We started off the winter with a few plans  for some updates to Kairos.  First on the list was to replace the upholstery in the saloon that was badly stained and a source of smell from a diesel fire from five or so years ago.  We had previously developed our sewing skills with Sunbrella for replacing the upholstery and chose to give it a try with Ultraleather:

So after tackeling the saloon with good results we figured we might as well redo the Pilot House upholstery to match:

And then we thought we might as well add some area carpets throughout the boat, so we made up some templates, then got on with cutting and binding the pieces:

Wilson approves

Carpet for the steps

One of the smaller pieces

We then proceeded to replace the remaining interior halogen strip lighting with LED strips then moved on to exterior projects.

Having updated our interior lighting to LEDs we thought we might as well add some underwater LEDs while we were working on electrical projects.

Our next sewing project was the fabrication of a new windshield cover to replace the badly worn and and faded one as well as constructing bow cushions for cruising on warm summer days.

One of our maintenance projects involved the caulking between the cap rails and the gunnels which needed to be redone as there was cracking and potential for water intrusion so we decided that we might as well tackle another project….The teak cap rails around the boat which had been previously awl-gripped white and were starting to show signs of wear, with many areas chipped and scratched.  We had considered stripping the rails back down to bare teak and finishing with varnish but that project would have taken much too long, with our available time only on weekends and warmer weather would be required.  As an alternative we found a urethane paint in a color we thought would give Kairos the appearance, at least from a distance, that we desired, adding contrast to her fine lines.  So after removing all the old caulking we began this painting project…

Additionally we had weeping from the entry gates from water intrusion.  This produced brown staining by “teak water” on Kairos’s decks throughout the previous season and into storage.  We removed the gates and found that there was no bedding for either the hinges nor the latching hardware.  The four gates were removed and brought home for reconstruction.

We cut openings in the bottom of each gate to remove the saturated open core foam  spacers to allow the interior of the gates to dry out, facilitated by low temperature oven drying.  Unfortunately one of the gates was exposed to extreme temperatures resulting in complete gelcoat delamination… and a total gate rebuild.   Each of the gates had a variety of minor imperfections which were ultimately repaired with epoxy and all four gates received new color matched gelcoat and will be remounted with appropriate bedding to prevent subsequent further water intrusion and damage.

Our water speed transducer was no longer functional so I figured that we might as well replace it with an ultrasonic speed transducer, which is more resistant to fouling.  While working on transducers we thought we might as well replace a one of the transducers which was no longer being used with a new CHIRP transducer for better bottom imaging.

Removing the old transducer was quite a challenge but was accomplished without any damage to the hull or the transducer which was resold.

transducer in its fairing just freed from its 5200 bond

transducer all cleaned up and ready to resell

Working into the night to try to get Kairos ready for launch:

late into the night

night caulking

Trying to save an antenna that had delamination of its fiberglass we thought we would try some cable shrinkwrap to recover it….

Nearly ready to launch….  after just a little bottom paint:

More to come after the launch…..finally