Renovation Icebox Removal Pt 2

The icebox is now long gone.  The resulting open area will become a navigation station one day, but for now we at least need to close off the engine room.

Ad-hoc engine room access:  The original plywood had been stuck up against the wet foam of the icebox for 44 years.  There was truly nothing left.  The used-to-be-plywood debris was cleared away by hand, in sunday clothes, while on the phone, without even breaking a sweat or getting dirty.  The remaining flanges are fiberglass, which were used to screw and epoxy to the new board to.

Remember when every home improvement store sold an inexpensive-yet-high-quality, void-free AC Douglas fir plywood made with genuine waterproof glue?  Neither do I; apparently I'm too young, but I have been told that they used to about 15-20 years ago.

Well, the product still exists, and it is still cheap, but you must look long and hard to find it...  or have a great little wood shop just down the road like we do: MR Woods.  We bought a half sheet for $15, and toted it home.  The usual fiberglass tape/epoxy/filler job and the engine room is a room again instead of an extension of the main cabin.

We turned the three walls into one wall which left an opening over the engine room. It will be covered with a counter/shelf extension.

The half bulkhead separating the previous icebox from the main cabin is an odd lumpy site.  The top is covered in fiberglass, and the bottom is exposed plywood.  I filled the holes in the bottom, then covered the plywood with biax fiberglass cloth. I laid the glass from the fiberglass tape at the bottom to the fiberglass above the plywood to fully encase it. This bulkhead will get covered up with something and become the back of the seat in the new Nav station.

It's been raining so much that we haven't been able to move as quickly as we'd like with the toxic work - epoxy, primer, paint, and varnish.  While we can work in the boat during the rain, the lack of ventilation is a problem. We wear our heavy duty respirators but that only helps so much when you can't open windows. And without being able to leave the boat open, the fumes take days to dissipate. Also, epoxy cures quickly in the heat, and slowly when it's cool.  If the temperature is over 90 it usually cures in 24 hours. But its been in the 70s in the boat with the rain and clouds, causing it to take multiple days to cure. I never thought there would be a day when I wanted the boat to be hotter, but such is life. The blazing sun has returned today after a 2 week hiatus. So I'm going to go do some more stinky toxic work with the hatches wide open.

Sand Epoxy Sand Paint (Again)

The head is finished.  We haven't dropped in the new bronze Groco toilet unit, but the tiny "room" looks like part of a nearly-new boat...  or at least a well-loved boat.

The two fiberglass wall repairs from the previous post were faired with thickened epoxy to cover the weave of the the glass cloth.  The room is now a continuous fiberglass bowl from the counter height down.

The fiberglass floor is part of the original interior mold.  Through the years and owners, it had received at least three "renovations" and was a mottled mess of four layers of paint: bright green, red, tan, and seafoam, all on top of a factory-molded honeycomb "nonskid" grid that prevents water from flowing freely to the drain.  It is humid and icky enough in the tiny head without having standing water in the floor exacerbating the problem, so we sanded, chipped, and ground out the paint and honeycomb texture as best we could, and then filled and faired the floor with thickened epoxy as well.

No matter how much work you put into fairing/sanding/fairing/sanding, you will always find tiny imperfections.  Suck it up and move on.  That is why they make: Paint; the beautiful concealer.

For this application we used Petit EZ Prime and  Interlux Brightside, a one-part polyurethane, in pure white.

The anchor locker was also attended to.   AJ removed/sanded the old flaking paint as best as he could, then painted it with gray Interlux 2000E, aka "barrier coat."

We scraped the V-berth back down to gelcoat.  The paint chipped off the smooth gelcoat sides in rather large pieces with a paint scraper fairly easily (easier than sanding!), so for the past couple months whenever one of us had some spare time, we'd go and chip away at paint in the V-berth until eventually it was bare.

Pics of the repairs to the back wall of the port side of the V-berth are below.
I used thickened epoxy to fill the depth/gap left by removing a delaminated layer of plywood, and I filled many large holes in the back wall that wires ran through before. We have also been scraping paint off the ceiling for months. The ceiling is not smooth like the sides, so it wouldn't flake off in sheets. It had to be picked off slowly and painstakingly.  We stripped the ceiling the best we could because we did not want the Reflectix falling down due to weak paint adhesion.

On the starboard side a previous owner drilled holes in the base of the V-berth.  He probably wanted to allow the compartments below to "breathe." but when he realized that he just drilled holes into the tops of the only totally water-tight compartments in the boat, he decided not to continue.  The holes allows for dust and debris, and most importantly, water, to fall/drip into the contents of the drawer below, so I filled the holes with thickened epoxy...

...  And then painted it all with Petit EZ Prime and Pettit EZ Cabin Coat, also bright white.

We hope to move to start moving aboard in about a week.

... and to take it out for a daysail shortly after that!

(Another) Delaminated Bulkhead Fiberglass Repair

If you do a google search for "delaminating" or " fiberglass bulkhead repair" we'll probably pop up in your results. Spell check persists on telling me that "delamination" and "delaminated" aren't words, but I must protest because it would be really difficult to write this blog without them.  It's a little depressing to have done enough of this dismal work to achieve these google algorithm rankings for word combinations.  Eventually the google algorithm should favor our blog with terms like "bad-ass adventuring sailor solves world hunger" and "girl kills ass-hole shark with bare hands to save seal pups", stuff like that.  Now, I would never enter into battle with a shark without a gun, a scuba tank, and a bigger boat, but I might be there when this happens to break the story. Today, we won't be adding any new keywords.

Once upon a time there was a delaminating bulkhead.

Two delaminating bulkheads in the head. They had suffered water damage from a leaking window and chainplates.  But the damage was limited to the thin top layer of the plywood on the lower half of the walls.  AJ scored it off at a hard line and removed it.

The bulkhead above on the right separates the head from the V-berth.  On the V-berth side, the bottom of the bulkhead was also delaminated.  Underneath it turned out to be completely rotted out for about five inches before going solid.  It was decrepit enough to break it apart with your hands. Can't catch a break right? 

So out came the rot and in went a small section of 3/4" plywood to fill the void.

I finally got text to go next to a picture!!! 

But unfortunately there is little more to say between this picture and the next one.  And no text above and below to sweetly envelope it. So this trick will do little aesthetically for this post. But I'm not going to undo this magic. It will look fabulous when there are many words and beautiful pictures.

Plywood patch coming up shortly.

I glued the new plywood piece in place with thickened epoxy. Then faired the uneven portions of the raw plywood wall.

We used thin 6 oz woven fiberglass cloth to fill the gap left by the missing plywood veneer, to seal in the new repair, and to make a waterproof epoxy/glass joint from the bulkhead to the fiberglass floor basin.  Now water cannot seep between the bulkhead and the basin. The entire head is a fiberglass bowl from the waist down.   

To make for the smoothest transition, I overlapped the fiberglass cloth onto the wall with a little thickened epoxy underneath in the crevasse.  That way the final cured product can be sanded smooth and flat with no transition marks.

Another nifty little trick is to come back a couple/few hours later when the epoxy is still "green", meaning it is still plastic and flexible, but has already taken (for the most part) its final shape and is not wet/sticky to the touch.  At the green stage, the semi-cured fiberglass cloth can be cut easily and precisely with a knife or razor.  Which is especially useful for inside corner edges.  If you are too late, then you will be sanding, chipping and grinding hard fiberglass.  Too early, and the cut will disturb and deform the lay of the cloth.   Also, if the edge pulls up or you notice some other gaps/pockets in the glass during the "green" stage, then you can still deform it and push it down flat with firm pressure from a paint scraper edge and it will join and cure solid to a picture perfect finish.  AJ scored the edges next to the trim and mast support in the head, and the edges in the pic below on the right.

The left side of the head had delaminated at the bottom one plywood layer deeper than the rest. So I laid a thick biax fiberglass patch there, then sheathed it in the thin cloth.  After it cured I fared it by filling the cloth weave with thickened epoxy.  Tomorrow it'll get buffed out with the sander and the head will be nearly ready for paint. 

We're also almost finished with the v-berth and anchor locker.  But more on that next time.  Once upon a time there was a lot of chipping paint...

Mast Support Pt 2: The Arch

*Rigging Update*

Mack was ready to put us on the schedule for Monday, but the tides will not be favorable for our 5.25' draft until Friday.  So next Friday it is!  The date is set. And we are ready. Aside from the arch we have also finished the genoa tracks and toe rails and are going to try to have a nearly finished interior before the mast goes up. 

Here is the new fiberglass mast support base cured and fared and ready for action.

AJ remounted the second original blonde beam and door frame trim, then glued and screwed the new sapele board into place - with a notch cut out for the arch to wedge into. 

On the starboard side the arch will be through bolted to the new fibgerglass bulkhead. To ensure correct fit we put the tile panels back up. A new base had to be made for the bottom tile.

AJ made a template for the arch, and then went to the local woodshop to hand select the sub componenet wood pieces for the arch.  He wanted to make sure that the inside corner pieces of the arch had a curving grain, and hand selected a "bad" off cut chunk of wood with a 90 degree grain direction change.  He then drew out the two corner pieces on the chunk to "optimize" the grain so it followed the curve of the arch.  Ye Olde wooden ship builders (old enough that they had access to trees instead of lumber) would select curving support pieces from branched portions of the tree for arched supports and stems and other purposes based on grain structure and shape.  Then, since we lack a table saw, a bandsaw, and an inside biscuit joiner, he had the pieces cut and epoxied together by a local wood shop.  It was then sanded and filed to shape. A notch was cut for the mast plate and the trim above the tile was cut flush. A strip of black 1/8 rubber was glued to the top of the arch to allow for flex. 

Project arch support complete. (minus plugs and varnish)

Originally only half of the mast was supported, and the starboard side of the cabin top was depressed. The trim and door frame no longer fit properly and some previous owner had to file down the top of the head door to compensate for the encroaching door frame above.. Now this shouldn't be an issue!

Mast Support Pt 1: Fiberglass Super Blocks

Worn, broken, or degraded parts I understand, (and we have slowly eradicated most of them from the boat), but stupid parts I do not understand, and our mast support structure contained a lot of stupid that needed be exercised.

Delaminated plywood covered the only good factory piece of the mast support structure: a solid 3 1/4" x 8" old Burmese teak mast support beam, and a mystery wood front edge backing board that was seeping sap.  As you can see, the massive beam is mounted off center, or rather, the starboard face is on center, and the rest of the beam is off to port from there.  It was designed and built this way. Not completely stupid, but obviously simplicity of build and design were higher priorities than centering the support under its load.   Probably part of the reason that the cabin roof was sunken a bit on the starboard side next to the mast last time it was rigged.  We will solve this problem in the next post.  First we have to get something underneath this beam as you will see below.

Left: Removing crap plywood (playwood) facia

Right: Crap facia removed.

Top: Rotting crap under floor outside the head with a cedar 2x4 on its side posing as a mast beam support.
Bottom: Rotting crap removed...  nothing of substance anywhere.

Below is the teak mast support beam from the other side, inside the head.  A board that the cranky old Wilcox-Crit "Imperial 51" toilet was mounted to was removed to access the base.

Clockwise from left: the 1" solid fiberglass beam cap/top plate temporarily removed (okay, there were two good pieces to the original mast structure); Crap Crapper removed; Crap Crapper mounting board removed to expose more rotting crap.

The bottom few inches of the mystery cap beam were mush, and about an inch of the main beam as well. So soft you could dig it out with your fingers.  I cut off the rotten portion plus a generous bit of extra to get the wooden mast support out of the bottom of the shower.  That old Burmese teak proved a serious workout.

With the cut made, we then removed the mystery blonde cap beam, which had our factory hull number, 2207 written in pencil.  This now makes five times that we have seen it aside from the wall plaque: Under the port base plate of the stern pulpit, behind the wet locker hanger mounting board, under the most forward starboard floor board, on the most forward floor beam, and now on the mast support beam's cap beam.  All in the same handwriting, except the stainless pulpit, which was die stamped.

Left: the large, complex end cut of the main beam to clear the edge of the head basin: lots of work to make a cute but structure-less piece of crap
Right: COOL! MORE NUMBERS!

Now with all the offensive bits removed and the remainder cleaned up, the fun part: building a real "engineered" support structure.

Caveat: I am not an engineer nor do I claim to be one, but I have worked closely with a composites engineer for a few months, and he taught me a few things about fiberglass that really amazed me. One square inch of *quality fiberglass can support over 20,000 pounds, which conveniently also happens to be a very close approximation of our maximum capable rig pressure. Also, you can get that one square inch however you want it, meaning, that a 1/8" thick sheet of fiberglass 8" long can also support 20,000 pounds on its 1/8" edge!   The problem, as always with thin things, is buckling.  You can (partially) solve that problem by splitting that 1/8" sheet into two 1/16" sheets and bracing them with a core.  yep, two 1/16" sheets, 8" long with a core between them... still one square inch of surface area, still about 20,000 pounds of support  Of course the thickness of the core and the height of the beam begin to play into the buckling scenario, but you get my point: fiberglass, even on edge, is incredibly strong, so vertical walls of fiberglass/foam sandwich was, in our opinion, the best solution for this problem...  I can trust the slightly-other-than-traditional method due to my background, but since I'm not an engineer, overkill is the obvious approach to the method.

*Resin-to-glass ratio a factor in final composite product strength.  As long as full saturation is achieved, you want as little resin as possible.  60-70% glass is common among older blown chop strand boats, 75% glass is a good number for hand lay-ups, but some vacuum machine lay ups can achieve over 90% fiber though usually with carbon pre-pregnated with resin and shipped in a refrigerated container to prevent curing.
Side note: if you have a sample piece from your boat (we have nice plug sample from the deck where we cut a 2" hole for the diesel fill) then you can find out your resin-to-glass ratio with a bit of work.  Just strip the sample of any core so you are left with pure fiberglass.  Weigh it.  Depending on the size of sample piece, you will likely need a gram scale.  Then burn the sample in a container. The resin will burn off, and the glass will not.  Weigh the remainder, do the math.  Cool, huh?

Clockwise from Left: fitting an actual "engineered" support structure

Right: first lay up: foam, biax, biax, biax, biax, foam.  Four layers of biax w/ mat cures to ~1/4" thick in average hand layups.  This alone should exceed calculated strength with just the thinnest support skins on either side to prevent buckling.  It was pressed between weighted boards as it cured for maximum glass compaction.

Bottom Left:  biax, biax, biax, biax, foam, biax biax, biax, biax, foam, biax, biax, biax, biax.  are you counting?  I said overkill was the approach.

Bottom Right: trimmed and sanded mast SUPPORT

For inside the head we needed about 5" of width to fully cover the bottom of the wide-and-off-center mast beam and still have a bit sticking out to lay the head mounting board on top.

I'll save you the counting and tell you that there are five layers of 3/4" foam and 2 layers of biax between each.  Again, if one of these glass divider sheets should support the rig, then five is better.  Four on the first lay up, then the outside when it gets glassed in.

Cut off the excess and sand to final shape.

Now for the evil part.  Over the course of two and a half hours we mixed nearly 50 fluid ounces of epoxy in six different batches, blending and mixed it with almost equal amounts 1/4" chop strand and a bit of fumed silica/Cabosil to keep to from flowing.  A bed of the messy fibergoop was smeared very thickly over the inside mounting faces of every part to be assembled to ensure no gaps in the final product, plus two layers of biax were put on the top and sides, and underneath the "L" shaped piece to thicken its pressure base.  After it was all pressed together tightly, every inside corner joint was filled with a thick fillet of fibergoop.

Das Überfuß ist fertig! (Well, after curing and sanding.) Now the mast actually has a leg to stand on.

Today is the final day of our original 9 day deadline. It rained for the better part of 4 days, but luckily everyone else was delayed by the rain too and Thursday was the earliest we could get a crane appointment.   We've got 4 days to finish checking off that list!

Reshaping the Mast Step

Our new mast base plate is larger than our mast step, so we reshaped it to the correct size and shape.  I sanded off the paint down to bare glass/gelcoat. During this process hairline cracks revealed themselves in the cabin top gelcoat, starboard of the step. This is the side that had taken the strain when the boat was dismasted, and it was slightly depressed back when the mast was on the boat.  At that time (and currently) the boat had no interior cabin roof support structure to the starboard bulkhead.  So AJ decided we should reinforce the spiderweb-cracked area, not just build up the step. We laid two layers of biax around the mast step, sanding out and then covering the cracks.  After that had cured and was sanded fair, we built a dam out of modeling clay in the shape of the new step.

The dam was filled with chop strand fiberglass and epoxy. To press out the excess resin and air, and to ensure a flat final surface, we placed a lid on top: Foam cut to shape and wrapped in wax paper so it doesn't stick. 

AJ sliced up his hand chiseling off the rough edges.  Cured glass strands will puncture you like a needle.  Epoxy doesn't stick to modeling clay, but modeling clay sticks to everything.  Plus the modeling clay we used didn't hold up in the sun.  It worked fine as a dam that left a nice rounded filet, but became so soft and gooey in the heat that it couldn't be pulled up without a mess.  First we dug out all the bulk, then scrape out quite a bit, then wiped out the rest, leaving a gooey colored residue on all of it, and about a dozen little pinholes crammed full of clay.  The pinholes had to be dug out with a pick and acetone rags and Q-tips finished off the rest.  The whole cleaning process took almost an hour. The mold-making modeling clay from the fiberglass store might not have gotten as gooey, but it was Memorial Day weekend, and no one was open but Wal-Mart.  Once the goo was gone, we sanded it down flat, detailed the edges, and epoxy-faired the imperfections

Now all it needs is paint!

We are making good headway on our 9 day list. (Now in Checklist to Launch). But as expected there are a few hick-ups.  Today it's dumping rain...  and that is supposed to continue through the week...  and we're still waiting on a few key components to move forward with rigging.  But the stay wires are cut and we've begun terminating them with what fittings we can.  We also built the mast support blocks (the ones at the keel end), and they are ready for final fitting and assembly.  It's been a little of this, a little of that, so that when we get the missing pieces, hopefully the puzzle can be solved quickly.

Sand, Epoxy, Sand, Paint

This week it feels like the boat is really coming together.  We laid the first batch of cabin coat, marking the momentous occasion of the first-ready-to-move-into sections of the boat.  A small preview of our living space to come.  Most of the week was spent sanding. The dreaded sanding of so many painted surfaces, and all of the new fiberglassed bulkheads and chain plate fin patches. It was a dusty week.

Before painting the cabin we also had to deal with the area where the liner of the cabin ends a couple inches below the under-decks.  In the cabin it was covered with veneer.  A veneer that was falling off and delaminating.  Behind it is rough dry flaking 43 year old fiberglass.  We originally decided to at least brush it with clear epoxy to reseal it before putting up new veneer, but then decided to use thickened epoxy to just fill the bumpy surface to mostly smooth, sand it, and call it done. No hidden veneers to rot and less costly: win-win... ish

The Dinette is complete!  With 2 new lower bulkheads, a chain plate fin patch, epoxy filler, a kick board patch, and paint.

There was a hole cut out in the kickboards of the fiberglass dinette liner for the old battery bank switch, but we won't be reusing that location. So we filled the hole the same way we patched the hull:  tape on the outside, and a few layers of glass in descending size on the inside.  This too will be painted.. still have to sand and paint the kickboards...

In the v-berth we also epoxy-filled the liner gap.  A few months ago, AJ removed the plank that covered it so we could install the new toe rail bolts. Otherwise it would have stayed. AJ cut all the new bolts and ground them smooth before we laid the epoxy fill. He also sanded and scraped off the chipping paint on the sides back to gel coat. A little ceiling work, and it will be ready to paint! 

The starboard side of the main salon also got the filler treatment, but since this is plainly visible we made it especially flat and smooth as if it was part of the original mold...  Before we can paint, we still have to tackle sanding all the old stained flaky paint on this side. I'm doing that tomorrow.

The epoxy was thickened with Q-cell and Cabosil. The first batch on the port side was done only with Q-Cell, aka microsperes, aka glass ballons, which are tiny hollow glass spheres that provide the lowest surface-area-to-volume shape possible, meaning it flows nicely.  Q-cell is so fine it billows away like smoke when disturbed.  It can be a challenge to keep it in the cup and out of the air when mixing.  It is soft and sands like chalk with a power sander and 40-80 grit, making perfect feathered edges easy.  However, it takes a LOT of Q-cell to thicken to a paste, and even if you get it too thick to the point that it is snagging and no longer laying smoothly, it can still sag a little after being laid.  So, in spite of the silky smooth surface, we had some sagging issues, and decided to add a little Cabosil to the mix.  Cabosil is about as light and fine as Q-cell, but it sticks to itself a little more like dry baking soda, and doesn't billow away as much. (Unless you open it outside, the slightest breeze will empty a cup of either.)

Cabosil is also known as fumed silica.  Fuming silica is a process of plasma-blasting glass in an electric arc into tiny jagged particles of silica that have an incredibly high surface-area-to-weight ratio.  The resulting product has virtually replaced pumice in nearly all smoothing/polishing compounds, including toothpaste.  As an additive, besides being a mild abrasive, due to the surface-area-to-weight ratio, it increases the thixotropy (the quality of of anti-sagging/gap-spreading) of the product you add it to....  the point: a filler that is still wet enough to swipe on smooth with no resultant sagging.

You can feel the jump in stiffness by just adding a little Cabosil to the Q-cell batch. The problem is that Silica is hard... so hard that it can be difficult to sand, but it also makes makes the paste easier to pull smooth, leaving less sanding afterwards anyway.  We ended up mixing about 10%-15% Cabosil and 85%-90% Q-cell for optimum results.  

The closet is also finished!  I sanded the new bulkhead fiberglass seams for hours and hours in that coffin-sized locker, then I smoothed the edges out with thickened epoxy, then sanded that out smooth. Then painted!!  I love that closet. It's the one feature that keeps me feeling civilized. A place to hang things. Not a place to dig for things. A single normal convenience. I can hang foulies and a couple sets of scamouflage. (For when we need to not look like a dirty, homeless bums.)  I don't care how small it is, it's enough to take the boat from survival travel vessel, to home sweet home.  Until now it's been a rotting, humid, leaky mess.  And now I can hang things in it! Pardon my over excitement, but as I said earlier, this is the first glimpse since we bought the boat of the inhabitable home it will be. AJ is talking about adding an aromatic cedar liner to the sides for humidity and mold control.

While we were doing all this epoxy filling, we also patched the underside of the decks where hardware had been removed.  When Danny painted, his guys also sort-of patched 3 holes in the deck. One in the head cabinet, and two in the cockpit locker.  They put in a foam core and glassed over the top, but not underneath...?    Since it was upside down and part of the deck structure, we used the zip-lock bag as an icing bag trick and squeezed epoxy thickened with about 50% Cabosil (for thixotropy) and 50% cotton flock/milled cotton fiber (for strength) around the foam and glassed over the holes with two layers of biax.

I think this marks the end of fiberglassing.  I know we'll pull out the epoxy again for some reason.. but I can't think of one at the moment!   (oh wait...)

It feels like everything is happening all at once and we're on a mad dash to the finish line. We're trying to finish out the cabin so we can get off the mattress pad on our friend's floor and move back into our own place, all the while getting together the final parts and time we need to stand the rig. As soon as we get the bolts, we'll put on the chain plates, stem piece and chock cleats. And soon we'll start building the mast support, (the wood is cut!) but the toilet has to be removed to access the base... fun times ahead.  At least we will be installing a new bronze Groco head when we finish the job. The 43 year old bronze head did not hold up, even after two rebuilds in two years.

When the cabin is done and the rig is on, we get to turn our attention to one last project - the disaster of a water tank and surrounding subfloor.  That means taking out the floor boards and floor beams...  should probably refinish the beams while we're at it...  and the floors could really use a refinish too...  I just keep thinking of more things we have to do.  But, the difference now is, I actually can think of all the things that need to be done to finish the boat.  It's no longer an abyss...   it is now more like a mountain.  But we're above the treeline, and that feels pretty good.

Beach Fail, Epoxy and Paint

This is the beach two Sundays ago.  It was supposed to rain. It had rained Friday and Saturday, but it did not rain on Sunday, and we were invited out to the beach.  It was warm and windy, but the water was perfect.  There were a lot of slow rolling waves to bob with. But they were not too strong. I thought. Until one knocked my left arm straight out of its socket. I screamed. AJ came running from farther out in the water.  He helped me back to shore where it was immediately evident to all the spectators that my arm was no longer in my shoulder.  AJ helped me hobble to the car, so we could go to the ER.  When we got there AJ helped me into shorts in the parking lot, I really didn't want to go in in a bikini. But there was no hope in the shirt department. My left arm was pinned unwaveringly against my side with a right handed death grip.

The most painful part was the car ride. You don't realize how many forces are applied to you in how many directions until every micro movement becomes excruciating. I kept yelling "Slow down slower! slowdown slower!" as AJ approached red lights or bumpy intersections.  It was the granny-est ambulance ride he could pull off in a bouncy old work truck. But I let out a few more involuntary screams than I'd like to admit any time we turned. At the ER I waited a record low time of one hour before being seen.  I was put on an IV with pain meds, then a couple hours later they came to fix my arm.

I was honestly surprised the ER staff was so concerned that I not feel anything. I figured they'd just pin me down, yank on my arm and do it. But they fed me a cocktail of pain drug, Valium and something to make me forget.  I remember them sending AJ away, then tying a rope around my arm, and then looking over to AJ and saying,  "When are they going to fix my arm?"  To which the nurse piped up, "We already fixed it. You don't remember? You were awake through the whole thing." So there you have it, down but apparently not out. The forget-me drugs worked.

Why they have to make you forget I don't understand. They didn't ask if they could give me those drugs. They just informed me as they were doing it.  I would have liked to remember so that I could feel how it needs to move to go back in. So I can handle it myself in the future. Oh well.

I kept my arm in an isolation sling for 6 days, at which point I had regained about 40% shoulder mobility.  On the 7th day I couldn't take any more resting and got back to work, because there's so much to do and summer is coming!

We got a little subfloor work done. From grimy to shiny.

AJ made a new support for the floor beam out of starboard. Finally, finally, finally we have floors between the cabin and V berth again! It's a big step, and the steep floor beneath is not forgiving on the ankles.

There was one last little bulkhead to deal with. Under the port side dinette settee were a few dividers and a massively oversize starter battery box fiberglassed in. After chiseling out the box, the bulkhead behind it was a mess, so AJ cut it back and fitted a new piece  We glued it in like everything else, with strips of biax w/ mat fiberglass cloth and epoxy.  Then we took turns sanding to smooth out the rough edges on both new bulkheads. Then I painted it in grey Pettit EZ-Bilge. 

Months ago we cut out the old chainplate fins before being distracted with the deteriorated interior/living conditions. Well, we finally finished glassing over the last 4 chain plate fins and are almost ready to install the chain plates!

We mixed a batch of epoxy HEAVILY thickened with chopped strand glass, cotton flock, and cabosil.

And patched over the entire area with more biax w/ mat fiberglass cloth.  Three layers (~3/16-1/4") thick was added in a large area to the center fins making the hull ~1" thick here (drilling soon to confirm).  This additional glass will function as backing plates for the location of the new bronze external strap chainplates.

AJ has to narrow (grind) the tops of the bronze chain plates a bit to fit the toggles.
The chain plates and toggles are sitting on top of 300 feet of 1/4" 1x19 316 stainless rigging wire. Which we got a while back for a steal at $.90 a foot! Sometimes it's good to know people.

Our current project list is as follows: Install chain plates, fabricate stem fitting, finish cabin mast support, order rigging fittings, (if the ER bill does not find us first) then raise the mast!  All the meanwhile finishing the scrubbing and painting of the inside.  We're in for another rainy few days, but there's always something you can do with closed windows and hatches... if you dig deep, and wear a respirator.