Winter round-up

It seems kind of weird, but it's time to start thinking BOATING! again, even though we just got through with 2 weeks of sub-zero temperatures and have another 5 days or so of more coming.

• I have been refinishing the cockpit table.  It was worn but has cleaned up nicely.  I made a huge mistake, actually a couple, when refinishing it.  The first was refinishing the top first, and this one was made worse by the second, not separating the halves of the table when refinishing it.  I ended up with some ooze on the front which required some re-sanding and re-application of a couple of more coats of varnish.  Fortunately it will just be a minor hassle and will still look quite nice.
• I brought the sunpad cushion home with the idea of replacing the foam, which seems to have lost some cushion and is probably dry rotting a bit.  Lynn and I discussed replacing it outright with a new pad, cut larger to cover more of the bow.  I suspect this will be really expensive, although it would give us a larger cushioned area.
• I will probably replace the anchor line/chain combo we have now with 100' of chain.  I'd like more than 100', but most of our anchorages are 30' or less and we can get away with 2-2.5:1 scope with our current chain and rode setup, and probably closer to just 2:1 when the total tackle package weighs in around 90 pounds.  The overthink with this is whether to add the original 25' chain to the end of the 100' link by having a link cut and welded or whether to add 25-50' of rode at the end.  This would give me 125' of all-chain.
• Considering bottom paint -- the existing bottom paint is shot, and with the problem of zebra mussles in the bay it probably makes sense to have the bottom painted with anti-fouling paint to minimize this.  I think the outdrives should also get painted.  Downside (besides the outdrives) is expensive and time consuming.
• Probably not going to look further into a raw water pump washdown system, at least not a fixed installed one, this year.  The through-hull aspect is complex and probably expensive to have installed.  I may look at buying the pump and making some kind of enclosure for it, though, as fresh water for cleaning would be nice.
• I would still like the MFD upgrade to get mapping, depth/temperature and engine data.  Working with the guy I found has been impossible, he doesn't know the products well. It's also expensive, but the right way to do it is probably a Mercury data interface and two MFD displays from what I can tell.  Punt to 2019.
• Stereo upgrade?  It would be kind of nice to have bluetooth ability.  This isn't necessarily impossible, as it's reasonably priced and within my skillset.
• Carpets -- they still look like shit, but at least the backing is intact after coating with plasti-dip last season.  Would like some kind of sea-deck solution but will probably do nothing for this year.
• What I probably WILL do is pay money to Bayside for a more thorough investigation my boat's fuel consumption and get them to do a test drive as well.  I need to contact them soon so I can get this scheduled.