Found a bit of time between kids activities to get out to the boat for a few hours this weekend. We were able to remove the winter cover and bring the boom home.

We knew the zippers were pulling away and they held together better than we thought they would. Adding this to our list of things to do in the fall.

Under the cover everything looked pretty good, just a little bit of dirt to wash up.

Removing vinyl striping

Our first attempt to remove the lettering and vinyl striping was a failure. We tried using an angle grinder with a stiff polishing disk. All it did was melt and smear the vinyl across the fiberglass. We’ve now ordered a 3M stripe off disk that’s made for removing vinyl. And also found that RPMs should be below 4,000 and the angle grinder runs at 8,000. Glad we figured this out now, fingers crossed that our next attempt will be successful!

Bringing home the boom

With our new lines we needed to bring the boom home to gain access the shuttle cars inside. Also want to clean and re-lubricate everything in the boom, we found the reefing lines were sticking last season making it difficult to raise the main. Also need to figure out how we can replace the line for the outhaul, we’re not sure if it’s spliced right to the cable or if there’s a pulley or shuttle inside the boom. We parked our truck right next to the bot and used it as a ladder to quickly move the boom to the roof.


Now that we have the boom at home, I need to figure out how to remove the stainless steel rivets and then replace. Found some discussion on using stainless vs. aluminum when I replace them. Anyone have any opinions on this?