See ya dodger! Part I

The day had arrived! Mehmet was coming to cut off the dodger! Mike had tarped everything off and we were anxiously awaiting his arrival. 9 o’clock came, 10 o’clock came, 11 o’clock came and no Mehmet. Mike decided to give him a call and luckily his friend was present to translate. There was some mis-communication from his last visit and he thought he was supposed to come by today to just talk. Bummer. Big bummer. We had really been looking forward to have this bulky, in-the-way, rusty hunk of metal gone! So Mike decided to take matters into his own hands. He broke out his grinder, and I armed myself with the shop vac and we went in! It was a pretty dirty and nasty job under all of those tarps but we were able to successfully cut half of it away! But that was only the first part of the job. What do we do with it now? That sucker is heavy! Through the strategic use of a 2x4, various lines, and the mizzen halyard we were able to get the big piece of jagged steel safely lowered over the side of the boat. And no one yelled at us during the process! People can get very touchy when you are cutting or grinding steel next to their boats because of the dust. Let alone dropping a 200+ lb. hunk of steel on their heads! Afterwards, we strung up the shade tarp and enjoyed our more airy cockpit with a beer. It felt really good to do it ourselves and see the progress. Now tomorrow is the next half!

Going in!

What now?

Success!