Sailing Adventures: Meet “Little Dipper”!

I’ve done a fair amount of sailing over the past few years. My very first exposure was right before a hurricane in Bermuda when I was in highschool – I was pretty hooked! I love the collaborative, adventurous spirit that surrounds the voyages. There’s never really a dull moment (even when the wind slows down). My spouse grew up spending summers on a sailboat. So needless to say, we’ve had our eye out for a sailboat for awhile.

Well – it’s finally arrived!

It’s an O’Day 20 – from 1978. It sleeps 4, has an outboard motor, and needs a little bit of work – but we can sail it soon!

Truth be told, when we went to go look at it, we were a little dissuaded, because the boat was quite dirty. But it cleaned up very well.

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Though I have a power washer, I was apprehensive to use it, because there are several spots that could use some better sealing. So it was just a lot of elbow grease. And then the next day (when I took the “after picture”) a bunch of junk had fell from the above tree branches and left black streaks…

We’ve been purchasing a lot of the necessary accessories, replacing trailer tires, and cleaning. The V-Berth is ready for a good nap:

A lot of the plywood wood work is a little bloated – so that’s something I’m going to have to try and re-create. In fact there are a lot of things that are really showing their signs of age – but the bones are in good shape – and we can still sail while we update the boat.

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