In our next project we were coming onto winter and although it doesn't get too cold here in San Diego the evening low can be down in the 50's.  With a new baby on board we needed to sort out some kind of efficient heating arrangement.  At the time I had a little sports car that had no way to secure a child car seat.  So I put it up on the market and with the proceeds we bought the biggest diesel heater Sig Marine built.  They offer a heat exchanger to duct into another room.  We bought that and plumbed it into Dawns room, hers gets the coldest.

Next we needed a floor for a little girl to crawl on without getting splinters.  Again Grandpa Al was called in to assist and in the end make the flooring installation happen.  We choose solid bamboo flooring to cover the main areas of the boat.  This product was not only cheap, but pretty easy to work with considering the unsquare world of a boat.  We installed a vapor barrier to the marine plywood and when fitting the strips of flooring stapled and glued the tongue and grooves.  As I write this I still need to trim out the edges and lay a tile border around the heater.  Like most projects on this boat there are two phases.

Well, our next major project was to haul the boat out for bottom paint, all new thru hull fittings, under water lights, blister repair, and a fiberglass hard top.  This was a major undertaking for us.  We spent two weeks out of the water and another week in the yards work dock.  A huge thanks to Shelter Island Boat Yard.  The pictures will attest to our long hours.

The hard top was pretty cool to watch as it was being built.  The yard has a vacuum bag table that infuses the resin into the closed cell foam and fiberglass.  Once we decided on a template and size they were off and running.  Solid points were set in the foam for the attachment points.  Big thanks to Chingon Custom Metal fabrication for the aft arch and halo in addition to the forward struts.  Canvas work was done by Mirimar Canvas.