IT'S NOT IMPOSIBLE

I have read that one should wait about a year after buying a boat before making changes, modifications, or even upgrades. I waited, and now I am doing what I can as I can, and just a couple of months ago I finally decided it was time to get a new mattress for the V-birth. As I cruised the Face Book posts of the many sailing related groups looking for ideas, contacts of suppliers, and so on. Just the other day I run across a post that a friend is contributing in about boat mattresses; we'll call her Deb, so Deb says she paid about $350ish for hers at a custom mattress store. This is a nice locally owed franchise mattress store, and well I'm all for using locally owed and operated over the giant box type stores.
I go online to see if there is a local to me store and would ya know it there is, its only about 50 miles away, small price to pay to have a professionally, custom made mattress right and besides the drive would be nice. I Email to confirm that this store does in fact make custom boat mattresses, they do so an appointment is made for Monday March the 23rd of 2015 at 11:00 am.
This should have been a nice one hour drive each way, except that mother nature in all her wisdom decided that we should have a spring snow storm. 1 hour drive turns into 2 1/2 hours

I finally make it to the store and even called in this parking lot highway to let the store know that I'd be late.
I unload the old mattress pieces and plywood base so that we can get this thing measured up. Inside the store I begin to lay out the plywood for the base measurement when the stores General Manager; we'll call him Rod S., says he doesn't need the plywood.
Hmm OK this guy must really know his stuff.
SO we lay out just the mattress pieces instead, Rod S looks at it and takes some measurements, comments that it'll be difficult to make some of the detail cuts for things to fit right, I tell him that I'm gonna make this thing a lot easier to make by creating 6 pieces instead of 3.
     Rod S.: comes back with a we cant do that.
     Me: Um why can't that be done.
     Rod S.:Well because it won't look like that.
     Me:Yes it will look like that, there will just be more pieces.
     Rod S. No it will be to difficult to make that puzzle
Oh OK this guy isn't good at all he's a flippin moron.
So this goes on for a while and I'm about to take my money and run, but the employee that will be making my mattress pieces has a clue and seams as though he can make a custom mattress, so I decide to let this store make my mattress.
So what is the name of the store that I am trusting will actually be able to make a custom mattress you ask, well it is
Verlo Mattress, I went to the Naperville, Ill store however this owner has two more stores in Morton Grove, Ill, and Skokie, Ill, I personally would avoid all three since the ownership is the same.
I will find out in 4 to 6 weeks if this was a complete waste of time and money

My Face Book rant same day I returned home

((((((OK so I finally broke down and ordered a new mattress for the v-birth, found the company through a fellow liveaboard but I'm positive that they went to a different store.
So after driving 2 1/2 hours through Chicago during a spring snow storm to this "custom" mattress store, I unload the old mattress and plywood base, and pull out my phone with the pics I took for reference. The owner said he only wants the mattress (it's 40 years old, not a good template) I proceed to explain what I want being 6 pieces instead of 3 (2 long and the small keystone piece) so that I can get to the stowage under without have to remove the entire V-Birth.
Owner: I can't do that
Me: why
Owner: because it won't look like that (2 long and a triangle)
Me: I know but that's how I need it made
Owner: Then I have to cut it with square edges 
Me: What's the difference if you cut two long pieces that are angled to meet the hull or take those same pieces and then cut them where need be to meet what I need.
So this goes back and forth for a while and I'm about to leave and go to Walmart for my foam and make some bs myself, when he says that he has to explain what I want to his employee (standing right next to is taking measurements ) so with that I tell him that I'll just talk to his employee because he is to stupid to understand and or unwilling to give me what I'll be paying for.
I hope the owner leaves his employee to do his work cause this owner needs to replace the words custom with xerox on his web site, since that's what he wanted to do was copy not custom build me a mattress))))))

So what am I looking for, well something like the right picture, please excuse my top notch art work, and yes I did bring pictures of which Rod S. had no desire to see. I even tried telling him that I understand that the world is not perfect, and that as long as he made what I had asked for to the dimensions that I required then I would be happy and all would be good, but he was still insistent on creating a exact duplicate.

So with my vary first custom job (By Someone else) is turning into quit the adventure.
I will update this when I get this job back, If I get it back

Oh and just to be clear, this is a screen shot of Verlo's web site that claims the ability to make this type of mattress and make it the way I need it made,

Doing a little upgrading

So whats been going on since Annabelle came home? Well unfortunatly not much, I have gotten the vent, cabin dome lights and the sea strainer with hoses replaced.

 

Brining S/V Annabelle home

After a successful sea trial and a satisfactory survey, with check in hand I bought Annabelle. we, my girlfriend and I, left Travers City, MI en-wrought to Hammond Marina with 5 knots of wind we motored the first two days. Kathy was not comfortable motoring through the night so I choose an island to anchor by, it took awhile to find a shallow enough spot to drop anchor 9' was what I found but by then it was dark and I couldn't get the Delta anchor to set I knew something was amiss but did not want to alarm Kathy anymore than she already was so I didn't sleep I just kept getting up every half hour or so to make sure we weren't drifting, when the sun came up I seen why I was having problems, we set on top of a rock field but with all the anchor rode I had paid out we wrapped around a half dozen rocks which kept us firmly in place. toward the end of day two as land started to slowly disappear our engine acted up so I made the decision to find a marina for fuel since that is what it sounded like, it wasn't, after getting towed into Ludington, MI filling only 16 gallons of fuel into a 75 gallon tank I knew that was not the problem, but hey its a sail boat right, we motored back out just for the engine to act up again just about 5 miles off shore so I went back in for further investigation. I wound up replacing the fuel filter which was filled with all kinds of junk and Kathy jumped ship and my daughter came aboard to bring Annabelle home. and with less than 5 knots of wind coming out of the SW we motored more for the next 9 hours till the engine stared complaining again so with no further ado my daughter and raised the sails and sail through the night making almost no progress due to wind direction and lack of wind so we tried the engine again and walla it ran for another 6 hours and complained again so again we set sail and carried on for the next few hours till the engine fired right up and brought all the way home. The problem with sailing all the way was no or little wind and it was coming in the exact direction we needed to go my daughter and I sailed as close to the wind as we could without loosing the sails. all in all I think Annabelle did a fantastic job getting to Hammond , IN I just wish we had the wind so we would have never known about the engine faults, but everything happens for a reason.

Stay tuned in as I begin all the repairs that need to happen before I can take her out to the deep end of the pool aka the Atlantic Ocean