I decided to get into some bigger projects. You will have to pardon the crap-tastic photo quality, as I forgot my camera and needed to use my phone camera instead. What I tackled first today was painting. Yes, never ending painting. If painting had junk, I would kick him in it. I am so tired of painting, but there is still so much to do. I know, I know, it was a horrible choice to paint the interior of my boat white, but on the other hand, I can see the bottom of the bilge, to the back of hanging lockers, and into the bottom of under bunk storage. The other thing is, I am using oil based industrial machine coatings, which are designed to take serious amount of abuse and still hold up nicely. Some might say that I am not keeping with the spirit of boating by not using boat specific coatings. If I had the money to spend, I would (maybe), but the reality of it is this: the oil based paint that I am using is pretty much the same stuff I can buy at the marine hardware store for twice the price. No thanks! Plus, I am only through doing the V-berth, the main bulkhead, and two hanging lockers. I still have the majority of the main cabin to do once I rebuild the port bunk.
What a segue. I started to deconstruct the port bunk today. I was going to just try to rip it bodily out of the boat, but then thought better of it. There was quite a bit of hardware that would be re-useable if I was careful, and if my rebuild plans did not work out, I could always re-install the old pieces of the cabinetry. I don't see that as a likely outcome, but we will see. If I do not throw it away now, then I will not need it later. The deconstruction process was somewhat interesting to me, because I kept uncovering old paint. I believe that the current incarnation of the cabinetry is not original, or at least not entirely. I found this large patch of baby blue paint under the wood working that had been removed. I think this is the original coloring of the boat, as I have found blue gel coat in holes I have drilled in the hull. I am glad the boat isn't baby blue any more. I don't find it to be a fitting color for a proper boat. In any case, it is interesting to me to uncover what others have done to the boat during its life. I'm sure the person that this boat passes to after me will wonder what I was thinking when doing my redesigns. It is inevitable.
I also busted into the main hatch rail today. I was appalled to find out the the rail was surrounded by filler and only glassed over with ONE, yes ONE layer of glass fabric. There is no doubt in my mind that this is why it failed. There is so little strength in one layer of glass. I would have thought that it was going to be all glass, rather than almost no glass. This boat is from the era of fiberglass when they did not know that they could make things rather thin and still get good strength out of them. This was when hulls were made inches thick, rather than millimeters thick. The boats from this era are tanks. They can take a serious beating because they are so over-engineered. ONE layer of glass for the hatch rail is amazing with the previous information in mind. Thankfully the rail is on top of the cabin top, and not connected through to the liner inside. This means that the rail does not leak into the cabin, so I do not have to be worried about it until I can fix it. Unfortunately I broke the wood stringer that was inside the rail, so I am going to have to make another to fill its spot, but I am not too worried about this, as I am going to glass the crap out of it so it does not go anywhere. The original stringer was also severely water logged from being open to the elements and not enough so to dry between rain storms. Also, I have been thinking about this project recently, and how I got pushed over the edge to get started on it. I have to extend a huge thank you to my friend Jonathan and his friends/fellow crew on Out of the Blue. They came down last fall from Canada to race in a qualifier for J/24 Worlds, and we hung out afterwards. They all told me that if I was thinking about doing this, NOW was the time, as I did not have any major commitments. A few of the guys even mentioned that they wished they could be back to when they were my age so they could do it themselves. This group of guys were the final push to get me going on this project, and I am so thankful to them for doing it! I have been having a blast with the project, and do not think that I would have actually done it otherwise. It would have just stayed a dream, rather than becoming a reality. Thank you again guys!!!!
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