I FOUND IT........ oops!

"Oops?  What do you mean oops?  Do you mean what I mean when I say oops?"  Such a great line from Independence Day that I have been misquoting all these years, and yet it is still so fitting to so many situations.  Like my current oops.  I started going through the plumbing in the boat and found that my deck drains and cockpit drains are junk.  Some of them fell apart when trying to loosen the pipe clamps, others are still solid, but probably need replacing anyway.  Then comes the flaw of the original design.  The cockpit and deck drains flow through seacocks and thru-hulls that are below waterline.  Why would that be a problem?  It means that you are taking water that is on the outside of the boat and bringing through the interior of the boat to drain it off the boat.  Let me put this another way.  Instead of just shedding water off the side, they have to go through plumbing that can (and has) failed, which then fills the inside of the boat with water, with a possible outcome being the sinking of the boat.  Another outcome is that the boat is sitting on land and fills with water while on the hard and rots things like the port bunk, port bulkhead, and peels most of the paint off the interior.  That is how I got this boat so cheap, remember?  

Before I move on to other things, I would like to take a moment to stress that plastic thru-hulls are crap and should NOT be used below waterline.  Case in point: when I was looking at the boat, and before I purchased it, I took hold of one of the seacock handles to see if it turned.  To my dismay, instead of turning it separated from the boat and came away in my hand.  Oops!  I was not pulling exceptionally hard, nor in an adrenaline fueled panic, and yet the thru-hull parted.  Imagine if I had been on the water, had a hose rupture and had massive amounts of sea water rushing into the boat.  I don't know about you, but I am pretty certain that in that situation my heart rate would go through the roof and adrenaline would fill my veins.  When I was in the process of removing the other thru-hulls, I was under the assumption that they were all plastic, so wrenched on them to just break them off.  Not the smartest idea I have ever had, but it illustrates my point nicely.  The bronze thru-hulls did not, would not, could not separate like the plastic ones.  I'm not sure how old they were, but they were much thinner walled than the replacements I have to go back in and yet they still would not part.  If you're looking to go cheap, think about this: is saving $5 worth your boat sinking or maybe your life?  I didn't think so.

Moving on, I would like to take some time to talk about knowing your boat before you dive into big projects.  I do not know this boat as well as maybe I should, although I am learning more about her every day.  Take last weekend for example.  I decided that instead of doing surgery to make new scupper drains fit an old design, I would rather do major surgery and cover the drain holes so that the water drains straight over the side, rather than down through the hull.  The original scupper drain was something that is no longer available, or was cobbled together from non-marine bronze parts.  In any case, was not a direct replacement available, so I cut the toe rail instead.  After doing so I realized that that was where the hull to deck connection is.  Oooops!  That connection is glassed on the back side (inside the boat) making it not obvious from the inside.  From the outside the joint is pop riveted together.  I was not really thrilled to find out that it is pop riveted together, but at least they used mechanical fasteners.  Some of the cheaper boats today use 3M 5200 adhesive to join the hull and deck with no mechanical fasteners or fiberglassing of the connection, so things could be worse.  As you can see in the photo to the left, there is another large hole in the deck.  This was for the fresh water filler cap pictured above.  I made a decision to move that forward onto the foredeck since the fresh water tank is in the very peak of the V berth in the bow.  The piping for the fill cap therefore ran through most of the boat to the front where the tank is, and then ran half way back the other side to where the foot pump and sink are located.  There is no need for so much garden hose to run through the boat.  Yes, that's right, they plumbed the whole system using garden hose.  While cheap, and ready with fittings, it makes me cringe to wonder about the previous owners and how they accomplished things on the boat.  While the wood working is great, and the idea behind the charging station was good, the implementation of the wiring, plumbing, and other systems leave much to be desired.  Maybe if I sell the boat down the road, someone will think the same about me.

Since the boat currently has no functioning electrical system, I have to go old school and run a mechanical, hand operated bilge pump.  Thankfully there was already one on the boat since they are rather expensive.  As you can see by the photo, the old diaphragm is cracked and dry rotted.  It still functions and I know because I used it to drain the bilge when it had 10 gallons of water in it (before drilling the second drain hole) last fall.  While it still functions, when thinking about using the pump in an adrenaline fueled panic, any weakness in the pump is the spot where it is likely to fail.  If I happen to be taking on a lot of water for some reason, I don't want the bilge pump to fail.  That is why I decided to make a bag with the parts that came out of the bilge pump so that if I do have a failure, I can rebuild with parts in relatively short order.  To make sure the diaphragm that is dry rotted will function in an emergency, it is now covered in duct tape.  You had to know that duct tape what going to come out for something eventually!

I had some time when I was up at my parent's house to get my sails down and inspect them.  I had not really had time to do that in the fall.  In general, the sails are in really great shape.  The main, genoa, and storm jib are all in amazing condition.  The main and storm jib look brand new and the genoa looks lightly used.  The spinnaker is in pretty good shape as well, with one or two tiny holes.  This is not really an issue, as the spinnaker is made from rip-stop nylon.

To the right are the three head sails (genoa, working jib, storm jib) laid out on each other.  The genoa looks like a 150% genoa, meaning that is overlaps the main sail by about 50% to make use of more sail area in light to moderate wind conditions.  The working jib does not overlap the main and is used in moderate winds, while the storm jib is used in heavy winds.  If I were planning to do a lot of open ocean sailing, I would get a true storm jib (about 35 sq ft) and a storm trysail (to replace the main, about 50 sq ft).  These sails are designed for when you're sailing in storm weather, with winds that are probably 40+ knots, and therefore TINY!!!  Enough about sails I don't have though.  The working jib has seen a lot of use, and unfortunately has a few holes in it from mice.  While some might see this as a major setback, I see it as an opportunity to learn to patch my sails.  Eventually I want to make my own sails when I have to replace these, or when I get the next boat.  Learning to patch the ones I have is a good way to get started.  It is a relatively small undertaking, but it sets up a lot of the basic techniques for sewing sails (at least by hand).  

More to come soon, including starting the bottom paint project.  Until then, I wish you all fair winds and following seas!