The Week Before Haul Out

Thanks db, I'm posting from the iPhone with pictures. Though if it reads like a madlibs I'm sorry. I caught the autistic bilge pump and 20 alternatives for the word teak. But auto correct was so giddy I can't have kept pace. And after hours of tiny screen typing and HTML I'm tapped out and not gonna proofread.

AJ built a mock-up of the tiller head from wood scrap and took it to a machinist to be made of naval brass.

Here is the tiller head (uninstalled) fresh from the shop. Now the cockpit is open and roomy with no wheel and binnacle in the way. The tiller raises up vertically as well, allowing you to also steer standing.

I spent the week heat gunning and scraping the varnish off of the exterior wood. And sanding. like the dinghy, this boat is 70% sanding.

Stripped

Here are the current chain plates, they are the anchor points for the rigging wire. You can see where the one on the right is rusted. All 6, 3 on each side, leak. They are all inside a cabinet or locker on the inside of the boat. During the rainy season they are slimy and black, oily and wet, Rendering the storage compartments unusable, mildewy and smelly. (also in this pic - the brown painted lip on the edge of the deck is the toe rail. I'll be stripping it as well. The rectangle on deck half in the shot is the new 25 gallon fuel tank.)

The new chain plates will be external.

Here is where the mast sits on the cabin roof. It is supported only on the port side with a solid teak post that doubles as the bathroom wall. The cabin roof has collapsed slightly on the starboard side. When we remove the mast it will be decompressed.

Here is the base of the mast compression post/bathroom wall. It's supported by 2 rotting chunks of Cedar 2x4 blocks and a fiberglass crossbeam.

Here it is in the rainy season. The base of the mast compression post, and the keel bolts are perpetually in 2-3 inches of water. This area has no way to drain into the bilge, it just collects mystery water. The hose coming from the bathroom curving right drains water from the b room to the bilge. We are going to fiberglass the whole area and make it a shower sump with a little automatic bilge pump that pumps out the water to a thru hull in the bathroom, straight out to sea. The hose will get disconnected so the bathroom drains into the new pumped sump.

Here is the teak compression post from the inside of the bathroom.

On the hard we'll also be replacing the windows. They all leak. Here is one badly delaminated.

The window leaking also caused he hand rail to rot off.

Lastly we come to the cockpit hatch replacement. Here it is with the aluminum lip and teak removed.

 Aj is chiseling out the wood core to male room for the hatch lip to attach underneath.

Decided to wait to finish the installation until on the hard because of how dirty the next step is. Lots of grinding. Grinding the honeycomb off the deck surface alone creates huge clouds of white powder smoke. It's too big a mess for the dock.

Engine room/ cockpit hatch hole seen through holes in kitchen counter and wall. The engine gauges mount there facing outside with a clear panel over them.

We'll be saying goodbye to our heron. He's been fishing off our dinghy every night for 4 months. here's his latest catch.

There are some things we won't miss about him though.

That's one night of bird shit and fish guts. The bird crap strips the paint. AJ had cleaned off weeks worth the day before. Needless to say the dinghy will be getting some much needed love and attention too. And by love I mean sanding.

Tomorrow is the big day we tow down the river for a couple hours to haul out. Weather permitting. There's a severe lake wind advisory tomorrow. 20 mph easterly winds predicted. That would put us dead into the wind most of the way there so we'll see what happens tomorrow. Or today since it's after midnight.