Teak Grab Rails
We took the 14-foot long, solid teak grab rails off the boat about two years ago. They’ve been stored way up high in the shed (out of sight, out of mind) since then. We were going to replace them with stainless steel tubing but decided to see if they could be saved. After lots of sanding, some scraping, teak cleaner and brightener, and a couple of coats of teak oil and sealer, they felt almost as good an new. We reinstalled them and sealed up the screw holes with 4000 sealant. It would have been a shame to let all that teak go to waste, plus they look great and add one more layer of safety to the boat.
Bilge Pumps
We have one large manual bilge pump and two electric bilge pumps. The large manual bilge pump didn’t work when we bought the boat, so we rebuilt it. We also installed a second manual bilge pump that can be operated from the helm. The original manual bilge pump has to be operated from the salon, so we thought having a second manual bilge pump that can be operated by the helmsman would be a good idea.
The electric bilge pumps are submersibles. The smallest one sits at the lowest point in the bilge. A larger one sits higher up and is really just for emergencies.
Jacklines
A jackline is a rope or wire strung from the bow to stern to which a safety harness can be clipped. The idea is to keep you on the boat by clipping yourself via a harness to the jackline. At this point, we’re not sure how we’re going to rig jacklines. We saw a video on Off Center Harbor’s website of a small boat that used D-rings lashed to the wire stays at about chest-level as their anchor points for jacklines. They would run Spectra rope through the D-rings when they went offshore and that served as their jacklines. The typical way jacklines are run is through pad-eyes bolted to the deck. We’re sure we’re going to install some sort of jackline system, but not sure yet what it will be.
Stay tuned…
MOB Pole
A man overboard pole is a deployable marker for those instances when someone falls overboard. Our boat didn’t come with one, but we’re planning to get one, just haven’t thought about it yet. Stay tuned…
Liferaft
Yeah, we’re planning to get one of these eventually. Check back in 2019