project: waxing party

Thank you to everyone who came down to help with the boat waxing. Love was all around us. First, a hearty thank you to everyone who came out at all - travelling to come wax a boat isn't the most compelling reason to get out the bunk, and compared with the infinity of other things they could have done, people actually showed up. Beautiful.

But, more specifically, a thank you to those who came from far away. Thanks to Jack for simply being there. Thank you to Bennett and Catey for bringing the coffee and Harriet Tubman. To Dan and Nick for the surprise birthday cake for Nick. To Mike for extra ice and good advice. To Conan and Bernice for their enthusiasm and willingness to trek. To Lukeman (and especially to Selena who provided the opportunity for Ah-Luke to come out) for his banter. And a thank you to Allison for being an outstanding co-host.

Missing in body, but there in spirit were David, Kim, and Rick, Selena, KC, and Marike.

Seriously. You guys are the best.

Look at them go:


Mmmmmmm...beer...


A motley crew of scallawags:

pre-work day housekeeping

First, I'd be remiss if I delayed or neglected to mention a big hearty thank you to Jerry D of Larken Woodcraft for making the toe rail for just about the entire starboard side - 13' in the front and about 7' in the back. Amazing. Kind. Beautiful.

Second, the hole in the boat is fixed. All that remains is some gel coat.

I put 50% varnish on the gauges, the coamings, and the hatch opening. As far as 100%, the port side toe rail, the stern rail, and the under-the-traveller section. It looks pretty good.

This week I also waxed the cabin top, where the handrails are going to be mounted - it'll be impossible to wax that area once the rails are mounted.

Alli and I washed the boat last weekend, and by washed I mean scrubbed on hands and knees, and it's starting to look pretty good. I'm getting more excited by the day as more and more projects get done.

Tomorrow is the work party - I set up the scaffolding today (cinder blocks and planks) and I'm looking forward to the action, the crowd, and all the good old fashioned love that Redwing is going to get.

my fellow rover

Went down to the boat Saturday in an effort to get something done before the Nor'easter. They were predicting all hell to break loose in the area so I wanted to literally batten down the hatches, drain the bilge, and seal up any last second leaky places (screw holes, etc).

Jack was there sanding the bottom and adjusting the painted water line of his boat. We inspected some of his varnish, talked about the Total Knucklehead who has the 39' power boat next to Jack's boat, and wondered if we would have to fibrillate the old timer rowing across the creek.

I sanded the fiberglass bow patch to prepare it for gel coat, the shiny layer of fiberglass. When you see a fiberglass boat you're actually looking at the gel coat, which is applied to the mold first. "It's like the top coat of nail polish," or so I hear.

Allison, my fellow rover, came down to the boat with pizza and we all ate lunch together. So good. Easy, natural.

Back to work: Alli removed the winch handle pockets and I sanded the handrails (next step varnish coat #1). I also decided that the fiberglass patch had to many gaps in it. I was going to fill it withgel coat, but because I have to sand and fill some of the hull (scratches and whatnot), I wanted to save gel coat for surface stuff and not filling voids. So I used this stuff called Formula 27, which I think it's basically the same as Bondo, or body filler. It's two-part, meaning that you have to mix up some putty with some hardener, similar to epoxy. But the epoxy comes with easy to use pumps that measure out proportionate measures of resin and hardener. With Formula 27 you get a can of putty and a tube of hardener. Tough to make sure the ratio is correct. I think I may have used too much hardener, which I think will be fine, but it was interesting to see that in a very short time it was too hard to dent, even with a chunk of metal.

I checked in on the boat today and it held up well against the storm. I expected nothing less. The Nor'easter wasn't so bad here on LI (the more east one was the less strong the storm), and in 37 years I bet the boat has seen a lot worse.

project: fiberglass patch

I patched the hole in the bow today.

It looks like absolute crap, but it's a first draft and I can always cut it out and start over.

Fiberglassing is difficult business. It's sloppy, extremely fluid, and when the matt/tape gets wet it becomes a million loose, sticky threads that don't want to behave properly. Think of the stickiest gum that has ever been stuck to the bottom of your shoe. Now multiply it by a babillion.

The Process:
I opened a rather big hole in the foredeck, hogged out the balsa core* where it was wet, and left it open for the days it didn't rain. When it did rain I made a ring of silicon sealant to use to glue a plastic grocery sack as a waterproof and windproof cover.

Then, when I was ready to glass, I took two different sized wooden dowel and created ribs in the hole. I spaced them out and wedged them into the hogged out area. Alternating between the ribs I jammed fiberglass matt into the core and wrapped it around the dowels. I used as much as I could fit in the hole, not worrying if it bulged.

I mixed up one batch of epoxy and began slathering it on. I discovered that as soon as it saturated, or sometimes even wet the fiberglass mat it dripped through the hole. So I took a thick piece of cardboard box and staplegunned it to the underside of the deck to create a dam. Back with another batch of epoxy.

5 & 6

Day 5:

Sanding.
Cleaned up for lunch guest.
50% varnish on the handrails and hatchboards.

Day 6:

Sanding.

day 4

Took Wednesday off because it was blowing a gale with sheets of water falling from the sky.

But yesterday's work can be summed up in a word. And that word is sanding.

I also cleaned up where the handrails attach to the boat. Whenever anything is screwed through the boat, say a winch mounted on a pedestal, or cleat to the deck, it's bedded in with waterproof adhesive. So when I removed the handrails, there was some excess bedding compound to remove. The boat cleans up nice though, and I can't wait to give it a bath.

And finally, I met up with the family I am renting the slip from. Super nice. It's a great slip - it even has a little gangplank extending from the dock. Should help loading of groceries, sleeping bags, and of course, a cooler. You know, in case we want to drink some ice old beers.

I'll be at the yard all day tomorrow, so if you have nothing to do and want to volunteer some labor, give a call or email. I may try to have Allison down, but it might still be too cold for the lady-folk.

day 3

My hands are coming along nicely. All my fingers have cuts on them, my palms are getting harder by the day, and the sandpaper is doing wonders for my fingertips. And they hurt less every day. Ridiculous that it has come to this. I thought I broke my thumb the other day, though. Taking off one of the hoses from the head, the hose slipped off the barbed nipple (the name of my new band, Barbed Nipple) and with all my pulling force my hand bashed into the bowl. It was completely numb for a good six minutes and swelled up to look like a turkey drumstick. And even now, three days later the swelling leaves it looking chicken leggish. But tough.

Barbed Nipple's first song would be "Baby Stuck Sucking."

I sanded all day. And by all day I mean all day. Coamings, toe rail, hatchboards. I want to take everything down to bare wood and start the varnishing fresh. Persuasion's varnish looked amazing and I want that same new, honey look that fresh varnish has. It makes the boat look younger, fitter, and cleaner and because of all the other damage and missing parts, I need all the help I can get come launch.

I did take the handrails off, though. And here's why. The port side, aft-most fasteners were leaking bad enough that the varnish was lifting off the handrail in the cabin.

A word of explanation/definition first. On the outside of the boat, attached to each side of the cabintop, run two long handrails. They are about 8' long. They're long and beautful. On the inside, with complementary fastenings (the inside rail covers the screw heads of the exterior rail and the interior rail screws into the exterior with a honking wood screw) runs another grabrail, about 5' long.

So to get at that leak I took off the interior rail and saw that the leaking screw hole was worse than I thought. And that that wasn't the only hole leaking. I realized I'd have to rebed the entire thing. So off they came. And to do only one side would be dumb, so off with the other side too. So now the boat looks even more in disarray and if I hadn't been through it all already with Jack and with Persuasion I'd be freaking out counting weekends until Launch Day (tentatively 12 May).

I have a need of water near.

Exiled

SEARCHING my heart for its true sorrow,
This is the thing I find to be:
That I am weary of words and people,
Sick of the city, wanting the sea;
Wanting the sticky, salty sweetness
Of the strong wind and shattered spray,
Wanting the loud sound and the soft sound
Of the big surf that breaks all day.

Always before about my dooryard,
Marking the reach of the winter sea,
Rooted in sand and dragging driftwood,
Straggled the purple wild sweet pea.
Always I climbed the wave at morning,
Shook the sand from my shoes at night,
That now am caught beneath big buildings,
Stricken with noise, confused with light.

If I could hear the green piles groaning.
Under the windy, wooden piers,
See once again the bobbing barrels,
And the black sticks that fence the weirs;
If I could see the weedy mussels
Crusting the wrecked and rotting hulls,
Hear once again the hungry crying
Overhead, of the wheeling gulls;

Feel once again the shanty straining
Under the turning of the tide,
Fear once again the rising freshet,
Dread the bell in the fog outside,
I should be happy!—that was happy
All day long on the coast of Maine.
I have a need to hold and handle
Shells and anchors and ships again.

I should be happy, that am happy
Never at all since I came here.
I am too long away from water;
I have a need of water near.

--Edna St. Vincent Millay 1920

day 2 - 7 hours

In the Accident that made the boat available to me the bow pulpit was bent and the starboard side stanchion base was ripped untimely from the boat, leaving a gaping hole in the deck. When I bought the boat a plastic bag was stuffed into the hole (completely ineffective). I immediately covered the hole with duct tape (somewhat effective). When the boat moved to the south shore I covered it with blue painter's tape (ineffective) and then reused a styrofoam egg carton and patched it (mostly effective).

Today I cut out, with a jig/sabre saw, the edges of the hole with the idea of patching it with fiberglass (good as new). I was dismayed to find the balsa core of the deck was soaked with water. This is very bad. If not tended to immediately the core will rot out and leave the deck spongy. I'm not sure if the sponginess comes from a softened wooden core or the disintegrated core leaving the deck with a gap between it.

Doesn't matter.

So I drilled out some of the deck to see how extensive the damage was and found it was not as bad as I thought. So I cut a huge hole in the deck, big enough for a man to put his foot through, and hogged out as much of the wet core as I could. The wet core was easy compared to the dry core. The dry core just doesn't want to move, even though balsa is pretty soft.

I left it to dry out until tomorrow when I will glass the crap out of it. The idea is to put alternating strips of dowels and fiberglass matt in the hole, soak it, and then put fiberglass tape over the hole. Should make it good as new.

Then I sanded the bottom for a bit. It's dirty, dirty work.

Then I sanded the stern toe rail.

Then I sanded the starboard coaming.

My hands hurt and my body is tired and the boat looks like hell. A good hell, though. Then hell of getting worse before it gets better.

giving me the slip!

I got a slip on my favorite creek - Sampwam's Creek - in Babylon! It's almost right across from where I kept Persuasion when it was in Jack's backyard.

It's the creek I have always sailed out of, whether as crew on Jack's boats, or sailing my own. Only one year was I not on that creek and that was when I was in (Cal)Amityville, two hours from anything fun. It's a nice wide creek with beautiful houses on one side and boat slips on the other. Very New England-looking. Many of the racers are docked nearby as they are village residents and have first dibs on the town slips.

And it was important to me to get a slip in Babylon, not so much because of the super-safe neighborhood, that it's near my apartment and summer school, but that it's close to two channels over to sweet coves for overnighting, close to all the racing, and close enough to the far away overnighting spots to make almost any trip possible.

Best yet, it's a few slips down from Jack's boat. It's going to be a season long block party!

Vaca work week, day 1

After a late start (got back from the city, changed, and got to the yard at 10), I got a lot done. But it was damn cold down at the yard. The wind was from the SE, so it was coming off the ocean, across the bay, right into the main hatch of the boat, and deep into my bones. Brrrrr. So it was all inside work today.

Previous ownership had the hoses snaked up and over in a loop, mounted to the bulkhead/wall of the head. This was a sound idea meant to put a loop in above the waterline so to avoid any trouble with a leak. I decide to make the hoses short as possible, from one pipe to the other with as little distance as possible.

I think this will be better. Seawater is trapped in the hoses and the microscopic life in the water dies in the hose and it winds up stinking like rotten eggs. Or worse. Not to mention the waste that travels through the hose, too. Streamlining, literally, the hoses also makes the head area look cleaner and less complicated.

And I did a bit of sanding of the areas of teak that have gotten sundamaged since I took the curtains off.

On the way home I stopped at HomeDepot. Why don't they have cans of grease? Why doesn't anyone know where safety gear is? I bought new filters for my respirator so I can sand the bottom this week. And the cabin, too. I also bought safety glasses. My last pair disappeared on a bike ride.

Tomorrow promises mid 60s, so it will be an outdoor day. Wednesday rain. If you're in the 'hood give me a call.