Projects aboard Seadog – The Seadog Life

Renovating the bathroom

Owner — Mon, 31 Dec 2018 17:46:24 +0000

Here’s a short video with pictures of the renovation process that was done to the bathroom aboard Seadog in December 2018.

Building the custom marine fridge

Owner — Sun, 30 Sep 2018 16:06:38 +0000

In this short video the building process for the custom marine fridge aboard Seadog is shown. The Isotherm 3251 ASU SP package was used as the refrigeration system. For insulation material a two-component PU foam was used, together with plywood and 4 layers of epoxy for the finishing layers.

Rigging the new mizzen mast

Owner — Sun, 22 Apr 2018 21:12:06 +0000

Prepping the second mast and the navigation equipment (testing out very old radar)

Owner — Wed, 28 Feb 2018 12:17:51 +0000

Work on the fridge / freezer box is still underway, but a second project has also started this past month. The mizzen (second) mast has been lying in wait for almost 2 years, and the time has finally come to prepare it for painting. Also all the navigation equipment needs to be in order so those can be mounted on this mast. The mast has now been sanded and the first layers of paint (primer and first layer coat) have been applied. The temperature plummeted way blow zero (see pictures of the Seadog in the ice below this post), so painting has come to a hold. But with a little luck we can start painting again next week.

I was lucky enough to get a free (be it, rather old) radar system from a friend of my dad. After some due consideration I decided that if it worked I would install it on the mizzen and not bother buying a new (and very expensive) radar system for now. And lo and behold, after some tinkering and even a little guess-work with the wiring, it seems the system is still operational.

Seadog in the ice….

Ice, rain and snow

Owner — Wed, 20 Dec 2017 12:25:40 +0000

As you can see there were some snowy days here in the Netherlands. But nevertheless work continued aboard the Seadog.
On the starboard side some of the holes that were made to access the through hull bolts were patched up. And this time two hose connectors were laminated at starboard and port side at the back of the ship to allow excess rainwater to flow out of that hallow space in the top of the hull. Which are connected right into the drainage pipes underneath the waterline. Also all hoses aboard the entire ship have now have been replaced by new hoses with stainless steel hose clamps. Plus, the storage lockers at the back of the ship finally got there much-needed cleanup as well.

The building of the custom fridge / freezer has not halted, but only had some minor progress in favour of the above tasks. All the needed supplies are now aboard, so hopefully more on this subject in the next post.

Seadog Haul Out (2017-10)

Owner — Sun, 29 Oct 2017 15:48:30 +0000

Hoisting the mast onto the boat and the first real sailing trip

Owner — Thu, 29 Jun 2017 16:59:41 +0000

Although I kept and stored all the old rigging to reuse with the new mast, I still decided that in the end it was a better to just buy completely new rigging.
Sure, it costs a lot of euro’s to do so, but this way I can be sure that when the winds are blowing strong the mast will stay on the boat and nothing will break (which would have dire consequences when under sail).
I hired a company to do all of the rigging onside (at the marina), which meant that within 3-4 hours the mast was standing on the boat and all the rigging was done.
On the same day we took the Seadog out to the lake and hoisted up the jib (front sail). And even with wind speed’s of only 2 Beaufort Seadog was going quite fast.
We couldn’t yet take up the main sail because not everything was ready for that yet. But a few days later we also took up the main. That day there was even less wind, but Seadog still kept on moving. And at the end of the day wind speed’s went up to 3 Beaufort and we were speeding through the water!
The mast hight for the Seadog now is 12.65 meters, and the bridges at the Gooiermeer have a hight of 12.80-13 meters.
Which means it’s going to be quite intensive every time we go under the bridges. Especially if there are big waves, but the first test runs went good, so I guess there’s nothing to worry about….
As always there’s still a lot to do, but from now on it’s also time to go sailing now and again 🙂 (finally)!

Painting the mast and building a custom mast foot

Owner — Thu, 25 May 2017 16:40:42 +0000

It’s taken more than a few weeks (more like a few months), but the Seadog can Sail!
We had to build a custom mast foot and I decided to paint the new mast white.
It’s not really necessary to paint an aluminium mast, and it’s also not easy because paint does not want to stick to aluminium. But I’m very happy with the result and this means I can also paint the second mast with the same color white to make it look identical to the main mast.
See some pictures below of the process. The next post will show when the mast was hoisted onto the boat and the first time we took here for a sail.
Building custom mast foot

Painting the mast and mast foot

Getting a main mast (and the first real voyage)

Owner — Sun, 30 Apr 2017 09:30:29 +0000

A few weeks ago my father found a secondhand aluminium mast that would be perfect as the main mast aboard the Seadog.
It has been laying around besides a warehouse at a shipyard for more than 15 years. But it actually has never been used before, so structurally it should be as good as new.
Also, this mast is build extra sturdy when compared to most other masts of this size.
The downside is that there came no rigging and very little fittings with this mast. Plus it’s still about 1.5 meters to long and looks a little dirty (see photo’s below).
But we decided this was the way to go.
The mast besides the warehouse
We first went to Medemblik (where the shipyard was located) to inspect the mast in person and make a few photo’s and decided if it was doable to use this particular mast aboard the Seadog. Conclusion: it could be done.
Getting the mast down, cleaning and inspection
Because the warehouse was located at a shipyard, we could go and fetch the mast easily by water with the Seadog. Or so we thought….
The weather forecast for the weekend we planned to go and fetch the mast was all but mild weather, but we decided to go anyway.
Turned out to be a pretty nice (be it a little bumpy) journey and also a good test to see how Seadog does in hard winds (on only the engine).
Getting to Medemblik
There where a few engine troubles along the way, but this turned out to be because of an empty diesel tank (and a malfunctioning tank gage / vlotter).
Cutting the mast in half for transport and getting it aboard
The journey back (with the mast tied securely to the boat) turned out to be with the wind at our backs and luckily not as bumpy as the first two days.
Journey back from Medemblik to Huizen
After three days we where back in the home harbour and work could begin to prepare the mast for use aboard Seadog.
Back in Huizen and putting the mast back together

Bed, fridge and live aboard

Owner — Wed, 29 Mar 2017 07:20:48 +0000

Somehow rainwater is still leaking from somewhere above deck along the hull next to the bed inside the cabin (and onto the mattress). So back in March some minor tasks were done along the inside of the hull to prevent any leaking water from touching the mattress.

When that was sorted out, work was started on the next project; A build-in fridge. The plan is to build this fridge inside the kitchen counter. On purpose I already had saved up some space underneath the kitchen counter, next tot the stairs. This cabinet couldn’t be used anymore because the stairs now block the door, so it’s perfect to create a top opening hatch to access a build-in fridge. The cabinet perviously had the old paraffine tank (that was used for cooking on the paraffin stove) in there, and also had some leaking problems. So that’s way it so tremendously filthy in there. But after the new fridge box is created, insulated and installed I plan to clean everything down there and give it a nice new coat of white paint.

Some other minor updates about the life aboard the Seadog are a few new additions to the equipment aboard. Mainly some new handy dandy hanging fruit baskets, and two beautiful nautical folding chairs.
Also a lot of work has been done with the 12 volt DC, 230v AC electric systems and navigation equipment, plus the solar panels are ordered and will arrive in a few weeks, but more on that in upcoming posts.