just some wood work

5/7/12

we did this project same day as the bow rails. it was a very clear and hot monday with no wind for sailing so we decided to get busy with projects.

these are the two pieces of wood holding the electrical circuit panel to the wall on the inside of the cabin. the one on the left is the original from when i bought it. it was cracked and spilt plywood with 2 rusty screws. very ugly and decrepit. we're replacing them with what is on the right.

i find wood over by the dumpster all the time. i am a proud dumpster diver. i keep a stash of useable stuff in my dock box. for this project i used a solid piece of wood, i dont know what kind, my guess would be walnut or maple? no clue. 

i cut them to fit exactly as the old ones did. sanded them really well and rounded the edges so no one gets hurt. taped it off and painted a teal stripe on it with my tractor paint. lacquered it with helmsman to keep it from rotting in the sun.

let all the paint and lacquer dry for a day. removed the old supports and put the new ones on. pretty simple and quick project. practically free too. scrap dumpster wood, four stainless steel washers and screws, plus utilizing my blue paint for some appeal. i think it looks way better, and at least its not rotting away anymore. it feels good to replace all the decaying and neglected parts of the boat. as i'm going through with it, i can't believe how much was done using screws, bolts, nuts, and washers that were not stainless steel. seems weird to me not to.

thats the old compass on the left. it kind of works but the water has leaked out to just above the center, so the compass is barely floating. i ordered a new one and its in the mail. just wait and see what i have going on, its awesome. and then the knotlog (tells how fast we're moving in knots) it turns on and works, i just need to purchase a new reader which hooks under the boat near the keel. it spins and sends the speed to that little robot screen.

New Bow Rail

5/7/12

it was time to find a new bow rail at minney's yacht surplus. i love this place. its like a cross between a thrift store and a junk yard for boaters. everything is super cheap and you have to dig deep to find what youre looking for. we get more than half our gear from here. http://www.minneysyachtsurplus.com/

so claire and i drove up last week and found a bow rail that we thought might fit our measurements. the old one was missing screws and all smashed up from some kind of accident before i purchased the boat. not safe at all, it would actually pop off completely if you leaned on it. (which is its main purpose in life) the new one was one complete piece unlike the old one which was a few sections screwed together. the new one also had nav. lights wired into it. pretty cool.

heres the old rail. you can see how its bent and how each section is screwed together.

bent the frame and cracked the fiberglass from whenever that crash was. this was whoever's ghetto fixer up job.

no rails

here's the new rail we picked out. notice the nav. lights (little black box at the top) and then the wire was coming through the bottom of that pole about 1 inch. claire soldered about 2 foot of new wire onto it so we could pull it through a little hole i drilled in the deck. we'll hook that up to our circuit board eventually, and then have 2 full sets of nav. lights (the other set is on the side of the actual boat). not necessary, but i've always thought having two of something is better, especially tiny little lights that keep bigger boats from running into you at night. no need for a double take with 2 sets.

heres what it looked like under the two mounts that were on the dented side. cracked fiberglass. not good. we filled these with all weather caulk.

we bolted down the new rail super tight with really big washers that won't pull through. all stainless steel. the previous rail had tiny washers that were pulling through the fiberglass. not good either. this is inside our anchor locker in the very forward of the bow. the paint is cracked and chipped bad, we plan on sanding and painting that soon.

 the new rail is firmly attached!! its slightly taller than the last one. i love that its all one solid piece compared to the last one which wasnt and had screws popping off everytime you touched it. again, notice the nav. lights! they are going to look awesome once theyre electrified.

topside view of the new set up. notice the location of the old mounts versus the new. we measured out and left room for a big anchor pulpit to replace that tiny chain roller on the tip there. we havent taken her out for a sail yet with the new rails on, hopefully theres not much sail chaffing going on, but there shouldnt be, its a pretty similar set up as the last. one more upgrade done, all on a day off, good for cosmetics and for safety!

New Tiller

So here's the old tiller. The one i learned to sail on. Kind of hard to let it go but it's split lengthwise, really loose, gives a lot of play, has splinters, and pretty much just falling apart.

I really like the black twine rap on the handle. i'm not sure if taylor did this or not. i might do something similar on the new tiller some day.

the new tiller is glossy and quite pretty. its about 2 inches longer than the old one too. it was the perfect fit.

connected the swivel attachment for the forespar. i moved it back a couple inches, more hand grip before it.

woo! i love it. but at the same time miss my original. it's almost TOO nice. i spray painted the forespar with teal tractor rustoleum pant!

I enjoy projects like this. they're quick, easy, and cheap. it's nice to do this kind of stuff between bigger expensive projects like the bottom work that was just done, or upcoming gimbaling propane stove, solar set-up, anchor set-up. it keeps me busy and motivated on making the boat perform and look better. 

the other night claire and i spontaneously started re-doing our foreward hatch. sometimes if it rains hard enough it would drip. so we got new weather strips for it. went to put them on and realized it was just shitty chipped white fiberglass and paint. so we sanded it down and repainted it with leftover sunflower yellow paint just like the rest of the boat. we have plans for that project coming up.

got quite a few projects piling up right now. i'm ready to rush back to the boat everyday after work and crank these things out. spring has sprung and i have plenty of sunlight after work. just bought a new compass, bow rails, anchor needs to be set up (bow and stern), i've got LED mast and anchor lights on the way also.

bilge pump

4/22/12

so after that haul out ive been in project mode. good motivation. and finding that drip of the bilge from the keel made my next project the bilge pump. i bought this bad boy about a month ago on sale. RULE 750 Gallon Per Hour automatic pump.

i needed some help so i called up mikey brooks. he's a regular at the restaurant i work at and a legal liveaboard down here. i wont do electrical work alone anymore. and im glad i got help because my circuit board is a birdsnest from hell. we got some stuff untangled, followed the wires for the bilge pump switch, and it led to the mast light??? why? who? how? i dont know. dont care. we clipped those things off. a new LED mast light is another project of mine anyway so that can sit bare for a little while. we re-routed all the wiring. soldered all the new wires together. hooked up the hosing. and dropped the pump into the deepest part of the bilge. it runs perfectly. no more back breaking, hand pumping, once a month. i brought the dock hose into the boat, blasted the bilge clean. and flushed it all out the pump. no more musty filth under our feet. its dry and fresh smelling. the only thing is that we need to take the pump back out to put fresh hose-clamps on it, and to add some more length to the wiring. its deep down there, but the wires are taut, i'd rather it have some slack and sit flush at the deepest depth.

when i woke up the next morning, all i could do was smile as i heard that bad-boy automatically kick on, flushing out melted ice from my ice-box. it feels great cranking out these projects. i learn a lot and my pace keeps getting faster.

HAUL OUT

4/9/12 - 4/11/12

heavily drank all night easter night after an extremely busy day cooking easter brunch. woke up at 7am before the hang over even kicked in. prepped and cleaned the boat and dock area (mostly just picking up beer cans and whatever else a drunk may leave lying around) made it to the shipyard at exactly 8am for my scheduled haul out. she looked like a toy in that crane.

Once we got her out, hosed off, and onto the trailer. Rex (dana point yacht maintenance) pointed out the 300-500 blisters :(

blisters are a symptom of a condition that is commonly known as hydrolysis of the laminate. pretty much just comes down to osmosis of water through the resin because of the product they used back in the day and how long the boat has sat in the water. they can be ignored and "not cause a problem". rex told me "i've never heard of a boat sinking from blisters" but to me it was a problem that needed to be fixed. just imagining those pimples of acidic water in-between my fiberglass gave me a bad feeling. i didnt want to think about them growing larger, or cracking, or spreading. it was all negative. so i told him lets pop these things! (knowing that it would at least double the cost of my haul-out)

so we wrapped a skirt around the boat to keep in the dust and fibers from sanding, there was A LOT.

 here's rex scoping out the project and prepping.

here's me in the sanding outfit. full body tyvek suit. (tyvek is an amazing material. i have a jacket made from it and a jib sail the previous owner taylor made himself. it's ultra light, rip proof, water proof etc.) these suits were extremely hot inside. i was sweating out that easter binge drinking-fest from the night before.

here's what it looks like after popping blisters all afternoon. it was actually kind of fun under the skirt tent in that space suit. i felt like i was zapping aliens or something. each blister would pop and squirt in your face like a dirty zit.

here's a view from the inside of the boat with the sunshine coming through. pretty crazy. 

soooo i sanded through the hull of the boat... one of the blisters just kept going and going and i kept getting water out, until i bore right through. i was scared at first but rex told me its a common mistake for rookies. he patched it right up for me.

here's my lunchbreak view.

doheny as my background out of the cockpit.

so after sanding and popping all the blisters. we started to fill them all, spackling method. we used this product first.

while sanding, we noticed a drip that kept coming from the aft bottom corner of the keel. inside of which is the bilge. rex said its probably cracked and taking on minimal water. which explains why i have to pump my bilge more often than normal. so i sanded into it more and sure enough water kept pouring out. i went inside the cabin with the shopvac, cleaned the bilge out dry and spotless. then we patched up the tiny crack.

we spackled long into the night. got about 2/3 the boat done. and it was time to go to sleep. Piña, Claire, and I spend the night in our treehouse on land that night. 

this is the hardener agent that has to be kneaded into both agents before applying to the boat.

this is the second product we used after finishing and sanding down the first product.

looking a lot better. no more blisters. smooth fresh bottom.

the view from under the skirt with dust flying everywhere. 

spackled and sanded all day the second day. it was hot, humid, and my arms felt like spaghetti.

this is what it looked like after everything was done. ready to paint.

rex immediately started painting that night. i didnt want to pay for a 3rd day on land and it was meant to start raining that night and all the next day. not a big deal because he could paint under the skirt tent, but i'd rather just get this all over with and save at least a little bit of money.

heres how she looked the next morning. we left the cat on the boat, duh, and claire surprised me with a much needed hotel room for the night. its very rare for us to sleep on land, and use a regular bathroom, especially one with a jacuzzi :)

i only had about 15 minutes to check her out before i had to head into work. he did 2 coats of trinadad pro all around, 4 coats at the water line, and 3 coats before and aft the keel. i had him raise the waterline about an inch higher than the old one. 

thru-hulls looked great. they were nice and shiny before he painted over them.

after easter brunch, 2 days of about 15+ hours of work each day, and about 5 hours of sleep each night. i was ready to start my work week. beginning with a double... i ran to work while they put her back on the crane, rex finished up painting where the pads were. claire and rex drove her back to the slip. i came back from work to my newly done home, claire and Piña waiting.

sure it was a shit-ton of work and labor, plus expensive. but now that i have the mental insurance that the bottom was taken care of properly, ill be happy for at least 5-6 years until the next haul out.

another thing that made me feel good was just seeing splendid isolation out of the water next to similar sailboats. she was wider, bulkier, and had twice the keel. it made me feel lucky that i stumbled upon a boat like this for cruising compared to the others.