The trip to the yard took WAY longer than we expected. Just to recap...we arrived in La Libertad on July 15th that makes the total stay on the hard 5 months. The longest we have lived on land in 13 years!
A lot of our projects were done with the assistance of Stewart Yacht Services. One of the first things we addressed was our fuel tank issues. Karma was designed with two, 200 gal fiberglass fuel tanks that are an integral part of the hull. While living in WPB and dealing with having kids on board, we decided to convert the starboard fuel tank to a holding tank. The theory was that we could hold all the "black" water until we could take the boat offshore where it is legal to discharge. That worked fine while living on the boat and working but now we need the fuel capacity. Honestly, I wish we never had done the conversion in the first place. We also needed to get all the bad fuel (remember "Part One") out of the port tank.

Port tank with the fuel pickup, sender, and return removed.
We had to cut inspection holes into the starboard tank that had been converted into a holding tank.

Looking aft under where the garbage bin is located.

Second inspection opening, under the galley sink looking forward.
Before you all get grossed out, we had been preparing for this project for a while and had been flushing the starboard tank with water and detergent so the job was at least bearable. After cutting two, 5 inch holes, into the tank my helper (Reina wants me to clarify that I am referring to an employee from Stewart Yacht Services) spent at least two days scraping every inch of the tank by hand removing all the calcified remains that were attached to the walls (ok that is kind of nasty). With all of that removed and the surfaces washed an epoxy paint was applied to all the surfaces.

Under garbage bin area completed.

Under sink area completed.
After completing that part of the tank project we wanted the yard to get moving on the interior refinish job. Knowing that we could not stay on the boat while that was being done we chose to go back to the states for a month (I missed my mommy). The plan was for the interior to be completed by the time we returned so that we could move back aboard and get on with the myriad of other projects that were to be done. That was a good plan but when we did return the interior of the boat was not close to being completed even though we were told otherwise!!!

Looking aft in the saloon.

Looking aft from the galley.

The love den.
There was a half inch of dust everywhere....not good.... On top of that, the manager Jeremy was out of the country and what work was being done was not being supervised. We worked out an arrangement with Stewart Yacht Services to cover the expense to put us up in an apartment for the additional week that was projected to finish the interior. That week turned out to be an additional 4 weeks. We were fortunate to have another boater that was in the yard, agree to let us use an apartment they rented for the additional three weeks while they were in Canada.
New lighter veneer on the walls, new teak veneer around the portlights, floor sanded all the way down and refinished, existing trim, doors, and cabinets refinished.
At this stage there are 4 base coats of 2-part gloss polyurethane varnish. The finish coat that is to be matte is yet to be done.

Doors and floor hatch covers being finished, off the boat.

Finished interior looking aft.

Looking forward to port.

Looking forward to starboard.
While the interior was being done (and we were unable to be on the boat) I set off to work on the completion of the fuel system.
As you can see by the schematic below, it is a complex (to me) design but gives me better fuel handling capabilities. I can now transfer fuel between the two tanks, I can re-circulate fuel in a given tank (polishing) which helps to keep the fuel clean by running it through one of the fuel filters, and I can fill the diesel heater (another yard project) day tank easily.

The finished product.

Fuel filters.

Port fuel tank.

Starboard fuel tank.
The most intimidating part of this project was removing 30 year old copper fuel lines. As you can see by the new fuel manifold, there are fuel lines all over the place and the same was true for the old copper. But once you start cutting out the old stuff you are committed to the project. It is a little scary when you don't have Home Depot and NAPA right around the corner. So far all systems are working fine....no leaks!!!
Next up was the heater install. This is a gravity feed heater that we imported from the Netherlands while we were in Bonaire (a territory of the Netherlands). We have been dragging this nice piece of stainless steel around for over 2 years and are just now installing it; but a heater was not a big priority while on the equator, now it is mandatory as we continue south!!! One feature of the heater is the fact that in addition to heating the room the heater is in, you can heat the far ends of the boat with hydronic heating. How this works is inside the burn chamber of the heater is a water jacket that has antifreeze in it. The heater heats the antifreeze and with the addition of a bunch of plumbing and a circulation pump I can get hot antifreeze to radiators at the bow and at the stern of the boat. You then turn on small computer fans at the radiators and you have heat. The best thing about this type of heater is that it is dry heat and will help with the biggest problem with cold water cruising on a boat, condensation.

My baby....Would you like a spot of tea?

Finished exhaust for heater.

Exhaust stack above deck and new line guards over the dorade boxes.

Diesel tank for the heater.

Circulation pump for the radiators in the v-berth and stateroom aft.

Nice and cozy.
We took all the low voltage track lighting off the ceiling and added this really cool led lighting. Led technology has changed rapidly, this super bright light was not even available a few years ago. These lights are very bright and waterproof. You can purchase them in rolls of 20ft. They are very thin about 1/4 of an inch tall and 1/2 inch wide. You can cut them at any length you want, solder on some 22 gauge wire and keep going, and the best part is it is all 12 volts. In the states you can pay over $100 for a 20 foot length. I had another boater tell me about an Amazon vendor that offers a very good product from China. I purchased three 20 foot reels for $8.00 each. They were shipped direct to me from China in just under a week.....small world. I am very pleased with how they came out.

Winter covers for all portlights.
As I said earlier, condensation is the biggest problem with cold weather cruising. In order to not have a stream of water coming off of all the bronze portlights I needed to make what is essentially a double pane window. The air space will keep the portlights from sweating. This was not the original design I envisioned but one that Jeremy suggested. He had some heavy plexiglass that they had removed from another boat and we concluded that this design could easily be removed and fabricated hopefully saving some money. We needed to make 23 of them, yes I said 23. They turned out great and I think they will work wonderfully.
While all this other stuff was going on we were working on the bottom. This turned into an unintended big job. Jeremy and I had marked about 30 of the major blisters to address before putting a barrier coat and bottom paint on. The bottom of the boat was covered so that the fiberglass dust was not blown all over the yard. I did not see that Jeremy's guy decided to grind out every blister on the bottom!!!!
This is how many of the large blisters the guy opened up on the bottom; the little ones were not counted. Needless to say the cost of the additional work became an issue to be negotiated.
The reason the blisters are numbered is because each area gets three separate fiberglass patches epoxied in to fill the hole. A template is made of the exact shape of the ground out area and the patches are cut to fit that specific hole. BIG JOB!!!!!

That's a lot of blisters.
For those who don't know, it is not unusual for a fiberglass boat from the 80's to have blisters. The resins that they had at that time were vinyl resins that are susceptible to water penetration. The issue is usually in the first layer of fiberglass and is not a structural issue especially on Karma whose hull is about an inch thick, but it is typical for a boat to get small blisters in the outer layer of fiberglass and they are not a problem they just look bad and in my case it hopefully won't be an issue in the future. This was a unique opportunity to address this issue, even though it was not in the budget. Karma was out of the water for an extended period of time which allowed the hull to dry out. We also decided to put an epoxy barrier coat over the repaired bottom which will add an additional layer of protection. Epoxy is a waterproof barrier and will not absorb water the way the vinyl resins do.

Patches numbered.

Three layers of Fiberglass matte being applied with epoxy to each ground down area.

Old boot stripe being removed.

Jeremy and I using a laser level to properly mark the new boot stripe.

It is not easy to layout a proper boot stripe on a curved surface.

Boot stripe ready for paint and bottom repair is done and being faired out.

Karma getting a new boot stripe.

We decided to go back to the way she originally was, white stripe on the bottom and the blue on the top.

Karma looking as good as new.

My mate prepping the prop for paint.

Portlights coming out to be cleaned up and re-bedded, we did 15 ports.

New gaskets.

Opening for portlight in forward head, I told you the hull was thick!!!

Taking the genoa to a large area of grass replace the leech tension line, we finally got to use the wagon for something.

Doing some sail repair.

We had about 100 ladybugs on the sail when we were repairing it....that's good luck....right?
We had purchased a" Jordan Series" drogue for the passage to Chile. For those who don't know, a drogue is a line that is dragged behind the boat in order to slow it down in conditions we never expect to see; but if it is bad then a drogue will keep the boat stable and in control. The chainplate we added is what the drogue will be attached to.

New kayak racks that also support the new fender boards.

New ladder to get out of the dinghy for lifting it on the davits.

New compression pole for Reina to strut her stuff.

Karma's got some new "bling", a re-galvanized chain.

New throttle and cables, thanks Tom.

Local girl who did some sewing projects for us...compass cover, flag cover, and the line bags below.
In order to anchor in the fjords of Chile you need to be able to tie all the corners of the boat to shore. This is because you tuck yourself into a very small but protected location and that necessitates you to run lines to shore in order to keep you from moving in the very unpredictable winds. We added 4 line bags to our already excessive inventory of crap. Each line bag has 300ft of polypropylene line. You use polypropylene line because it floats and it is light which makes it easy to get to shore in the dinghy or a kayak. The bags will hang on the life lines when we get to Chile.
We had a BBQ for the employees of Stewart Yacht Services and the yard. We hosted with our neighbors from s/v Heart and Soul.

This is the entire crew of people who made it all come together for Karma.
In conclusion Reina and I are disappointed with the fact that we spent 5 months in the yard but when I look back at all the things that got done it is a pretty extensive list and I don't feel quite as bad!!! And for those among you who wonder what the hell Reina and I could possibly do to stay busy......now you know!!!! It's kind of like.....a job with no pay check, but I must say...... I do love it!!!!!!