Thursday, March 25, 2010

thru hulls

The Marleon was proving a hassel.
long story short there were too many special orders. got bronze.
thank god for my Fisheries discount.
To keep it simple and uniform I'm going from 1/2" to 3/4: for the raw water intake.
and from 1 1/4" to 1 1/2" on the head overboard discharge.

I also ordered the thru hull transducers for speed/temp and depth. They should arrive in a couple weeks. I'll wait on the display unit for cost reasons. but at least the holes will be filled and the boat can float.

It was raining good this morning so I'll wait a couple days until lI get the next 2 coats on the bottom.


Wednesday, March 24, 2010

I'm still working.....

Finally after week s of fiberglass work, sanding and sore arms the bottom paint is on, well at least the 1st coat. Above the waterline is black and white, classy like a tuxedo. But when she heels over, sexy!

But let me back track a bit. Work did stop on the boat for a long time while we did a major bathroom remodel at Alia’s place. But, nothing lights a fire under your pants like an eviction notice. The city/ state still don’t know what their doing or when. I was told I had to be out by the 28th of last month. But, a couple other boat owners were told May and June. So My plan is to work on getting the boat float ready and keep working until I get a notice taped to the boat.

Then I’ll just put her in the water and get the rigging set up and go from there. I can sail just fine with a less than finished interior.

Over the last few weeks I spent a lot of time re-doing the hull to keel joint. I was undecided on this, because I had to get out of the yard I thought about just letting it be, but I had a bad feeling about it. I was proven right when I took a grinder to the filler. The boat has been out of the water for 18+ months but there were still pockets of water in there. Also the leading edge was 100% filler, and the whole thing had minimal cloth. I re-did the joint with cloth and mat and filler, but less than what was there before.
I feel confident that the joint will have a long waterproof life.

The next task was to decide what I was going to do about the thru-hulls and lack of proper seacocks.
I knew I needed to install backing plates and real ball valve seacocks but I was undecided about the backing plate material and seacock material too. For cost and time reasons I’ll go with wood plates sealed up good with epoxy. For the seacocks I was set on bronze…. Until I tried to get the old ones out. I’ll go with Marleon. All the ball valves were so corroded it took a lot of leverage to get them to open/ close but they still moved. Getting them free from the thru-hull was another matter. I was able to get the thru-hull nut off which let the thru hull head drop down far enough to get my trusty sawz-all in between the head and hull and I cut out all but one thru-hull. One did come out, just like it should but this was enough to sway me to “plastic”. No corrosion or grounding issues.

I still need to go pick up the new thru-hulls and seacosks. Then buy lumber, and make up the plates. But I’m getting close!

Yesterday I applied two coats of Pettit’s epoxy barrier coat, followed this morning by one more coat and then this afternoon, the 1st of 2 or 3 coats of bottom paint. I went with Pettit’s Vivid red and wow!



































I’m starting a new job so I’m not sure what my schedule will be like over the next couple weeks, but here soon I think(?) I’ll be working part time so my mornings can be spent down at the boat, or working in Alia’s next project……



This is what happens if you can't move your boat......