Commander #65 "Lucky Dawg"

[mbd]

My gawd Dawg, and I thought our winter was sucking hard... Love the doggy boots. I never could get mine to wear them.

[Lucky Dawg]

Love the doggy boots. I never could get mine to wear them.

Oliver seems to understand that odd-boots beat ice-marbles between his toes. Dawg Logic.

[Ariel 109]

Water Winter Wonderland

Thanks for the pictures. They bring back memories of walking on the ice of Lake St. Clair with my family when I was a kid.

[Lucky Dawg]

One more cool picture.

[Fritz]

Great pictures. Thanks for sharing! Can't wait till spring.

Fritz. Commander #3

[Lucky Dawg]

The Dawg is back at it. Lucas delivered us most of the way to our slip from the launch dock. Both dog and boy outgrew their life jackets from last year!

[Commander227]

You're in. Awesome!
All I've done is pull the cover and make a list.
Here's to a great season.

[Lucky Dawg]

It's been an active sailing year so far. I might need to rename Lucky Dawg "Kidship." It is a fun part of sailing her with Sadie and Lucas that they generally bring a friend. We've introduced lots of kids to sailing. Being so easy to sail, they all get to take the helm and get a feel for sailing. I've never kept a ships log, but I'd guess we've taken 20 different kids sailing with us over the years. Pic below of a couple we've included this year.

Lucky Dawg suffered some superficial damage several weeks ago. Bow line somehow popped out of the stbd chock in a storm and her port topsides and part of her toerail took a bit of a beating against the dock. Hopeful this will buff out, It's not a tragedy, but makes for some teeth grinding to look at it.

Got to sail in Maine a couple weeks ago - my folks live in Sedgwick and we visited for my sister's wedding. Sailed several days out of Benjamin River into Eggemoggin Reach. Perfect weather, steady winds for sailing their beautiful 30' Cheoy Lee Bermuda ketch. Topped off the week with a Summer Sailstice sail to Torrey Island with a flotilla of beautiful sailboats. On Tuesday, we motored in my folks 1966 runabout to Center Harbor, under the Deer Island Bridge to Buck Harbor. Great week of water based fun.

[Lucky Dawg]

NOAA web cam caught me inbound this afternoon. Teenietiny Lucky Dawg between the lights at Muskegon breakwater. First kidless sail of the season - as they're back in school for Monday sailing - bittersweet, but it was a beautiful day. SSW 14kts with steady 1-2 footers.

30 second vid heading WNW an hour or so earlier: https://www.flickr.com/photos/124380...4/15180815651/

[mbd]

Great pics Kyle - and oh so jealous! Stinks on these beautiful days when you have to hope for an invite to go out because you're too damn lazy to get your own boat in the water...

PS. Sure do love those Commander cockpits!

[ebb]

"The further you get from nature, the less happy you are
- and the nearer, the more exultant you become over the world and all that there is in it."

"Sailing a boat calls for quick action, a blending of feeling with the wind and water
as well as with the very heart and soul of the boat itself.
Sailing teaches alertness and courage,
and gives in return a joyousness and peace that few sports afford."

George Matthew Adams (a popular columnist of the '50s and '60s)

[Lucky Dawg]

Newfoundmetals portlights going in. No more freakin' leaks. Small mod to the current openings to accommodate the 5x15 ellipses. http://www.newfoundmetals.com/portli...nless-standard In a perfect world, they would manufacture a Commander match, (they make a 5x12 oval that would be perfect... if it was 3" longer. Regardless, I am really pleased with these masterpieces of sturdy, stainless beauty!

The heavy duty template makes it a cake walk to drill precisely and cut perfect openings. Itching to install, but I am epifanes-ing the teak spacers, so it will be in the next week or two to show the final product.

p.s. I have 4 (so that is two complete sets of) intact window frames and two (double paned / sandwiched 1/8" glass windows available. 3 of my frames were already patched together - badly - and one more broke upon removal.

[C38]

While I love the look of the original pearson portlights, I gotta say, those are gonna look great. Really interested to see how those change the profile from the outside.

I had thought about installing these same portlights a few years ago on my commander, but never pulled the trigger. Goodluck with the install, can't wait to see the finished product!

[Lucky Dawg]

Finished this cover today. I used the same design as A414 - cleat and stainless cabinet hardware holding on the center piece. I fiddled with a couple different looks for the anchor, but couldn't make one I liked more than Mike's.

I've been watching some videos (e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zN-9vCSJWDQ) on wet sanding the final coat with 1500 / 2000 grit, but I think I'm probably going to just leave it as it is. 9 coats of Epifanes and it is about 99% perfect.

Made from a piece of 1/2" african mahogany plywood. Natural, it was way too light and didn't match my interior woodwork at all. I combined a couple colors of stain and after some experimenting, got a good match. (It looks a good bit lighter in this picture than it is.)

My windows are coming along. I'll post some pix soon.

[paulsproesser]

Very nice ! send me that template so I can save some time please!! I've wanted to do this also every since I saw mikes job. Just makes sense.