Category Archives: Boat Work Projects

Next, Leave Puget Sound

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To put our cunning cruising plan into action, first, we had to leave the dock. Check that off the list.  We left the dock and our heavy marina fees far behind three weeks ago. Other cruisers told us that leaving the dock was the hardest part of cruising. Once you had dropped the docklines, you were supposed to be golden. You had done it! You were now cruising! Are we cruisers yet?

A day in Tacoma to see some tall ships. We’re not all work around here!

In our case leaving the marina was the easy part. Turns out the hard part is going to be leaving this geographic area. We have to actually find a convenient time to travel north, pass Seattle to starboard, and continue on to cross the Strait of Juan de Fuca and right up into Canada, as was our plan. So far, we are still here.

We are currently comfortably anchored in Gig Harbor working on the fix to our aft cabin. Let me share with you how this repair is going. Our approach is one of sloth.

World’s largest rubber duck photo bombing the Foss Waterway.

When we were working fools all boat work projects had to be squeezed into weekends and evenings, so basically we made hay while the sun shone and hoped we could get a bunch done all at once. Suddenly, with the quitting of our day jobs, now all we have is time. With our new schedule, we’ve decided that accomplishing one small thing per day is fine. This new approach comes smack up against our well-ingrained work ethic. It’s like we’ve very suddenly forgotten that we are hard workers. And yet…well, here’s how our progress has looked:

Monday: Made cardboard pattern for replacing part of bulkhead. Called it a day. Went for walk in Gig Harbor. Ate food. Regretted it.

Tuesday: Napped and read books. Piddled around in the harbor doing nothing in particular. Went on walk. Spyed on neighboring boats with small binoculars. Serious cockpit lounging.

Wednesday: A banner day! My sister picked us up and took us to Mitchell’s Lumber in Belfair. Bought marine plywood for repair. Brought wood back to her place and used brother-in-law Darin’s tools to cut wood to fit space. Exhausted from this effort, called it a day. Hung around with her family. Played badminton; badly.

Thursday: Mixed thickened epoxy and used a large syringe to fill gap between bulkhead and coach roof. Made it smooth. Called it a day. Ordered replacement winch parts and a few other things on Amazon. Went kayaking.

Friday: Mixed more epoxy and filled gaps. Coated replacement piece of plywood with epoxy. Made thicker epoxy with adhesive filler and set that piece in place. Braced it with boat hooks which, wedged between bulkhead and cabinet, provided just the right amount of pressure. Swooning from effort, wiped our brows, called it a day. Went to have dinner with our kids. Mike’s birthday. Celebrated with cake.

Yes, it’s in Gig Harbor. Why bother going all the way to Italy.?

Today we might have the wherewithall to replace the piece of plywood we removed from the adjacent wall. We’ll mix more epoxy to coat the edges. The day after that we might be able to do the final piece which will finish the structural repair inside, except for the finish work such as trim and paint.

I’m pretty certain that at this breakneck pace we’ll have this repair completed by our July 10 date with Mr. Fiberglass Guy down in Olympia. We figured we would be able to cut loose from south Puget Sound right after the fiberglass repair was done and the mizzen mast replaced.

But, alas, we may not reach escape velocity even then. There is a garden party at our house for all the people who couldn’t go to Scotland for Claire and Dan’s wedding. It’s scheduled for July 22 and I don’t really want to miss it. Since we’ll likely be in Olympia through July 15 or so, it’s not asking too much to stay a little longer for the party.  After that, we should be good. Maybe that will be our fond farewell to friends and family?  No plans are ever firm anymore.

Sailboats race around the anchorage on Thursday nights.

Meanwhile, we live in Gig Harbor for awhile, seeing this town in a whole new way.  In terms of anchorages, it’s really great. The dinghy dock is safe, there is a regular Trolley that goes to the shopping district, and the harbor is filled with all varieties of interesting boats from big powerboats to lovely sailboats, even a real gondola from Italy. There are good restaurants and coffee shops nearby and lots of streets to explore to get our walks in. We’ve discovered a few small things that need fixing, now that we are using all the boat systems away from the dock,  and it’s a convenient place from which to order parts while we can still have them delivered to us at the house. In all, we can stay here happily for awhile.

Eventually we will make our way north with the continued plan to head south about the time the Coho ho ho goes south, which is the end of August-early September.  We won’t be joining the Ho Ho, but we will leave around the same time, depending on weather, of course.

Exotic Locations

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The cruising life is fully upon us as we begin doing boat repairs in exotic locations such as Olympia and Jarrell Cove on Harstine Island here in the south Puget Sound area. When we last left you, we were taking a break from the boat yard, then heading to Jarrell Cove to rest and recuperate while we assessed the water damage to the bulkhead.

Taking a walk on Harstine Island

It’s really different dealing with this type of boat repair now that we are cruising full time. Gone are the days where we had two days a week for Mike to give his attention to the boat. In those days we packed as much action as possible into a day and then fell into exhausted, ibuprofen-laden sleep. We are learning a new rhythm now; a kinder and gentler rhythm on the whole. Instead of two days back to back of nonstop work, we only do one at a time. Then we complain about it. But seriously, yeah. There’s a lot less frantic activity so far.

After enjoying an extra day on the dock with our friends Stephanie and David Gardiner aboard S.V. Cambria, we finally took our leave and made way to Jarrell Cove, home of friends Rose and Gary Benz. Jarrell Cove is quiet and completely protected from most weather. Aside from friends, it also offers a state park with brand new docks that have electricity. We needed electricity for the next phase of project ‘Mizzen Mast Leak’.

Galapagos at the state park dock.

During a terrific visit with Rose and Gary, during which Rose served us her famous hamburgers with all the fixings (Thanks, Rose!! Yum!) our discussion turned to the aft cabin. Gary is a master wood worker and they also have a friend, Larry, who has many years of experience repairing and building boats. We made an appointment for Gary and Larry to come down and view the damage the following morning. Sometimes it’s nice to have extra pairs of eyes on a project before you start, just to make sure everyone agrees on the important things.

The next morning saw much interesting and informative discussion around the wood damage. There was head shaking, frowning, sighing, and many an expression of commiseration. But no matter how much we discussed the problem, no decisions could be made about how to do the repair until we actually got out the tools and removed the rotted wood. I was anxious to start cutting because I was worried about my beautiful painted fiberglass wall in the aft head. It backs onto that dratted bulkhead and I was worried it would have to be destroyed.

By closing the doors on either side of the cabin, we were able to isolate the work area.

Rose had found some heavy plastic for us (Again, our thanks.) and I hung a dust curtain in the aft cabin to protect our bedding. We rigged the shop vac up on deck so the exhaust was outside the boat and donned our masks. It was time to commence to cutting!

Mike and I take a ‘surgical’ approach to work that involves cutting nasty things like rotted wood and fiberglass. One of us works as the surgeon, wielding the cutting tool. The other works as the assistant holding the vacuum nozzle close to the action. We might be forgiven for being a little anal about keeping the floor swept of debris and vacuuming the area several times an hour. It makes clean up easier, and our beds stayed clean.

We got very lucky in many ways both during this phase and in terms of what we found. We had expert advice, we had electricity for the shop vac, there was only one other boat on the dock, and the noise from our shop vac did not disturb him. (Thank you so much fellow sailor!) We never want to be ‘those’ people who make all kinds of noise in a quiet place. So we really are grateful to the other sailor who didn’t even bat an eye at our shop vac and only expressed his hope we could get all the rot removed.

We found this tube in the cockpit lazarette. Is this a joke? We laughed and laughed.

With all the compromised wood cut away, we discovered another lucky thing: the 1 1/2” thick bulkhead was actually two 3/4” sheets of marine plywood glued to one another. The word ‘glued’ as it’s used here means that glue was applied to one of the pieces of wood. It has nothing to do with how much contact was made between said pieces. Therefore, by applying constant pressure with prybars of various sizes, were able to remove the outer sheet without damaging the inner sheet, then cut away the rot up in the corner and along the side of the inner sheet of wood. This is good news because now we will scarf in new pieces of marine ply, sealed with epoxy, to the inner piece of wood.

We’ll be able to cut the new piece to fill the gap left by the builders between the top of the wood and the cabin top of the boat, making that fit snug and tight. Then we will replace the entire outer sheet and epoxy/fiberglass it to the first, making a strong bond. Replacing this entire sheet means the new bulkhead will be a smooth surface with no obvious signs of repair. The new bulkhead will be much stronger than the old one. And it’s going to look good, too!

In the photo below, the top half of the wood that backs onto the engine room has been removed. This section, which is not structural, had more rot than the bulkhead. We got lucky, once more, in that the piece of marine plywood we removed from the bulkhead is big enough to cut a new piece for this opening. That saves a bunch of money.

Area with rot cut away. Notice gap at the top.

You can also see the gap between the top of the bulkhead and the cabin top. Guess the builder decided this was ok. It’s not. See those scratches on the wood? That was supposed to help the glued panels stick together. See how clean the wood is? That’s because those scratches didn’t do a blessed thing. There was basically a void in the middle between the two pieces of plywood.

Does this look like a man who knows how to use a circular saw?

All edges on the new wood and old will be sealed with penetrating epoxy. I have already applied penetrating epoxy to some areas that showed water staining but no rot.

At the end of the day, we feel lucky that the final bulkhead will be the same depth as the original, which means we won’t have to do extra finish work on the sole of the cabin and on the massive corner piece of teak that would otherwise have to be trimmed. In a nutshell, it makes the repair that much simpler. In addition, it means that my lovely fiberglass wall in the aft head can be left alone!

Lovely Jarrell Cove on a still evening. Before the rains came again.

We have until July 10 to finish this repair and so far we are very pleased with our progress. We are also pleased to be able to address each task of the project without feeling rushed and pressured, and still be able to enjoy being on the boat in exotic locals. This weekend is the Festival of Sail in Tacoma and we want some time out among the REALLY big boats. We’ll go anchor in Gig Harbor for a bit to address the next phase of this repair.

(P.S. – I’m experimenting with software that allows me to write blog posts while offline, then publish them when I get a connection. Some things, like the photos, are a work in progress.)

Sense and Flexibility

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It’s a good thing we have no stinking schedule right now. We pulled into the dock at Swantown Marina in Olympia prepared to get a ton of stuff done at our haulout. Isn’t that hilarious? Boat owners who think many good things might happen quickly? Truly we are the clowns of the sea. We had the bottom job to do, the rest of the Hydrovane to install, the mizzen mast to pull, the new rigging for the mizzen, and the leak under the mizzen to fix. That’s a lot of things.

Before I go on, let me just make a point that if you are a young person looking at your career choices, please look no further than the trades in the marine industry. Why? Because there are not enough players on that field. The ones who are in the business are very busy. They don’t even advertise. They may not even return your calls because they don’t have time with all the work they have to do. Robots will never steal these jobs. They cannot be outsourced, either. All these fiberglass people, rigging people, general boat repair and maintenance folks, welders; they make a ton of money and get to be creative with their work. And so could you. Run down to your nearest tech school and apply, ok? We need you.

Anyhoo, we thought we had a fiberglass guy lined up. Turns out, we didn’t. And by way of having good sense and being flexible, turns out that’s ok. It gives us some time to do some of the work ourselves, which will save us money. He can’t get to us until July 10. So instead of heading north at the beginning of July, we’ll be staying down in the south sound for a few weeks longer than we thought. That’s fine with us. Claire and Dan are coming home! We’ll be here a little longer to get some visits in with them. Here’s the scoop:

Long term readers may remember that when we bought Galapagos, we knew she had a leak that had damaged the bulkhead and the engine room wall adjacent to the bulkhead in the aft cabin. This is the area where the mizzen mast is stepped. We weren’t sure what caused the leak until we took some time during our last summer cruise to isolate the problem. Unfortunately the leak was underneath the mizzen mast. Not good. That meant the mast had to be pulled. Since we knew we were hauling out before the long trip, we waited until now to worry about it, protecting that area from leaking during the wet winter.

When we bought her, she looked like this.

We had the mast pulled when we arrived and discovered that the entire floor of the fiberglass ‘shoe’ (is that the correct term?) that the mast was sitting in was cracked all the way around.  Water that came down the mast, which has about a one inch hole wide open at the top (Why??) or that collected due to rain in the basin-like ‘shoe’ could pour directly down into the wall of the aft cabin. And it sure did.

The mast step is actually sitting in this basin. How could that possibly be good?

Now let’s pause and talk about how crazy this design was from the get go. Ted Brewer designed our boat. He is famous for designing strait forward, seaworthy boats. I can’t imagine he designed this part of the boat and wonder if it was the builder who did this.  First of all, the mast already has a perfectly good step and could be installed directly onto the cabin top. (When this was discovered, this saved us the money of buying a new step.)

You can see the separation all the way around. And also the 100 Drachma coin below the step! The coin is dated 1994. So the mast was pulled then. We can’t decide if we want to replace the coin with one from this year or not. We want a Greek coin.

Then there is the issue of a copper tube drain that ran from below the mast, through the cabin top,  and down into the cockpit lazarette, where it dribbles out into the gutter of the cockpit and finally drains down and out of the boat. Really? What an over-engineered piece of wishful thinking! So many, many places for things to go horribly wrong, like they did.

The only reason any kind of fancy drain system was needed was due to this weird cup-like shoe that the mast was sitting in; the one that was practically in two pieces when we cut it off the boat. Good lord. No wonder we had a leak. What appears to have happened is that this drain wiggled loose enough to allow water to intrude into the wood. Of course, you can’t see this without taking off the mast. Nice. Over time the wood got saturated and the weight of the mast compressed it just enough to break that fiberglass ‘shoe’ and pop the fiberglass tabbing on that side of the bulkhead in the aft cabin. This is why the doors on either side of that bulkhead stick.

You can see the guilty copper drain. This has been sealed with epoxy until we can get to it. The wood at the top edge and left edge is sound. Those two bolts sticking up were holding the block to the mainsheet. We’ll need to replace the fiberglass mounting this was attached to. It leads the mainsheet to the cabin top winch.

After cutting the fiberglass shoe off the cabin top, we could see rot in the core. We knew rot was in the walls as well, but not how much. We began taking trim pieces off to assess the damage and that’s where we are today. We have until July 10 to get the bulkhead repaired and ready for the fiberglass work up top. Whoopee! We have time!

Meanwhile, Mike almost finished the install on the Hydrovane, and I got the bottom painted and, oh yeah, we got the boat surveyed again for insurance. We sprung for the money to pay someone to do the sanding and I am very glad we did. Sure, we would have saved about 450$ by sanding it ourselves, but that would have been another day in the yard. Take 40$ off that 450$. Then we would have had to buy supplies and rent the sander. That would be about another 125$. Now it’s only costing us less than $300 to have someone else tear their shoulder up sanding this big hull. That’s totally worth it. Plus the guy taped the waterline for us.

Someone ditched a half gallon of blue bottom paint. We went crazy.

So we’re back in the water, right next to Stephanie and David Gardiner on S.V. Cambria! We’ve shared a couple of dinners while we were both in the boatyard, and now we get to be on the work dock with them for a day or two. I think that means we’re cruisers now! It sure is nice to put faces to blog names by meeting them.

By the way, Stephanie and David are selling their beautiful Westerly Ocean 43. This is a stunning boat and impeccably kept. In addition, we are dead jealous of their aft cabin with the centerline standard sized queen bed and ensuite. We could use their large storage space on the bow, big enough to stand in, and their ‘garage’ inside the boat that is NOT their V berth. Sure, David swooned with envy over our engine room, but still. This boat is beautiful. If you are looking for a ready-to-go blue water cruiser, take a look at S.V. Cambria.

Our loose plan is to go see our kids this weekend and leave the boat here for a day. Then we’ll go sit in Jarrell Cove for a few days and assess the damage to the bulkhead and make decisions about whether to replace the whole thing or cut out the bad parts, jack up the cabin top a smidge, and scarf in new wood. That’s still up in the air. Next weekend is the Festival of Sail in Tacoma and the tall ships will be there! We’ll take family out on the boat and have a little fun. It just makes good sense to be flexible.  It’s pretty nice to not have a schedule.