In the Yard with Tango.

We've had Tango hauled out at 3D Boatyard on Stock Island.  I've got a long list of stuff to do including replacing all the thru-hulls with true seacocks and painting the bottom.
Getting here was quite exciting.  Before I go into that, my friend John Gill has stopped by on his way from Puerto Rico to help me.  Now that's a stopover!
I can't say enough about his help.  Since he already has owned a 34 for over two decades, he knows the boat!  And he doesn't hold back with the help.  Really appreciated.
I thought we'd be out for three weeks.  May be a lot shorter.  The last time I pulled thru-hulls, each one took hours of pounding and twisting to remove.  John Chamberlain over at Boca Chica told me the shortcut--- Use a grinder to remove the mushroom part outside.  Then the threaded part will come out reasonably easily.  We pulled the boat yesterday, had it pressure-washed and already have all the thru-hulls out.
The exciting part of getting here was that the engine overheated.   The day before I took the boat out for the first time and had an engine overheat  and a smoking wire on the alternator.  The wire was just a corroded fitting.  I thought the overheat was just low flow.  Replaced the impeller, and did a cork seal on the water strainer and ran the engine under load for over an hour with no problems.
We the alarm went off, I had John ready an anchor while I reduced speed.  Shortly, the engine cooled off and we made it in on time, only to sit at the dock baking in the sun for an hour until the boat in the slings could get his propeller replaced.
I can't say enough about the crew at 3D.  Nilo took his time to make sure the slings got into the right position.  This was the first time I've had a boat pulled out by a travelift.  That thing makes life so easy.
One of the problems with the boat was the davit installation.  When they put the Edson davits on, they just through-bolted the base into the weak fiberglass of the aft coaming.  The davits were so weak, the previous owner put motorcycle straps running back to the top of the aft pulpit to take at least some of the load.
I thought that I'd have to make some sort of gusset to transfer the load to the stern, but I ended up just adding a 1-inch tube brace under the mount.  Works great.

More later...