Survey says........

fuck........ I have so much to do, and should have had the boat surveyed at the beginning of my week, rather than at the end.

Mudding?

This is how survey day started.  I cut the corner a little bit backing into the driveway and sunk to the axles on the truck.  I attempted to get myself unstuck by rocking the truck back and forth like you would in the snow, but I was way too stuck for that.  Luckily my wonderful savior of a friend Josh had just left and was able to come back and pull me out with his 4 wheel drive pick up.  My advise: Don't try to go mudding in a 2 wheel drive Tacoma, especially in reverse!

The Survey

The Good:

There was good news and bad news from the survey.  The good news is that the hull is in pretty good shape.  There are a few places where the thru-hulls were not sealed properly, so water had gotten into the laminations of glass.  This makes them weaker, and prone to failure.  The surveyor told me that they were not bad, and I could sail as is this season, so long as I kept an eye on them.  He also thought that the rudder was in excellent shape, as well as the bearings for the rudder post.  In a look at my breaker panel, he was impressed with what I had accomplished so far, and thought I was doing a good job following the American Boat and Yacht Council (ABYC) standards for boat wiring.  He also thought that I was making it unnecessarily complicated with too many functions, but that is minor.  All in all, not bad for a boat bought without a survey!

The Bad:

The surveyor made me a list.  First on the list is to cut up the floor in the cabin so that I have access to the entire length of the keel.  This is not difficult, but it is a real necessity.  If you hit bottom in Maine, it is probably granite, so you probably have hull damage.  If you cannot get to the keel, especially the forward part of it, then you have absolutely no chance of stopping the water from coming in.  Also, because the forward section of the keel is not accessible, there is no way to assess if the beams under the floor to transfer the loads from the mast and bulkheads to the keel are in good shape.  If they are not, then I have some serious work to do. 

The next item was safety equipment.  I need fire extinguishers, VHF radio (he suggested handheld over boat mounted), hand held GPS, radar reflector (on the boat currently), and good quality comfortable PFDs (personal flotation devices, or life jackets) that can and will be worn when onboard.  Most of this stuff I knew I had to get, but had not gotten to it yet.  

In the outboard well, he suggested that I add a fire port to the small hatch facing forward into the cockpit.  This is so that if the outboard catches fire, all I have to do is expose a hole that is big enough to fit the nozzle of a fire extinguisher into.  That way the main hatch can stay closed, since opening it would allow a whole lot of oxygen to get to the fire, and probably cause an explosion.  This way the whole locker can stay closed, and the fire extinguisher has the best possible hope of putting out the fire due to the enclosed space.  A great recommendation that I fully intend to implement.  

The rig needs some attention also.  Where the stays meet the mast, they are attached using thin gauge stainless plate steel.  Because this holds all of the tension of the rig, the surveyor is concerned that due to the thin gauge, it is prone to failure.  Also, the holes to accept the pins for the rig are not quite the right size (too big).  This means that the pins will only be touching the bottom of the holes, and have the possibility of then only exerting pressure on the cotter pins holding the main rigging pins into place.  That is not something that I want to have fail, because it means the whole rig will come crashing down.  Even if no one were to get hurt in such an event, it would ruin your day, so it needs to get addressed.

Now to the biggest of the issues.  Boats of this age, according to the surveyor, do not rot from the bottom up, but rather from the top down.  The deck fittings are old, and the bedding compound is probably suspect.  When the bedding compound fails due to age, vibration/flexing, or sheer neglect, it allows water to trace down the bolts and bolt holes.  This lets water into the deck, which has a wood core.  That coring then rots, and the boat is junk or extremely expensive to fix.  It also allows the water to get into the cabin and damage the cabinetry, bulkheads, and other support structures for the boat.  This can also happen when the gel coat or paint on deck (or the hull) has cracked or failed.  This is where the bad news comes in.  I have to paint the entire boat.  All of the paint is either bubbling, cracking, or has crazing (micro cracking).  This means that there is no longer a barrier between the water and the deck/hull, possibly allowing the water to infiltrate the deck/hull without the need for holes in the deck.  What this means for me is that I have to sand and paint the entire boat.  The dilemma is this: do I do it correctly (pull all the fittings/hardware to paint under and rebed) or do I do a quick and dirty job to get in the water (tape off fittings and slap some paint on her)?  The other concern is that I no longer have The Lady under cover.  If I paint her, I need a windless, cloudy day to get the painting done.  If I were to pull all the hardware, then I would also need to cover the boat again in order to prevent rain from pouring in all the now exposed holes.  Pulling all the hardware would probably take 8-10  hours of work assuming it all comes off very easily.  Then sanding the entire boat will take at least as long as pulling the hardware, but probably much longer.  Then to paint the entire boat I would need another full day, assuming I can get it done in one coat.  Bedding and reattaching all of the hardware would then take another day.  So, if I were to do this correctly, it would take me at least a week, and would have to be perfect weather.  If I tape everything off, it is still going to take me 3-4 days, again in perfect weather.  I could build a bow shed (which I kind of want to do anyway, because they are gorgeous and interesting) but that adds expense and time, but would protect me from wind and weather.  Also, when the boat comes out of the water, I would have a shelter to put it in for the winter.

In case you have not figured it out yet, I am having a dilemma.  To add to it, my first kid is due in August, so I have written off sailing past August 1.  With the amount of work left to do, I think it might just make more sense to build the bow shed and do the work right, rather than try to hurry and get it done, and have to do it again because it looks like poo.  Plus, then I can change the hull color (navy blue would look really sharp) which I wanted to do anyway.  Anyone have any thoughts?