up without having the swivel was proving to be quite difficult because it would always come up the wrong way. And now we have the confidence that it's going to come up. Also, we now understand how it works because we had it all taken apart and took a look at it. So that's a big benefit. Our next project actually brought Jessica back to our boat or we brought our boat to Jessica. It's spa day for the dinghy. She's going in for her first fitting for chaps. We priced out the cost of chaps in the US before we left and we priced out the cost of chaps once we got to the Rio. We couldn't believe the difference in the price. It was the same material. We're using the marine-grade Sunbrella because you don't want to mess around. It's the stuff with the 10-year warranty. In the US, the price was like $1,600. And then we got to the Rio and listen, there are seven canvas shops here for a reason. They gave us a price using the same material and it was $650. And we're like, oh my gosh, this is a no-brainer and everybody has their chaps made down here because labor, there's several fittings that are done. There's lots of templates that have to be made, tons of sewing. It's really involved. It doesn't use a ton of fabric, but labor-wise, it's really involved and they have people that are dedicated just to making chaps so they really know what they're doing. We also use the thread. It's called Forever Thread and it lasts forever basically instead of just five years being in the sun and then thread falls apart, kind of like your sails and then all of a sudden, you got to have the whole thing re-sunned. So again, we have a long-term perspective with anything that we're doing. Plus, it's going to make it better when we sell the boat. Everything's going to still be working. So we have that done and we decided to do something really creative and that's make it highly visible. And bright. Yeah, so that we know where our dinghy is, you know how you go to these places, you can't even find your dinghy and while we're cruising around that we're a whole lot more visible. So what better colors to use than signal red and then bright yellow and the great thing about this when you pull up to the Shell station in Rio del Se, you get a 10% discount on your gas because you have all the colorways and unfortunately, there's not a McDonald's here. I love to have a Ronald McDonald outfit because we get extra discount going through the... Float through. Float through, for sure. But we just love it. And there's no Porsche dealer here either. Learn your cars. It's a Ferrari. Oh, Ferrari. Through these colors. And yes, I do forgive you and we do have 30 horsepower and man, that thing will go so it deserves Ferrari colors and we got them, baby. Our dinghy is now the belle of the ball. One of the things that we learned when we came to the Rio was you could not make water because it would clog the filters instantly. It's really muddy. It's dirty. There's a lot of open sewage that's going through. So we chose to collect rainwater and then use an e-filter to filter our water to be able to have water to drink. This kept us out of marinas for a few months. And it also cut down on the wear and tear for our water maker. Guys, we love conservation. It's actually fun to conserve and you got to use your smarts to do it. And between this hole up there and the e-bucket and our five-gallon buckets, we're able to really stretch our water. So we have plenty of water for our washing machine, for washing dishes, for drinking. It's worked out really, really well. And I use the water up on the bow to take showers. Bucket boy, it gets into that wonderful jungle boy. I can relate. I'm like Tarzan up underneath the waterfall. Yeah, me Tarzan, you Jane. Okay, moving on to our next project that was to get rid of our old life raft and install our new life raft. Our old one was a 12-man and if you look back at episode 116, you'll see the reason why we had to switch out our life raft. The 12-man is too big. So we have downgraded to a 6-man. It is a lot smaller, which is great. Yeah, and it was out of date too. So there are a lot of reasons to get rid of it. Check it off the list. Our last project that we completed was our rigging inspection and we actually didn't do it. We came down here to Kayakamoto and worked with Tom who's an awesome rigger and we highly recommend using him. We came down here for him to just take a look at our rigging and part of that was because we needed to have our jib sail sewn. The stitching had come out of parts of the sail and we wanted to get that fixed and he gave us an incredible price on rigging as well as fixing the sail. So why not? We learned so much from him that day that we are actually going to create another video with some rigging tips for you because it was pretty phenomenal. We learned why our reef lines were shredding and how to re-rig those reef lines so that there was less pressure on them and just a whole lot of maintenance tasks and upkeep to keep our rigging healthy. Shredded? Are you talking about shredded wheat? Talking about your husband's built-in washboard? And the last project we had was that we reconfigured some of the wiring and added some additional pieces to our inverter and battery compartment. We did that because we actually screwed up. We pulled the relay out of the wall accidentally, trying to pick up the inverter out of the compartment. The wires were just not long enough. So we extended those cables and then we also added a T-level fuse that was inserted there to shut down everything if there's a spike of power. Yeah, to prevent arcing. One of the reasons why we did this is we found an incredible electrician down here. Now it's much easier for us to get the inverter out and we have much more faith in our system just because of the extra pieces. It's also safer. And I think the relay is probably a little bit more high-quality and it has a manual override. This way we can just cut it off manually. All right, so those were all of our projects that we completed while we were here and we hope they're really helpful. Well, we just want to give you a few things that we learned in completing projects here in the Rio that would be very helpful to you if you're coming here and you're going to work on some projects. So the first thing that you need to do is really plan ahead. Like what are the projects that you're going to have done? I mean go and get everything that you're going to need. You may be able to get things down here, but they're not as high-quality. You may pay more. Be prepared so that it's done with the best materials that you can find. Make sure you start early on your projects. Everything takes longer than you think it's going to take. That's boat work in general, but a lot of cruisers will come in here and leave their boats for three or four months and then in November, they want to hightail it out of here for the start of the next sailing season. And if you want anything done towards that end of October, beginning of November timeframe, you're going to have a hard time finding the high-quality work at that time. Also, we recommend get all that stuff done and plan your Guatemala and travel toward the end of your trip. That way you can use it as a reward for having done all that hard work and you're just not under the time pressure. Make sure you get recommendations and find the right people to do your work. There are so many high-quality skilled laborers here, but finding the right one for your boat and feeling comfortable with them. Some speak English, some do not. Find out from a local who lives down here and get it done. Also, you want to find somebody who can work on your boat while it's at anchor or at a marina and not have to do it while you're hauled out and on the hard because they're going to want to use their people and they're going to mark it up. Granted, they may do really good work, but if you want it done for the best price, listen to what we're telling you. You might have to take your boat into a marina to be able to get some of this work done. Some marinas allow you to do work. Some do not. Some allow you to do some work and then they specify what you can't do. So choose your marinas carefully. Do that early enough because those marinas fill up very quickly as well and then there's no spots for you. We would highly recommend that you're present during all of the work and that you're constantly doing overwatch and not because they don't do a good job, but sometimes they might do something that you don't like and if you're there and able to make suggestions on the spot, they can make changes right away. Trust, but verify. And also you want to learn from the work that they're doing and if it's done incorrectly, you want to catch it early, not before it's done. They have to rip it all out, possibly causing some damage to your boat and discontent because of miscommunication. Stay on top of your project. So the weird thing about workers here in Guatemala is something that's very different from what we've experienced is that they charge by the project, not by the hours. Don't stress out like if you're having a marine electrician in Key West where they're charging $175 an hour and trust me, they're keeping track of the clock no matter what happens. This is project oriented. Don't be afraid to say, hey, it needs this and that and thinking that you're going to get charged extra because it's really, that's the culture down here. Time is a little less valuable to the Guatemalans. The last piece of advice for you is to understand that it is hot and humid. So just be aware that you're going to sweat non-stop. A bottle of Coca-Cola for the workers goes a long way. They all drink Coca-Cola. Make it as cold as possible and you can get a lot done. The hottest time is actually in the morning when the wind's not blowing around past nine o'clock. It gets stifling hot later on in the day. The trade winds start blowing and it gets a lot better. We hope this video is helpful to you. We hope that seeing the changes that we've made to our boat gives you some ideas for potentially your future. We do want to say thank you very much to our patrons who are amazingly encouraging as well as generous financially. Thank you so much for your support. We appreciate you. Thanks for watching.