When you buy a used boat, it’s best to get the really dirty work out of the way first.
After purchasing a 1986 Grand Banks 32 called Snow Goose, Onne van der Wal removed all the gear from the boat so he would have some places to put his tools. First, he gave the bilge a good scrubbing and then he turned his attention to the dirtiest deed of all, the head.
Initially he had intended to refurbish the old toilet with some new parts, but when those parts were hard to find and with a new head only costing $200, he decided to replace it. Once he had the old toilet out, he had to move the plumbing for the new head, so he made a template to create a cover that would hide the old holes. Onne talks about the toilet project in the above video.
Meanwhile, Onne’s wife, Tenley, did a little research to find new LED lights for the interior, which will be installed at a future date.
Onne likes to listen to NPR or classical music while he works on his boat. When he refurbished his sailboat, Snoek, he’d installed a traditional stereo system, but he wasn’t happy with it. “I wasted quite a bit of money on Snoek’s stereo,” he says. “I put a car stereo with nice speakers on it but it didn’t sound good. That’s when my kids said, ‘just go with Bluetooth.'”
On Snoek, Onne replaced the traditional car stereo system with Bose Soundlink Revolve+ speakers, which he mounted on custom aluminum and wooden brackets he made in his shop. He repurposed the speaker wires from the old stereo system by adding USB connectors and then used them to power the Boses off the boat’s 12-volt system.
Music is supplied by iPhone via Bluetooth. When he walks on to the boat, he uses the Bose app on the iPhone to wake up the speakers and then uses Spotify or a classical radio station to provide the audio. “It sounded great on Snoek so I did the same thing on Snow Goose,” Onne says. “It sounds like a bloody concert hall.”
What’s next on the to-do list? There’s plenty to fix and upgrade, including a whole new electronics package to replace the original equipment, new canvas, lots of cosmetic repairs, and more. When he is not on assignment, Onne will be on Snow Goose to make more improvements. Stay tuned as he turns the old goose into a new one.
