Sub-floor Surprises

The Topsides are complete.

But before we could go to town on the decks, AJ noticed black standing water in the dinette seat drawer compartment. It smelled like the oily bilge water, that is to say, like death.  When we sopped it up, it eventually came back. We found an 1/8" hole in the floor where it was coming up.  Water was trapped somewhere. Not good.

Between the sweeping hull sides and water tank is a flat fiberglassed in subfloor. The water was somewhere between that and the hull.

AJ drilled holes in the subfloor next to the compartment. The released pressure caused more water to come out in the drawer compartment. Wet sand came out of the new holes.

They had to come out. AJ drilled a few holes along the edge and started chiseling. The starboard side was filled with polyester resin.  The resin was glassy smooth as was the inside of the hull, indicating there was never any adhesion.  Polyester resin shrinks and cracks, as you can see. About half down though, the resin was not fully cured, and was a sticky mess to dig out.

The port side, where the mystery bilge water was coming up, was filled with polyester resin, sand, gravel, and water that crept in through the 1/8" hole. Oil likely got in when we had the Mercedes swinging, thus the smell.

Underneath the added subfloor the hull slants downward a couple inches until it meets with the water thank. The water tank lip is glassed to the hull sides. The floor leveling addition was likely added to keep water from pooling  in a crescent next to the tank, and allow it to go to the bilge. We know that didn't work well because of the number of hoses that were running bow to bilge.
Upon closer inspection the water tank is not a tank at all. The inside of the tank is the inside of the hull.  It is sealed off by the lip on top, and a wall built between it and the bilge. The fiberglass tape on that wall is delaminating.  The bumps in the bottom of the tank are glassed in keel bolts. The board in the center with the cut out is coming apart. It provides support for the hull, and keeps the water from sloshing too badly. The paint looks suspicious and the tank lids are chalky oxidizing aluminum.

The water tank is done for. We are going to cut off the lip of the tank, leaving us with nothing but hull sides. It is the only way to be able to access the inside. The Wall between the bilge and tank needs to be removed and replaced since it provides structural support.  Then we get to decide what to for a water tank. We could remake it as it was, get a custom tank made that would fit inside suspended from the floor frame, or use water bladders that expand to fill the space, which is my favorite idea.

While AJ ripped apart the floor, I got started on the decks.  This is the honeycomb we want to take off.  The decks used to be teak, and this is what's underneath from the factory. The black dots are epoxy filled holes left from the teak removal.

The areas of bare fiberglass are raised ripples in the deck. I don't want to sand down the fibgerglass so I have to move on and leave some portions slightly raised. I'll come back for them with a smaller detail sander.

It takes about a half hour to sand down a square foot.  And the vacuum has to be taken to the ground and dumped about out every 20 minutes.

We got 3 scorching days without rain, and rigged a tent with greenhouse shade fabric and pvc pipe. We will use it the fabric to make a boom tent once the mast is back up. It keeps the cabin 10 degrees cooler.

Yesterday we got caught in the rain.  There was a drip, a drop, a thunderclap, then instant down poor. Rolled in in about 30 seconds and drenched everything. Today it's raining, and it's supposed to keep raining till Friday. The bilge is full of water again because everything still leaks. If my boat could just stay dry we could work on fixing that...

Dock Life

The morning of December 12th we were towed to the dock by the marina's skiff.  D dock is the farthest dock out from the mooring field and Marina office.  It is next to three bridges, two car bridges and a rail road bridge.

View from our boat:

Our boat is side tied between a motor yacht and sailboat that are for sale.  Across from us is an inhabited motor yacht .Just up form us is a 100+ foot mega motor yacht.  Our boat had not had it's decks washed in the nine months it was on the ball.  Being surrounded by all the gleaming fiberglass enhanced this fact rather dramatically, and we found ourselves deciding the outside of the boat needed to be tended to first.  The influence and pressures of having neighbors was back in life.

The day after we moved to the dock the engine was hauled out of the cabin with Marks engine hoist and taken to his shop. They pulled it out while I was at work. So that evening I returned home to step from the dock to my deck, through the empty cockpit, through the unimpaired companionway, to descend the stairs into the cabin. Stairs!  I forgot there were stairs! And they have a paper towel holder built into them! Convenient access AND secure and out of the way.  I stood in my cabin for what felt like the first time and spun in circles. The settees were still piled to the ceiling with all of our stuff that had been moved on but not been able to be dealt with.  But now I could finally start sorting it all out. Finally move in. 

That first week I was crazy pumped. Infinite tasks laid before me. I could wake up and get to work on something immediately. It was all so easy. Step on, step off. Toss my laundry to the dock and wheel it to the laundry room and walk back to the boat to work while it washed. Plug in a vacuum, turn on a hose. After months of stagnation I could see visible progress every day. We found out AJ's parents and nephew were going to come visit us on the twenty-sixth so we had a definite deadline to get the boat presentable. We hoped to get the engine back in before they arrived but that was unlikely. For the next two weeks I was busier than I had been in years. I did not manage to write a single e-mail or make a phone call, If we still had the netbook I might not have dropped off the earth but we don't, so internet time is harder to come by these days.
In the mornings before work I worked on the cabin or the engine with AJ.
Ready for it's final cleaning and multi-step prep and paint.

After metal prep and ready wash

POR -15 epoxy paint:  We applied the thin silver paint with small paint brushes.

Final Paint. AJ used an automotive touch up air gun to apply the yellow final coat. He chose High-po Yellow.

The parts I wire brushed, rust reformed, primed and enameled. 

Every day I got the inside closer to a clean functioning home. I sorted through the piles, filled dry bags with seasonals and stashed them away in the storage compartments that I had vacuumed and scrubbed. I scrubbed mildew off the ceiling, wiped down leaky chain plates best I could.  I found a place or solution for everything until it was all gone. By December 25^th we had settees, a table.,books on a shelf, a pantry, a home.

What is behind some of that pretty teak

We also power hosed the decks and cabin roof and scrubbed them with deck cleaner. Still dingy but greatly improved. The teak in the cockpit was rough, grimy and in bad shape after having so much crap piled on it through rain and shine for months. We vacuumed, then swept, then hosed, then gently washes it with teak cleaner. When they dried they were clean, soft and smooth.

We scrubbed the water tanks with nylon brushes and mold and mildew cleaner.

Christmas Day was our first real day off together in weeks. We would have nothing to do that couldn't wait until tomorrow. We were going to sleep in and have a lazy day. Or so we thought until our neighbor invited us to Christmas morning coffee. Since the marina was going to be closed and not serving coffee he figured he would take it upon himself to serve coffee for everyone at his boat. So at 7am on Christmas morning there would be tons of people standing right outside our boat chatting away. So much for a morning in bed either.  We did not get up for the coffee and stayed in bed and laid low anyway.

While the dock is invaluable for the work we are doing, luckily for our pocketbook there are cons do being docked that won't let us get too comfortable or doddle. Namely the complete lack of privacy. People are walking past the boat morning noon and night. There is no sound barrier. Depending on how high you are floating you can see through the windows into the cabin. If you are outside on your boat at all you will get talked to by every passer by. If we were not in such a rush I would not be as perturbed by this, but being on the dock has me seeing my life on dollars per day. With us both working jobs every moment on the boat has to be utilized. So when I have a couple precious hours to work on the boat and half of that time is taken by inquiries, I have the emotion of being on a pay per phone and you are running out of minutes and you know you can't afford to buy more. I have actually not been prevented from having time to eat lunch or shower before work due to folks wanting to chat. I'm on a tight schedule, they are on vacation. AJ and I have both ducked and hid from the shouts of a strangers voice “Hello? Are you home?” and remained still until their footsteps disappeared.. Neither of us have the propensity to be dressed appropriately enough to answer the door when we are at home, particularly when doing work. So, responding would also require frantic dressing and trying to remain out of view . No one walks up to your window in your house and starts yelling questions at you or looking to see if you are home. But such is the etiquette of dock life. So apologies to all for my curtness of late. I'm poor and on the clock. We are odd little hermits with a deadline.
Moving from the mooring field to the dock was like moving from a country house where you occasionally wave at a distant neighbor as they drive by, to the highly populated noises and bustle of the city. Aside from the constant chatter and footsteps, we can hear the car traffic from the bridges. A train goes by a couple times a day. Airplanes fly low overhead. The nearest bridge opens for passing boats a couple times an hour. There is a long loud bell followed by an announcement on a loudspeaker before it opens. Men fish off the same bridge a stones throw from our cockpit. We can hear their conversations. One night the conversation was in Russian. Sometimes it's Spanish,sometimes it's redneck. While it is a lot of commotion, there is something charming about being able to hear a train, automobiles passing, an airplane overhead and a bridge opening all at the same time while sitting on a sailboat. It kinda makes me feel like I'm in a cartoon with all forms of transportation moving around me. Like the opening credits of Futurama. with less future.

On December twenty-sixth after two and a half weeks of non stop work we were ready to receive our first guests and take a break.