After almost two weeks of frustration I finally found another welder. He comes highly recommended and is not just a welder but an aluminum boat builder, and that also means he is expensive. Well, you get what you pay for. He showed up when he said he would, he finished when he said he would and he was exceptionally thorough. The work he did was the most critical in the welding projects. We are changing the throughhull layout in the boat. Originally there were two knotmeters (speeometers for boats) up forward. These require a hole in the boat for the meter to go into. The era these meters came from required you to have two because they were notoriously unreliable. That is not the case anymore so we had one of the holes plugged and the other one turned into a water inlet for the watermaker. Because these are holes in the hull the quality of the weld is vitally important. Once all the cabinetry goes in you cant weld them again so if after putting the boat in the water you find out they leak, well, you are in trouble.

The work went very well, and I have asked him to do the work designing and building the Dog House - the covering that keeps you dry when you are outside on the deck steering.

Hugo has resolved the issues with his machine and is starting his welding on friday, so we are moving forward again.