C'est la Vie is a 1966 Charlie Morgan 34.

Her home port is Everglades City, FL. Our typical cruising area is Southwest Florida, the Florida Keys, the Southeastern Atlantic Seaboard, and the Bahamas. We are C'est la Vie's third owners and purchased her in 2005. We continue to maintain and update this classic vessel. Please post any questions or comments about C'est la Vie or our travels via the comment links below.


Friday, February 12, 2010

Stormy evening here in Everglades City

In the name of full disclosure this picture was taken in 2008, but the conditions here this evening are not too dissimilar. Due to work obligation and foul weather, I've not made much progress on installing the new shift/throttle controll.

I did take the time yesterday to remove some of the balsa core around the hole for the shift lever and fill the void with epoxy to inhibit water damage.

Hopefully over the weekend I will be able to complete the installation.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Replacing the throttle/shift lever


Well the next couple months certainly will not be images of glamorous ports of call or of adventures on the sea. While working the winter season in Florida, I do my best to tick projects off C'est la Vie's to do list. Current project... replace the throttle arm/shift lever in the cockpit. Like most boaters my projects typically begin by purchasing/ordering parts or materials. Previously I have had great success with ordering from Jamestown Distributors, but this time around they substituted or replaced my shift lever with a different model. Perhaps the Teleflex/Morse MV-3 is the newer version of the MV-2. The workings of the two models sure appear compatible. I just wish Jamestown had contacted me about the switch not just sent a different model that requested. But, wait it gets better/worse. The shifter they sent was damaged. An arm on the throttle control was bent and inoperable. fortunately I was able to harvest an identical arm off of my old, MV-2 unit and replace the bent part. I plan to contact Jamestown tomorrow to share with them my frustrations.

When I removed the old throttle unit I discovered that the cut out created in the side wall of the cockpit exposes some balsa core so before I reinstall the new throttle I am going to seal up the core to prevent the possibility of water intrusion. Looks like all in all the project should go smoothly.