THE SEASON IS UPON US!
Are you ready? We're not!
Big news first: Cricket, the handsome Hans Christian 38 Telstar we profiled, has sold! Even better, I bumped into the sellers—randomly!—at the grocery store. They were in from Michigan to close the deal. Classic small-world moment. We're thrilled she found a new home, and best of all, she’s staying right here in Maine waters.
Check out this and other deals on the BoatFools Market Report.
Prepping Our Morgan 382 (and Ourselves) for Launch – The Spring Gauntlet Begins!
Let’s be honest—spring commissioning always starts with optimism and ends with sore backs and questionable language. This year? No exception.
Our beloved Morgan 382 is still under cover, thanks to the weather refusing to cooperate. But under that tent, we’ve been busy with the kind of projects that make you question your life choices—and then feel like a champ when they’re done (or mostly done). Here’s where we’re at:
✅ Standing Rigging Overhaul
This was the year we bit the bullet and replaced the cap shrouds, forestay, and backstay, complete with shiny new turnbuckles. Not cheap, not fun, but necessary. We like our mast upright and our insurance agent calm. A HUGE thanks to Robin and her crew over at Bohndell Sails & Rigging for the assist! (This company has been making sails and helping folks like us since 1870! That’s 155 years…)
😵 Throttle and Shift Cable Replacement
This job almost broke us. We installed new throttle and shift cables and upgraded the controls, but routing those cables through the engine bay was like threading a needle inside a blender. Two busted knuckles and one near mental breakdown later, it works. Mostly. Still have to fire up the old Perkins 4-108 to see if we did this correctly… Hard knowin’…
🧽 Cabin Sole Sanded, Poly Pending
We’ve sanded the cabin sole down to bare wood—prepping for coats of polyurethane (“poly”, for those of us who’ve sanded too much to say full words anymore). The goal? Smooth, shiny, non-skid (ish) beauty underfoot. The reality? Our orbital sander has a permanent place in hell. This was all Green Mountain Josh’s bright idea - but the sole really needed it. (If you’re wondering, GMJ is the third owner of our boat and he lives in Vermont). We’ll be finding dust in places for years to come. What a mess! But it will look great.
💪 Handrail Resurrection
The coach roof handrails were removed, sanded, varnished (five coats of Epifanes RapidClear gloss, topped with three matte - also a Epifanes RapidClear product), then re-bedded with new bungs and bedding compound. A labor of love. Or madness. Possibly both.
💧 Deadlight Drama
The starboard deadlight we replaced two seasons ago cracked already (why? my guess is it was plexiglass, not Lexan), so we’re doing it again. If this one leaks, we’re sealing it with 5200 and never looking back.
🔜 Still To-Do Before Splash
Buff and wax the coach roof sides and topsides
Paint the bottom (classic spring ritual/aerobic workout)
If time allows: sand and varnish the cap rails so the deck has a little swagger. This might have to wait until we’re floating…
Impeller replacement (a yearly must-do)
Test the engine. For the love of all things holy, please start and run smoothly!
Flush/clean the water tanks — then refill with clean water
Flush/clean the bilge. We had a diesel “leak” — the result of a hard lesson learned (a story for another time)
🌧️ Oh, and the Weather?
Let’s just say the boat is still covered - and June is just a few days away. New England spring has been more “November with allergies” than anything resembling launch season. But hope floats. So do we. Eventually.
What’s the big project on your list this spring?
Reply and tell us—we’re collecting war stories for a future episode, and we'd love to include yours.
See you out there soon. Hopefully under sail.
—Tris, Canadian Ken, and Green Mountain Josh
BoatFools Sailing
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MOVIE: If you haven’t yet seen this, check out THE SAILOR. So good!
I firmly believe Murphy is a naval architect and his Law is to make things as difficult as possible to reach, to find, or to fix any problem on a boat. Once you are trapped like a dog biting its tail in the engine compartment, what could possibly go wrong, except that you have the wrong tool? Once you get the right tool, it often takes a good bye dive into the bilge, or the nut, bolt, or screw you freed and removed plays hide and seek somewhere in, under or around the engine. At last, feeling like a soldier returning from night recon, you emerge from boat hell, sore, scraped, and bleeding, to find you didn't solve the problem after all.