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Larry's LogWednesday morning I finished the fairing and filling. It went well and I felt the keel was in pretty good shape. I just needed to sand it and it would be ready for paint. Diane picked up the propane tanks from the guard booth where they were delivered and I finished putting epoxy around the base of the one that had been a little rusty. In the afternoon, I was occupied with cleaning the head parts. I took them off the boat so I could chip away at the calcium deposits without worrying about cleaning the boat from the dirt. I had a problem getting the large leather washer off the piston, and Jim, from Lady J, who had stopped by to return some books, tried helping by holding the piston while I applied pressure to the nut, but it wouldn't budge. After he left, I got out the heat gun again and after a little heat, I got the nut off. I needed to get the grease and silicone sealant before putting it back together so I just brought everything onboard the boat since it was about 4 already. Since Diane was in a hurry to at least get the boat painted, she went and borrowed Caribee's small pressure washer to see if it would remove the dirt still on the bottom. I didn't think it would since the pressure wash we had when we were first hauled didn't remove it, but she wanted to try. We tried it and it didn't but we still used it to rinse off the sanding dust after Diane used a small scrubby pad. As we finished up the starboard side, I noticed some blisters I missed in filling completely. I could do those tomorrow just before sanding the keel. Tom and Steph stopped by in the late afternoon and we all had a nice visit. They invited us to dinner the next night since they were leaving soon and they wanted to give me a birthday dinner before they left - my birthday, a big one, was coming up soon. The next day I feel we are making progress - today I finished with the epoxy - I had missed some partially filled blisters and so I filled them first thing. Then I put a first coat of the Velox paint on the prop and shaft, after I sanded the primer lightly. Then I sanded the keel for the last time. As I went over it, there were some areas that could have used some more fairing but since I'm not racing, those few inches of "unfairness" don't matter much. I also cleaned up the flat metal surfaces that take gaskets or seals on the head with the drill and the nylon wheel. It was the only way to get the corrosion and dirt off. The toilet was ready to be reassembled but I wanted to do something to the wood base where it mounts in the head compartment first. So, I drilled out the wood where the base screws down (and where the old screw holes were), cleaned them and the laminate over the wood with alcohol and filled the holes with epoxy thickened with silica, to be redrilled later. About that time Diane came back from some errands. It was already after 2pm and I had forgotten to eat lunch but wasn't very hungry. I just continued finishing the toilet base and then relaxed for a few minutes. I put a second coat of antifouling paint on the prop and shaft and then made a list of what needed to be bought before we left and on the list was some watermaker preservative chemical. We could only get that at Echo-Marine, some distance away, and since it was too late to start another project, I walked over and got it. Once back, we walked over to Tardieu Marine where Mima was and I stopped at the Internet place quickly to download some pictures that I knew were waiting for me and then met Diane on Mima. We had a very nice time and a good dinner. They had even written a birthday poem as a present. That was the first time anyone wrote a poem for me and I really was touched. It was a very kind thing to do. Thanks again guys! Friday I finished up some small projects. In the morning, while Diane went shopping, I also went shopping for some stuff I needed - lag bolts and hose. I got both, as well as a garden hose adaptor to flush the outboard with fresh water, and came back and started to change the hose in the forward head under the sink. I got out the adaptor I had bought several months ago and took everything off. When I went to put the new hoses on though, I found that the adaptor had been mislabeled and the adaptor was too big for the hose. I looked through my collection and found another, also mislabeled. Damn, I thought I would have to try to find one (I had tried to find a spare already with no luck) but amazingly, I looked again in my collection and found the right adaptor. Of course, just then Diane came back with the groceries but after I helped her and we had lunch, I finished that job. The afternoon was occupied with getting the toilet back together. The parts were clean (at least as clean as they were going to be) and I had gathered all the various sealants and tools. After looking at the rebuild kit's diagram, I started putting everything back together, using Lanocote, gasket sealant, and Lifecalk. The hardest part was getting the bottom gasket on while getting the base and the body of the pump together. Both parts were heavy and lining up 7 screws while balancing the whole thing on my lap was interesting but it went together OK after I figured out to balance the pieces. After that was done, I put all the remaining pieces on but stopped short of mounting it. I had to cut out some small rubber washers to protect the porcelain from the stainless washers used to hold the bowl to the base. I then just set it aside to let the Lifecalk cure overnight. There was some time left to the day so I changed the ¼" cap screws on the new dodger handrails. The ones that came with the fittings were too long (meant evidently for larger attachments) and I also made some rubber "washers" so the screws wouldn't rub again the end caps directly. Steph stopped by while taking Clem for a walk so we stopped and had a drink with her. She invited us to go to dinner at Joe's with them but Diane said she already had some dinner prepared. We would see them off tomorrow morning. We went over to Tardieu to help Mima with their lines Saturday morning and wished them smooth sailing. We would most likely see them again in a few weeks in PLC so we weren't too upset. They pulled away a little before 10 and after they left, we went to Budget Marine to get our varnishing supplies. They were going to give us 15 percent off if we paid cash so after we got everything together, Diane went to the bank and got out the money while I went back to the boat and started taping the waterline. Hopefully we could start painting today. Diane got back with the supplies as I was finishing one side. She got a ride back in the truck and it certainly was easier to have the 20 liters of varnish and 8 of thinner delivered rather than try to carry it in the hot sun. We got the stuff in the boat and I went back to taping. By that time I finished the taping, it was lunchtime, so after eating we went outside to wet sand the waterline and scrub it with some cleanser. I had noticed that the paint at the waterline needed sanding, or something, since the stuff we got from YSATT to remove the oil stains (which didn't work on the oil) had made it soft and gummy. I hoped that just removing the top layer of paint would be sufficient but as we did the entire waterline, it became obvious that the paint needed to be removed completely where it was gummy. It wouldn't be good at all to put fresh paint over that since it would most likely just come off. Initially, I tried sanding it but the sandpaper clogged to I got out my small cabinet scraper and it was coming off with that. "Good" paint would not have come off that easily. We happened to see Donald Stollmeyer, the managing director of Powerboats, doing some work on a boat he was having built and we asked him about the material that YSATT had distributed, since he had recommended it. He wasn't sure what it was or how to approach the problem but said that he would call the manufacturer and also offered to provide a worker, at no charge, on Monday to help scrape/sand the stuff off the waterline. It was a very kind offer but now we were probably delayed again getting in the water. Diane got very upset at all this; she was very anxious to get to Venezuela. I certainly wasn't happy about it either but I knew that just putting the paint on would be a waste. So I stopped scraping and went on to other things, I hooked up the fresh water flush attachment to the Yamaha outboard and started it up. It ran fine and then I changed the gear oil. I figured that I could do the main engine oil tomorrow since we wouldn't be painting anyway. Sunday was a very busy day but not with painting. Just after the net, we spoke to Mima briefly on the SSB and found out that they were OK and just 35 miles from Puerto La Cruz. They would be in port that afternoon so we were glad to hear from them. Although only about 70 engine hours had elapsed, I decided to change the oil and filter anyway. I had to wait for Diane to get herself organized and off the boat since I needed to open up the engine compartment and she wouldn't be able to get back in (or out) until I was finished. She wanted to do some more laundry and had to get all the detergent and stuff gathered. I also had to get my stuff together but I had done some of it yesterday and just had to get out the new oil. Anyway, she went to the washing machines at Powerboats since she didn't feel she needed hot water for the clothes she was doing and I got the hose and ran the engine with fresh water until it was warm. I then changed the engine oil but realized that I had forgotten to get out a new oil filter. So I had to move some stuff from the aft berth and dig into one of the lockers to get to the filters. After getting a new filter, I started taking the old filter off. As I twisted it, the mounting board holding the remote housing to the compartment bulkhead came off. Not completely but enough so that it would require fixing. I got the new filter on, added the fresh oil, ran the engine a bit to get it distributed throughout the engine and in the new filter and put everything away. By that time Diane was finished and wanted to eat lunch so I put the companionway steps back and we ate. Diane took a nap after lunch while I changed the engine zinc and fixed the remote oil filter mount. I waited until the engine was flushed with fresh water to change the zinc so any drips would not be as corrosive. The zinc itself was almost gone and when I looked up later how long it had been since I changed it, I was surprised that it had been almost a year - no wonder. I also took off the end cap from the heat exchanger and cleaned out the little pieces of zinc that break off and get trapped. There was quite a bit and they could have easily gotten caught in the little tubes that run through the heat exchanger. The new zinc went in, and I moved on to fixing the oil filter mount. Fortunately, that didn't require much and so I started to finish installing the toilet. I had already cleaned up the mounting surface and applied silicone sealant to the base and placed it in the head compartment and screwed it down a bit. I had also connected the waste hose so all that needed to be done was putting on the bowl, connect the other hoses and test it. Everything went well until I tested it. I poured fresh water into the bowl and started to flush. It leaked all over. I continued to pump until the water was out, cleaned up the mess and then flushed slowly while looking at the mechanism. I saw the source of the leak, tightened the seal and tested again. Everything seemed OK - no leaks this time. I continued testing with about 5 gallons of water and all seemed fine. Of course, while I was there, I tried the seacocks. The small one for the head intake/sink drain worked fine but the large one for the waste discharge was stuck. I looked at it (using a mirror) and there was no rust or corrosion (the handle was steel and the seacock body was bronze) so I got out the penetrating oil and sprayed just a little on the connection between the body and handle. Waiting 10 minutes, I tried again and this time it worked. I opened and closed it several times and left it open. By then it was almost 6pm and after putting some more stuff away, I figured that was it quitting time - time for a shower and a cocktail. Monday, April 14 - It's hard to describe how things happened today. We started scraping the gummed paint early in the morning with cabinet scrapers, which is what I had on board, but quickly saw that they were not up to the job so I bought a larger paint scraper. We were making "ok" progress but Diane didn't have the strength to get much of the bad paint off. So she was doing the 4 inches just below the boot stripe and I was doing the rest. It was pretty slow going and I couldn't a lot of paint off without a great deal of effort. Diane had gone to see Donald Stollmeyer, the yard director we had talked to on Saturday, and he came over with Allen, a contractor, at about 8:45. He looked at our progress, got up on the scaffold and tried some of the scraping and could see the problem with the paint and how tough it was to get it all off. The upper layer was easy but the stuff below was hard. He said he would try to get at least one guy for us today after lunch and 2 for tomorrow. We continued working for the rest of the morning, making some headway, but not very much. Donald came by just before lunch and confirmed that we would be getting a guy to help after lunch, around 1pm, and then 2 more starting tomorrow morning. We thanked him and continued. It was hot, tiring work in the heat and sun. At about 12:30, we went up to eat lunch and sure enough, at 1:15, we heard the sound of scraping along the hull. Allan had come back with a worker, JJ, and was showing him what to do. JJ started and Allan left. He had a huge scraper and could take the paint off with one stroke down to the primer. I could see he was doing a good job and I explained what we wanted, and another worker came over, nicknamed Cow (don't ask me why). He was also an experienced worker and they both started scraping but then Cow went off to get some masks, sandpaper and other supplies. I went to do some errands and Diane was left supervising. When I got back, about an hour later, there were 4 guys working on the boat. They were scraping and sanding well and although some of them were going down to the gelcoat, that couldn't be helped in some spots. I thought about helping but they were going well and I probably would have just gotten in the way. At some points there were actually 5 people working. Diane and I just watched and made sure they kept it up and didn't get too 'zealous" in sanding. We supplied the cool drinks but they actually took very few breaks. By about 6, they were done. The bad paint (all the paint) had been removed from the waterline down at least 1 foot and in some spots close to 3 feet, where the chemical had dripped further down. The paint just below that had been sanded fair and all that was needed now was to put an epoxy barrier coat on and more antifouling. The workers had finished in one day what would have taken me at least a week. Donald stopped back at about 6:30 before leaving for the day and looked at the job. We expressed how happy we were at the response and at the good job that had been done. He seemed genuinely pleased that we were so satisfied and we thanked him for his help and understanding. Now we just had to figure out a good day to launch - it was theoretically possible to launch on Thursday. The problem this week was that here was a 4 day holiday for Easter and we couldn't be launched Friday through Monday since there would be no yard staff to do it. So if we didn't launch Thursday, we would have to wait until Tuesday. You wouldn't think it was a big difference, but Diane was in a hurry to leave and get to Venezuela. We told Donald that we would figure it out and let them know as soon as possible. We thanked him again and he left to go home and we went to get a shower. What started out as a really bad day turned around dramatically. |