What a great feeling to be floating. When the boats are in the boat yard I don’t get any sleep knowing that everyday we sit up there it is costing money. The hard work and planning keeps us up at night. There is always the worry about the budget and what new broken thing we are going to find. It was a smooth dry dock this time. The boat was in great shape when she got here it just needed our touches put on her and a bunch of TLC. The maintenance of all the systems cost some money to get all tuned in and 10 years of varnish needed to be stripped and redone. We had a great team this time and she really came out great. All of the long hard dry docks we have had on the 37 Merritt really helped us going into this job. The team of guys that have helped me with the 37 over the last 11 years were here to help get this one done on time. Mike Akazawa of Akazawa Painting and his partner Roberto Martinez were a big help with keeping on schedule. Paint can hold jobs up and we stayed right on track.Dan Issacson and his guys Greg and Doyle of Honokohau diesel service got the engines all ready to go. Scott Davidson got the electronic shifters back in shape. They really needed work and he got them all straight and calibrated. Rob Ellen got the get set in and fixed the plumbing to the air con which will really helped the systems. Tracy and his dad Steve did a great job on the varnish, not to mention helping with getting the boat back together. Tracy was our utility guy from varnish, to refitting, to polish, to fishing he was there. We had a great swell at the end of the job and we really missed him in the mornings for dawn patrol surf action a couple days.Wayne Knight and Jonny got the tower back together like new. The welds came out great. Charley at Honokohau Machine helped put that all together and was a big help the whole job with our machine work. The boys at the yard Dave and Dennis really helped with the lifts and yard details.The crew and Kona Marine were great getting us our paint and supplies many times special ordering things to keep us on track. Tracy Melton of Melton Tackle was a big help as always getting us parts and helping me with leg work with his friends in the biz. I really want to thank Rob McCarthy for sponsoring the whole project. Without his sponsorship of the project we would have not been able to get the work done the boat needed. From everyone on this dry dock team that I mentioned we thank you for the work and wish you all the best of luck with your new boat. Thanks everyone for all the help- Time to go fishing- Aloha Kev
