So Tuesday I went back out to White Rock to work on the boat again. This time, Bill and I spent the day grinding down various problems in the fiberglass of the deck and removing the nasty huge “lifting bridles” (huge 6″ chunks of steel sticking out of the deck for use lifting the boat up with a crane, almost completely useless since cranes have lifting straps, and a great place to stub your toe). I actually had a really nice time – the work is far easier than I expected, and even – dare I say it? – fun. The process goes something like this:
- find a place on deck where the fiberglass is cracked or chipped, exposing the wood underneath. this usually constitutes a leak into the cabin, and will lead to rotting of the wood if left unchecked for too long.
- grind down the area about an inch around the crack, all the way along. clean up all the dust.
- paint the newly-ground section with epoxy, and lay down a roughly-sized strip of fiberglass matte. paint more epoxy over top of the matte, soaking it into the deck.
- wait four or six hours for the epoxy to cure.
That’s where we’re at currently – we’ve fixed almost all the major problems on the deck, leaving just the rebedding of the traveler and some kind of issue with the main bow. The next steps are to add fairing compound, then sand it all down, and then paint the whole thing. Bill is teaching me as we go, and I am an eager student. I’m going back out on Tuesday, weather permitting, to do another four or six hours of work on her, and by then hopefully she’ll be tight as a drum and ready to be moved onto!
Next step: figuring out the toilet. It appears there’s a Y-valve that lets you select between flushing straight-into-the-ocean or into a holding tank, but there doesn’t appear to be a macerator pump. If that’s the case, the only way to empty the holding tank will be to use a pumpout service, which can get pricy pretty quick.