Sailboat Yankee

2012-01-15T14:59:00.012-06:00

Progress slowed over the "break" between semesters. Living in two cities 600 miles apart complicates progress on an outdoor project like a boat rebuild. It also seemed like every time I could spare a day, the weather was awful. What have I been doing instead? My garage is much better organized with every bit in its place, and there are a lot of bits. Some of those bits were actually moved to St. Louis by mistake. The study is full of sails, rolls of fiberglass, a sewing machine and fabrics, cushions, lines, sheets, varnished stuff like hatches and dorades, expensive paints, electronics, etc.

The companionway hatch is varnished, as is the propane locker cover. The toerails and coamings also have two new coats of varnish.

The old stainless chainplate supports have been cut out, and the composites will all be in by tomorrow (70 degrees and clear predicted!). In the photo, the upper is tacked in place before seriously glassing it to the hull. Grinding off the old paint inside a tiny closet was a joy. A moon suit, full face respirator, and big exhaust fan really helped, though.

2011-11-17T17:09:00.005-06:00

A bit more progress. The starboard chainplates are sort of in. The gap between them and the deck was filled with silica-thickened epoxy. I added one layer of heavy E-glass tabbing to the upper surface of the deck. The first coat of fairing compound is on. Below decks the chainplates are tabbed to the hull. A great deal more attachment will occur this weekend, I hope. More of the white paint must be ground away before this extensive tabbing is undertaken. The original stainless angle will thread through two bulkheads and be attached to each chainplate to add further reinforcement. Remnants of the old DC distribution panel are visible. The old wiring is labeled and pulled aside awaiting the eventual installation of a new panel.

2011-10-28T17:39:00.009-05:00

The starboard upper chainplate is bogged in, and some of the below decks tabbing is in. The lowers on starboard will go in soon. No more leaks, and these things are enormously strong. Based on the thickness and composition of the laminate that ended up being 70 percent S2- and 30 percent E-glass, each has a tensile strength of at least 60,000 pounds. The original stainless chainplates were rated at 40,000 pounds. I must now make certain to attach them well to the hull below decks. More about that soon.

I am almost finished adding two more coats of varnish to the teak. This summer was brutal. Time to get set for winter.

Speaking of winter, I brought the engine to operating temperature, and then ran a marine winterizing solution through the raw water intake until it blew out the transom. There will be no emergency freeze issues here, especially as I spend so much time away from Yankee at our other home in St. Louis.

The new main hatch is coming along. The opening is almost faired and ready for paint.

Back to work

2011-09-20T17:46:00.009-05:00

After remodeling our second home in Webster Groves
(St. Louis) this summer, I am finally back at work on Yankee most weekends. She is about ready to paint
following lots of filling and sanding. The topsides are down to 220. Finishing to 320 or 400 is recommended by the paint manufacturer, so I shall do this. The longboard has been a real help fairing small irregularities that I missed the first time around with the Hurricane Ike repairs. I cannot wait to see the blue Imron MS600 topsides.

The deck is getting more and more gray with System Three primer. I quite like their primer.

The chainplates are complete. I am astonished how much S-2 and E glass cloth and epoxy I used. The photo is of the end of one of the lowers. A little more trimming and grinding is required before they are inserted through the deck. Slots for the Colligo chainplate distributors must also be cut. The chainplates will be bonded to the hull in a most serious fashion. More about this project after some painting takes place.

2011-06-29T18:29:00.005-05:00

The chainplates will be complete by this weekend. I had not realized just how long it takes to cut more than one hundred slices of fiberglass. The S glass is particularly hard on scissors. And hands. I am laminating only three layers at a time. The epoxy kicks too fast in this hundred degree heat.

The photo is of the four lowers hanging between rounds of lamination. The uppers are much wider as they fill the entire space to the hull.

Work will grind to a halt for the month of July. Other commitments.

2011-06-21T17:28:00.003-05:00

The new fuel tank is in, a Moeller 31 gallon. It is attached on both ends with their aluminum clips. Straps will also be added. All of the water and fuel hoses are in place. The engine fired right up, and then died. I had not gotten all of the air out of the line. After accomplishing that, she ran like a top. The thermostat opened right at 90 degrees C. Temperature remained just fine. The water lift muffler worked great. All good.

I should have the chainplates ready to go in within a couple of weeks. The delay is due to the fact that I must be in St. Louis this week with my spouse who accepted an offer for a faculty position. As you can imagine, all sorts of plans have now gone into plan B or C. We will build a house there probably over next summer, rent something for now. I will remain here in this house, and finish up the boat. Upon moving to St. Louis in the spring I will commute to my university here for three days each week, 32 weeks per year. There is every possibility that the boat will make half of the Great Loop rather than riding on a truck to Lake Michigan.

2011-05-31T19:13:00.008-05:00

I am finally back in town for a while. Field work in the desert hit 113 degrees. Fun.

The first project is to construct the chainplates. Materials include marine ply with a layup of 12 oz. biaxial E-glass and 8.9 oz. S-glass. Chainplates for the uppers have 0.75" OD x 0.12" wall T-316 seamless stainless tube with stainless clevis pins (at the ends of the tubes in the photo), and the lowers have 0.875" OD x 0.12" wall T-316 seamless stainless tube. These should be beasts, and they will never leak. Components are from McMaster-Carr, Online Metals, and Fiberglass Supply.

I calculate a conservative, bare minimum tensile strength of 60,000. More about this project as it progresses.

Other new stuff arriving includes a fuel tank and various deck bits. These great Marelon deck chocks will provide a home for the spinnaker pole, and they will be a toe-saver.

Odds and ends

2011-05-21T09:34:00.004-05:00

The completed saloon hatch is on the left, the refurbished forward cabin hatch is on the right. I ordered exact replacement gasket material (hollow 3/8"x3/8")and heavy Perko latches. Once installed I will order two sets of quality lifters.

The supplier of the white Plexiglas also sent a 1/2" piece of clear sheet for the companionway hatch. That hatch cannot be refurbished until I figure out how to deal with a 1/4" sag on the port side. I have been using a beam calculator in order to engineer a replacement, but a live test will probably be required. Who knows what sort of force must be applied to pull out that sag? So far a laminated rail of wood and carbon fiber with a pre-formed arch seems to be the answer. There is insufficient headroom in the saloon to add structure there. More to come about this issue. That sag must go.

Progress below decks

2011-05-07T17:10:00.005-05:00

The wind was blowing like snot today. It has been blowing like this for months. One cannot put down anything lighter than a sander and expect it to stay on deck. More than once I came close to leaving the deck in a gust. This was a great morning to work below decks.

Systems are falling into place. The first photo shows two new through hulls. The taped hole to starboard (on the right) is the raw water inlet for the toilet. The bronze one to port has been relegated to discharge for the LectraSan Type I MSD. The three intakes (engine, air conditioning/reverse cycle heat, and toilet) are to starboard.

Second photo. Note the new Speed Seal. Very nice bit of kit.

The last photo is of the new Vetus raw water strainer for the engine installed above the water line and easily accessible.

2011-05-01T14:01:00.008-05:00

I spent time removing the old teak base and the old chain pipe for the old Ideal windlass. (A new windlass will replace the old Ideal.) Other than some coming deck destruction/rebuilding for the new chainplates, this was the last item to remove before getting serious with priming and painting. At some point over the years a little water managed to seep into some of the balsa core. Bolts for both had simply been put through the balsa core without properly sealing off those spots. Not smart.

The repair went as such:

Grind away the outer layer of fiberglass to expose all of the damaged balsa.
Dig out all of the damaged balsa (with a Dremel tool).
Tape the holes under the deck.
Fill the bottom ~ 1/8" of each hole with System Three QuickFair placed directly on the tape being careful that the filler is in contact with the edge of the lower layer of fiberglass all the way around. This seal will provide a base for the following buildup as well as ensure that none of the soaking epoxy leaks through.
Proceed after the QuickFair kicks.
Soak the exposed balsa with acetone, and let it dry.
Wipe down all of the exposed fiberglass with solvent. Let dry.
Saturate the entire area with epoxy.
Fill the edges of the holes that were dug into the balsa with thickened epoxy to provide a taper for the fiberglass cloth. Cloth does not do sharp corners.
Layer in 8 0z. fiberglass cloth circles set in epoxy until built up to an even surface almost at the original deck height. Begin with circles (albeit a bit irregular in outline) the maximum radius of the hole and step in with pieces of progressively lesser diameter.
Laminate a few layers of heavy cloth soaked in epoxy to the prepared underside. Preparation involves removing the tape and roughly grinding to fresh fiberglass.
Fill and fair and sand with long board (several times).

Repair is almost complete.

Lots of parts and paint arrived for a summer's work.

New custom bow and stern rails are ordered from Stainless Outfitters in Ontario.

2011-04-11T19:07:00.006-05:00

How time flies. The winter saw a lot of lab work and teaching too many courses and sending off a manuscript and making more discoveries at our dinosaur site in the Chihuahuan Desert. All interesting and productive activities, but none of this is getting the boat back in the water.

A little boat work occurred, mostly teak refinishing on suitable days. Now that the weather is good, it is time to spend many hours on numerous projects. The mast is nearly ready to paint, as is the boom. Primer is on and mostly sanded. Much stuff has been ordered, everything from Imron MS600 paint to all sorts of parts for every project.

The hatch for the saloon will be complete in a week or so. I ordered farmed teak, as usual. It is beautiful stuff. White Plexiglas for the lens is on the way. Tapered lap joints fit well, and they match those on the forward hatch.

Updates will follow more regularly.

2011-02-06T12:56:00.011-06:00

2010 redux. Boat time continues inside. The old Racor 500fg is new again thanks to a seal kit. Everything came apart and went back together easily. I began by de-gunking the bowl by blasting it at a car wash. The rest of the filter is in good shape - well, almost. One issue that illustrated part of the reason for a total rebuild was that there was no check ball seal in the filter. It was simply missing. As one goes through each element on a boat, one sometimes appreciates the work that was done, and at other times one really wonders what sort of oaf did(or didn't do) something.

The gunk in the bowl and filter (2 micron) suggests that my efforts to preserve fuel for a year by treating and polishing did not work. I am now thinking about the possibility of using two fuel tanks, one for most of the time and the other filled for passages. This would also permit me to keep as much weight as possible forward rather than aft under the cockpit sole. We shall see.

Another indoor task was putting together a full-size mock-up of the new table. I like 3/4" foam board for this sort of thing. Some beautiful Honduras mahogany is on hand for this project. The old"Philippine" mahogany top will be reused. The drop leaf side is toward the dinette interior. From behind the cushions one can pull out an insert that spans the area under the table, and then drop the table leaf. Voila, you will have something of a sea berth. It will be a bit wide, but, in a pinch (and with pillows), it will be a third sea berth.

2011-01-24T08:32:00.008-06:00

All of the teak is falling victim to my brush and Cetol Natural. The previous coats of Semco were already disappearing to the point that the teak would begin graying soon. The good thing is that Semco left nothing on the surface that had to be removed with a heat gun and scraper (unlike varnish, of course). The teak required only thorough cleaning before coating. I used Amazon Quickie rapidly removing Part 1, washing, and sudsing up with Part 2. A touch with 220 paper once dry left the teak looking excellent. There will be no more teak treatments that might damage new paint. When the teak is complete I will return to prepping the deck for painting and building new chainplates.

On the bad days I am working below decks. One thing led to another as I rethought the entire fuel system. The short of it is that the old monel tank is out. I know monel is supposed to last forever, but there is some pitting on the surface. I am thinking about putting in a 50-gallon Moeller tank. I don't much like the included fuel level sender,though.

Perhaps I am not the only one who worries about the "little" things like the possibility of a 41-year-old tank beginning to leak? Our plans for cruising will be aided by those few extra gallons.

Additionally, I have a second filter to fit associated with a rerouting of the polishing system.

2011-01-19T16:31:00.010-06:00

The weather is mostly unpleasant now. I guess it is not that big a deal that I cannot seem to carve out more than an hour here or there to work on the boat. This works fine for small projects such as polishing Plexiglas that will be reinstalled in the forward hatch.

As I am changing from Semco on the teak to Cetol Natural followed by Marine Gloss, all of the bits hanging around off the boat are getting finished. The design for the saloon table is complete and I will start on that soon.

The new section of sole turned out nice. It got the standard waterborne polyurethane from Target Coatings. Garage projects.

2011-01-09T11:26:00.006-06:00

The weather is lousy and I am completely absorbed with the beginning of the new semester. This is a time to retreat to the garage and do some composite work as time permits. I am on a mission to replace big hunks of stainless. First up, replace the chainplates. The old structure in the photo is Hinckley's 1969 idea of what should support a mast (in this photo, the fore and aft chainplates are not engaged in the stainless angle). The white blob is a knot of roving that I sawed off the hull. How is it possible that the mast survived forty years, at least three trips to Bermuda, and one serious thrashing in Hurricane Ike? Magic?

So, in the composite spirit and under the spell of the terrific properties of S-2 glass and carbon fiber, new chainplates will be produced. I have a pad of doodles and will choose one in the next few days. All are rather straightforward and provide fantastic tensile strength with stresses transferred to a large area of the hull via well-tabbed knees and through two bulkheads. Running the figures gives simply staggering numbers - like easily pick up even a much heavier boat with one of the six of chainplates.

And no leaks! No crevice corrosion! Ever!!

Following on this theme one finds composite stanchions amazingly stronger for a given weight. It is likely that a new pulpit and pushpit will follow. I have some experience with the construction of carbon composite bicycles. A pulpit is nothing more than a really simple, slightly modified bicycle frame.

Of course, I am aware of ORC restrictions on composite pulpits. Whatever. Composite stanchions are currently being custom made, and I will bet the pulpit rule disappears. Remember the brouhaha over Dynex Dux? We will head back to the water with a lot less stainless and a lot more composite.

2011-01-07T18:31:00.012-06:00

The new hatch in the saloon is going in. I built the frame to fit the camber. The frame is glued on with silica-thickened epoxy. Mating surfaces previously received coats of unthickened epoxy. A large fillet and glass tab will anchor the frame on the outside. It will be trimmed with mahogany on the inside. The teak frame with Plexiglas lens will follow soon, and will be a close match to the original hatch in the forward cabin. Both will be fitted with gas lifts. The flood of light is simply fantastic.

The number of holes in the deck is staggering. This is the outstanding spot. All small holes have a chamfer with the bit in the center. Large ones received a glued-in plug and fiberglass before filling. Yikes.

Finally, I recycled 30 gallons of diesel in order to rotate the monel fuel tank to get at the sender. That was fun.

The more-or-less complete list of stuff to do

2011-01-03T11:54:00.006-06:00

Item	Accomplished
AC - move to location under V-berth	x
AC - rewire, replumb and revent	x
AIS - new	x
Anchor - new rode ( 5/16" HT chain & 200’ 5/8 braid)
Aquadrive thrust bearing - new, install	x
Awnings - new	x
Battery - move house 8D under settee	x
Bilge - paint	x
Bilge pumps (3) - reinstall (one new high capacity)
Bilge pump - rebuild cockpit Whale
Bottom - strip, sand, fair, barrier coat (6 w/ West System additive)	x
Bulkheads - retab	x
Chainplates - remove old	x
Chainplates - fabricate and install new
Chartplotter - new
CO sniffer - new	x
Cockpit - traveler bridge drain
Cockpit lazarettes - new gaskets
Cockpit speakers - remove and glass in openings	x
Companionway doors - new
Companionway steps - add nonskid
Counter tops - new laminate	x
Curtains - new	x
Cutless bearing - new	x
Deck - repair separated spots	x
Deck - prime, paint (2-part poly), add nonskid
Deck - new cleats, fuel filler, water filler
Dinette - demolish settee for new	x
Dinette - build seating	x
Dinette - build table
Dish locker - refurbish	x
Dodger - new skin
Doors - refinish all	x
Engine - new	x
Engine - rebuild mounts and reinstall	x
Engine controls - remove old and glass in holes	x
Fiddles - new mahogany in galley	x
Fresh water system - relocate filer, pump, accumulator under settee
Fresh water system - locate manifold behind forward drawer face
Fuel filter - rebuild Racor 500fg (new seals)	x
Fuel system - relocate polisher control and new fuel gauge to old AC outlet	x
Fuel tank - new
Genoa tracks - move from toe rails to positions near house
Halyards - all new
Hatch - rebuild forward	x
Hatch - new teak one in saloon to match forward hatch
Hatch - companionway (new Plexiglas)
Head - add AC GFI outlet
Head - add combo faucet/shower wand
Head - toilet rebuild	x
Head - install drain in floor to sump pump
Head - rebuild cabinetry
Head - redo counter top
Headsail furler - new	x
Ice box - rebuild box, add insulation, rebuild lids	x
Instrument panel on seahood - build	x
Instruments - remove old and glass in openings	x
Instruments - new depth, speed, wind
Keel - remove old coatings, apply epoxy and fabric, fair	x
Lifelines - all new
Lights - LED (port, starboard, stern, steaming, tricolor, deck, spreader)	x
Lights - all LED below decks
Lights - bilge	x
Mahogany below decks - varnish all
Mast - refurbish including 2-part LPU paint
Mast head - new wind instrument, VHF/AIS antenna	x
Overhead - sand and paint
Propane tank locker - refurbish interior and teak cover	x
Pulpit and pushpit - new
Radar reflector - new Tri-lens	x
Shaft seal - new PSS	x
Sole panel for dinette - build new	x
Standing rigging - all new
Stern tube - cut out old and build new	x
Strainers - new raw water	x
Sump - new	x
Sump output hose - reroute	x
Switches - move master switches	x
Teak - strip and refinish	x
Topsides - replace delaminated spots, fair all, sand, prime	x
Topsides - paint (2-part LPU)
Transom platform/ladder - build	x
Transom platform/ladder - install
Trim tab on keel - remove and replace	x
Trim tab quadrant - remove all hardware	x
Through hulls - 2 new and refurbish four (cockpit drains)	x
Upholstery - new
V berth - mahogany insert and new cushion	x
Water tanks - new port and starboard
Wet locker - rebuild	x
Wheel - rebuild pedestal and remove trim tab clutch	x
Windlass - rebuild Ideal
Wiring - new as necessary, label and bundle

2011-01-02T15:36:00.007-06:00

So much for December. I had planned to get quite a number of days in working on the boat. So much for plans. Two research trips, one proposal to the National Science Foundation, one death in the family, and about ten meetings later, I have little progress to show.

The untrimmed piece of sole to fill in the new dinette area is together. The teak is farmed and not old growth. The holly took three months to obtain, but it was worth it. The mast is completely free of stainless screws. All the holes are faired with epoxy putty. The instrument pod for the top of the seahood is almost finished. It will probably receive two more holes for a total of three combi instruments. The engine rpm/warning instrument is on the left. The small hole is for a separate water temperature gauge. The next step is to seal the pod with epoxy and then prime it and the seahood. The boom and mast are ready for Alumiprep, Alodine, and primer. All I need is a warmish day. Oh, and no meetings or trips.

2010-11-24T20:07:00.006-06:00

It is a good feeling to put a major project to bed. There is now one coat of ablative antifouling on the hull hiding all of those fortified epoxy barrier coats that cover the various filled scrapes and other repairs. The new stern tube worked out just fine. It looks a lot like the original, but it is now in perfect alignment. The now gone trim tab is faired in well. The bulge visible on the right is for the engine.

Prepping the teak toe rails, eyebrows, coamings, etc. is nearing completion, and I expect to finish sealing them in December. Chainplate fabrication and installation will follow. There should be sufficient nice days to finally get a couple of coats of primer on the deck before the weather forces me below.

I think this deserves a bit of celebration.

2010-11-22T15:58:00.004-06:00

Here are a few of the approximately 150 holes in the mast that required filling. The trysail track provided the majority of them - all small. The filled holes in the photo were for a winch pad to the left and for two cleats to the right. None will be remounted. I drilled out approximately 20 stainless screws that simply refused to back out. Every hole was chamfered, treated with Alumiprep, dried with hot air, filled with epoxy putty, then sanded fair with 150 grit paper (as specified for the epoxy primer).

Additionally, all of the various scrapes the mast has gotten into over the past 40 years are filled and faired. There is no corrosion aside from the shallow roughness that formed under winch pads. I think a couple of coats of high build primer will make that disappear.

Next up is an all-over RO sanding. Following that is treatment with Alumiprep and then Alodine. Priming will follow right away. I now fully understand why painting an old mast costs a small fortune.

2010-11-05T17:39:00.010-05:00

More rail sanded and sealed with Semco. I realize that this is pretty much heresy for a Hinckley, but I simply cannot imagine going back to the eight coats of varnish with maintenance every six months and still eventually having to wood out and begin again. Happily there are yacht owners who wave their checkbooks and varnish happens. I will be happy to admire it.

The position for the new hatch is thus. I will glass a frame in like the forward hatch and build a teak and acrylic hatch to match the original. It will have gas springs.

The boat is completely level, and I left spots on the bow, amidships, and at the stern where the bottom of the old bootstripe remains visible. I used the water tube to level from port to starboard and a laser level to get bow to stern. The laser was then used to tick a line from the bow to stern. The level is attached to the container on the right with built-in magnets. Marking the waterline was an anticlimax compared to getting the boat level within less than 1/16 inch. That took about three hours.

2010-11-01T14:37:00.004-05:00

The teak has all been washed with oxalic acid and neutralized with Borax. I took it easy with this admittedly damaging exercise limiting the abuse by scrubbing lightly with a Scotch-Brite pad. Some light sanding and then coating with Semco is progressing well.

The bottom has two new holes for the thru hulls. Nice to see relatively thick cores in this battleship.

The sea hood is almost ready for priming and painting as are the boom and mast. I built an instrument pod that will be sheathed in cloth and epoxy and then mounted as it sits in the photo.

2010-10-20T20:12:00.003-05:00

The modified dry riser just appeared on my doorstep. DeAngelo Marine Exhaust of Fort Lauderdale does the best custom stainless work I have ever seen. It will be nice to get this in and be able to run the engine. It was put away six months ago with new oil and filter, etc. Every couple of weeks I run the fuel polisher. All should be fine, but I want to hear the purr of the new diesel.

2010-10-09T17:16:00.012-05:00

I love those moments when you plain get lucky. There are ten spots on deck that ring hollow with a hammer. Three or four rise up as a bubble a maximum of about 1/16 inch. The others are detectable only with the hammer. Only three pop slightly when you step on them. I spent a while this morning drilling these features boring through the top layer of fiberglass and through the end grain balsa and, of course, stopping upon touching the bottom layer of fiberglass. None of the balsa cuttings brought up by the bit appeared the slightest bit wet or discolored. There was no detectable odor that would suggest wetness . The acid test for moisture according to Casey is shown in the photo - plastic wrap taped to the deck. Following two days in the hot sun there was absolutely no water vapor evident in any of the ten taped areas - a fantastic result. I am dealing with separation not caused by water which leads one to suspect this is simply the failure of the typical lousy bond of polyester resin.

Epoxy was injected into all of the holes until they would take no more. The slightly bulging ones were weighed down with a short 2x8 wrapped in clear packing tape and sacked with a pile of bricks. Happily, all are in the nonskid.

The second photo is of the same area following sanding and the application of a tiny bit of filling. I barely had to get into the fiberglass to make the area nice and flat. No more popping and the hammer rings nicely. The deck is nearly ready to prime - at least once I finish with the teak.

The bottom is in great shape. First, there were no blisters. I have been told by a reliable surveyor that blisters in Hinckleys are unknown. I certainly know blisters in all of their various guises having spent plenty of time in boat yards. The worst case I can recall was a horrible looking Valiant that cost the owner a fortune to repair. Second, the hull looks fantastic - sanded all the way down, coated with epoxy and then filled numerous times to remove most every hollow, ding, scrape, and pit produced by 41 years of bottom jobs. It is important to fair a surface at different times of day in order to take advantage of the changing light illuminating the hull in different ways. The glossy surface produced by a coat of epoxy helps emphasize problem spots. This process can become obsessive.

I went overboard with the epoxy barrier ending up with seven to nine coats fortified with West System additive. One of the guys at Plano Marine dropped by to tell me that "she ain't a piano." Apparently my fidgeting with the bottom for so long is a bit ridiculous. Perhaps he is right.

Antifouling paint is on the horizon.

2010-09-26T21:04:00.005-05:00

Out with the old and in with the new. It has been rainy so work shifted away from epoxy and filler and teak bleach and such. I decided to remove the old raw water intake seacock for the head. All raw water aside from that for the engine will be delivered through a new manifold fed by a large (1.5") seacock. The seacock for the engine is relatively new and is in good shape, so there is nothing to be done there.

2010-09-12T17:19:00.004-05:00

I don't know why it has taken this long for the obvious to set in, but the work in restoring every little bit of a 41-year-old sailboat is infinite - even on a boat as relatively well maintained as this one. Infinite must end by next May or June as this boat will see water at that point pretty much no matter what.

Here are eight winches getting degreased and refurbished as necessary. One Barient 22-39 needs a part and, of course, this part is not available from a company that does not exist. I hope there is a solution other than purchasing another winch. If I move the winches off the mast one winch will work for the halyards rather than having dedicated winches for each. I have Schaefer stand up blocks to make the turn at the base of the mast. Perhaps this is the way to go.

All the remaining bits are off the mast. Alumiprep and Alodine have arrived. Primer is on hand. Must now begin ordering Alexseal topcoats. I am looking forward to testing out the new Axis HVLP rig with a great 3m Accuspray gravity feed gun. I shot Target Coatings water-based varnish on a project to test it out. My, what a great finish. This will be fun.

2010-09-10T09:18:00.006-05:00

Back to colors. I am not a fan of white topsides. On the Gulf coast, I am not a fan of heat, either. Thus, we have a problem. Pretty much all of the discussion in the boat forums I have read is unreliable and contradictory. An architect friend of mine reduced my choice to three factors: the LRV (Light Reflectance Value) and the SRI (Solar Reflectance Index) of the color and the conductance of the material beneath the paint. The paint absorbs the heat and the fiberglass conducts the heat. My goal is to keep the hull as cool as possible without going white and to do what I can on the conductance side. Yankee is balsa cored, so that is a plus. I have already applied and will apply more Nansulate GP on interior surfaces. Now for color. LRV and SRI color cards can be pulled up online. Of course, black is terrible. Atrocious. I measured one black boat surface at 165 degrees F with my IR gun. Darker blues are not far behind. It is interesting that one can go to a bone, shell, or ivory white and do pretty much as well as a blinding snow white.

Time for more fiddling with the Alexseal color card.

The little boat in the photo is in the yacht harbor on the island of Nisseros. I wonder that the LRV of "Greek blue" is?

2010-09-04T13:16:00.013-05:00

Early this morning I was happy to be getting work done on deck on my way to painting. A question I had about possibly removing another thru hull sent me below to poke around. I discovered that a nearby thru hull had been removed at some time but the holes had only been filled with compound. While that was a little worrisome from the inside view, I knew that I could not leave this one alone. I had to see what had been done on the outside.

Near the center of the photo is a nice round circle with four small bolt hole circles all simply filled with epoxy putty. No bevels. No cloth. Nothing but putty. This spurred a broad hunt beneath the old barrier coat (almost assuredly Interprotect) for other significant sins or failures. It turns out that the "well-adhered" gray barrier coat is stuck pretty well to underlying layers but, in places, those layers are not necessarily all that well-attached to the hull. The owners of the H38 Kotchka reported Interprotect barrier coat failure in Ocean navigator, but in their case the Interprotect was not well-adhered to the hull.

Of particular worry is what appears to be odd white/blue dotted areas that are apparent remnants of someone "hot-coating." That didn't work well! On top of that is the gray barrier which should have never been applied without stripping everything off first. Previous exploration had only turned up an adhesion problem on the port side of the keel, a problem I had attributed to weak bonding to the lead casting.

As you can see, I ground all coatings off a test patch. A couple of previous gouges (under the blue paint) had been filled with a polyester resin putty. The stuff easily popped out. It appears I have been naive about these coatings. No more. Everything is coming off down to bare hull. Happily, I was down to bare hull in some areas before this discovery. Having six coats of epoxy in intimate contact with only the original hull will be comforting. Eliminating improper thru hull patches and weak polyester filler will also be good.

Is this sort of stuff done in a yard by paid professionals? Reading Surveyor David Pascoe's reports would suggest that it is. Yikes.

2010-08-22T18:45:00.021-05:00

Most everything is off the deck. Holes that will not be used again have been beveled and filled. Teak is stripped. Parts of the bottom are coated with epoxy mixed with West System barrier coat additive 422 on the way to six coats everywhere. Once the barrier coat is in place I will prime the bottom and leave it at that stage.

The teak will be prepared and sealed with Semco pretty soon. Then the near endless task of sanding, filling, priming, etc., etc. getting ready to shoot the Alexseal white topcoat will take whatever time it takes. Other considerations are numerous and will likely get out of hand. These include fabricating new chainplates, replacing the forward hatch with something other than the original teak/stainless/lexan headbanger/guillotine (perhaps simply add spring/gas lifters?), adding a large hatch for the saloon, and rebuilding the deck fitting for the fireplace flue.

For a while I considered moving the chainplates out perhaps four inches to get the required support structures closer to the hull, but that makes little sense. Moving them out trashes a tight sheeting angle. Other issues are working inside the cabinet in the head and making the aft supports presentable as they will be visible in the saloon. The current chainplates work but they also strike me as simply ridiculous being tangs let into a stainless angle under the deck with a single stainless strap extending a couple of feet down onto the hull where it disappears into a ball of roving. Between the deck and the angle is a stout slab of solid fiberglass. Of course, the whole business is inches from a hull/deck joint that is bulletproof. I still cannot shake the idea of big seas doing bad things to this setup. It seems this was the original design. Although no movement was noted by my surveyor and I have never noticed slack shrouds on the lee side, I simply do not like or trust this setup. And as usual, the stainless chainplates leak. On deck the ends are in slight depressions rather than sticking out of raised pads thus assuring a supply of water for leaking purposes long after the rest of the deck is dry. All wrong.

I spent considerable time coming up with potential designs for new chainplates. They are based on those of the new U.S. Navy 44 STC sailboats by Pedrick and those of the Farrier 44SC. The stainless thimble and 1/2" or 5/8" pin arrangement on deck is pretty standard. I would use 9 oz. S2 glass rather than carbon as weight is not a problem. There would be ten or twelve layers for each. A few layers of uni carbon would also possibly come into play. The old saw that one "can pick up the boat by the chainplates" would easily apply to such a design. The fallback position is heavy aluminum bronze straps that drop to the hull at the angles required to hit the ends of the spreaders and the shroud tangs. The straps would be solidly attached with bronze bolts to ribs that are extremely well bonded to the hull at the turn of the bilge. Online Metals would be the source for the bronze.

The fireplace flue exits through a massive bronze deck iron. Amazingly, a new one can be had (for only $175!). One is supposed to put water in the little moat to keep the pipe cool. Right. I am thinking that thing may be history - as soon as I can figure out how to detach it without doing some sort of regrettable and expensive damage. A more modern device may be required.

2010-08-14T13:28:00.005-05:00

As work on the bottom continues and redoing the teak progresses, I amuse myself in the heat of the day by removing stuff and filling the holes. A lot of holes. Until I began removing everything, I simply had no idea how many holes there were. Small holes from extinct winch bolts and genoa track and dodger snaps, etc. and big holes from instruments. (I would be happy to sell the old round Corinthian instrument set minus the masthead whirly that blew off in Hurricane Ike. They work just fine, but I am going to NMEA 2000.)

All of the smaller holes are receiving a chamfer before filling.

2010-07-29T08:39:00.007-05:00

It is nearing time to shift gears. Hull sanding will eventually end At that point I will move to the deck. It remains too hot to happily work below decks (>105 degrees in there) and I want to be prepared to paint the hull in the fall on those perfect days. My HVLP system is ready.

The plan at this point is first to finish stripping and prepping the teak. Some of it must be bleached. Runoff from that can be tough on a finish so no new finish will be there for it to run onto. All the teak will be treated with Semco teak sealer. After experimenting with this product for two years I am quite satisfied. If two coats are put on one after the other every four months, the teak stays just beautiful. Although I have never done all the teak at once, I estimate that it will take only two hours to accomplish. Compare that to the absolute drudgery of applying and maintaining ten coats of varnish. I know Hinckley would be horrified and the Semco finish looks "natural" rather then being that deep, peer-down-into coating. Oh, well.

The bedding under the teak is old and flaky and should be replaced. That is impossible. The teak is brittle and the stainless slot head machine screws just do not turn without the liberal use of PB Blaster and the serious bite of big Vise-Grips. Having replaced part of the toe rail it is clear that the only way to remove this teak is to break it all to pieces. Rather than do this insane thing I performed an experiment that has promise. Using a small curved veneer saw I cut a thin slot about 5 mm deep flat with the deck and under the rail. This tiny slot will be filled with Life-Caulk. The repair is not obvious if you are not looking for it.

Almost all of the deck hardware is in my garage. Remaining hardware will have to come off. The deck will be sanded, primed, filled, sanded, primed, filled, and then painted with two part poly. I am thinking about using KiwiGrip for the nonskid.

2010-07-25T10:15:00.011-05:00

More progress. The keel tab has been faired quite a number of times. Getting close to finished here. Sanding off the remaining bits of bottom paint is going reasonably well. I am using an orbital attached to a shop vac. I still wear a Tyvek suit, full face mask, etc., but there is almost no free dust.

The keel on port side was sanded over plastic sheet to permit collection of lead particles. Together with the lead bits in the sander dust catcher the particles were bagged for recycling with old batteries.

The lead was immediately coated with epoxy which was wire brushed while wet. A layer of 4 oz cloth and another two coats of epoxy followed. There are a few bits of well-adhered old compound in various dimples on the keel that I did not want to sand down into. Poking at them with a chisel did not suggest they were loose.

If you look carefully there are a couple of scrapes in the lead toward the bottom end of the leading edge. The scrapes contained the oldest filler with all other coatings on top of it. They will be refilled before priming. I suspect that someone hit a rock at slow speed sometime during Yankee's first twenty years in Maine. I can find no other damage related to this evidently minor incident. The bottom of the keel is a heavy bronze "V" casting. It clearly needs another few rounds of stripper.

2010-07-16T21:02:00.003-05:00

Drudgery update. I spent most of the day going through three more gallons of Soy Strip. To the left of the stand is the result of one very heavy coat kept under plastic for 90 minutes and then immediately blasted with a power washer. To the right of the stand is the product of the same treatment twice followed by pasting the stripper on the remaining thick spots and keeping them wet for more than an hour - thus, three treatments.

Soy Strip will take most all of two coats of paint off, but it takes four or five treatments to pretty much clear an area. It is best to keep work to perhaps 20-30 sq ft at a time in order to prevent drying. Wait even a little bit too long and the paint/stripper becomes a third substance that is leathery and near impossible to sand. The power washer cannot budge it. Your scraper is only marginally effective on it. Finally, buy twice as much stripper as you think you will need.

OK, off for another week or so of field work. Let's see. Research? Stripping paint? No contest.

2010-07-13T21:58:00.018-05:00

I spent four hours today in a Tyvek suit, full face respirator, gloves, hood, etc. in almost 100 degree heat sanding the bottom with a Milwaukee grinder. I think I have about 90% to go. Who needs a gym? The first photo is all that a very heavy coat of Soy Strip applied with a shaggy, rough-surface roller and then covered with thin plastic managed to do to two coats of Micron in four hours on much of the hull. After about 4 hours the paint below the plastic became less fluid and more gummy. As seen in the second photo a few areas released a bit better - those that I recoated (the area on the left of the second photo). You can see where my power washer did well and where it had little effect (the one coat area on the right). Serious high pressure washing followed immediately after peeling off the plastic. In grinding today I had to work through the thicker areas that will gum up any disk finer than 36 in about one minute. I am going to throw another few gallons of Soy Strip that I have left at the thicker stuff that has been altered to this anti-sanding gummy material. All-in-all, sanding to bare hull last year was both horrible yet easier than messing with a couple of hundred dollars worth of stripper. For comparison, although I am not sure how 10+ coats of varnish relate to two coats of Micron, I used one thick application of Citristrip on the teak and holly sole and the result was pristine bare wood. The only thing I can think of to do differently is perhaps to spray stripper on with an airless to obtain a thicker application although I am not sure that it would not run a lot. My application was so heavy with the shag roller that it was dribbling down the hull. Perhaps I am just expecting too much.

The port side of the keel must be stripped down to bare lead. The casting is coated with some unknown white stuff that is not all that attached. On top of that is some brown stuff followed by white stuff and then thick gray stuff (Interprotect?). Some other greenish-blue stuff (Interfill?) was used as fairing compound below the gray stuff and it is full of holes. I use the word "stuff" because I do not know what any of these layers really are. Once down to clean lead I will quickly resand, roll on epoxy, work it with a brush, then flatten out the coat by dragging a cut roller across it. Thin fiberglass will follow. Then it is on to the rest of the hull with sanding and barrier coating with West System additive in epoxy followed by primer. I am having such fun.

2010-07-06T20:04:00.005-05:00

Another round of work between research trips has been fruitful. The stern tube and keel tab are glassed in. Quite a bit of fairing has been accomplished. Yet another coat of epoxy thickened with phenolic microspheres was put on just before this shot.

The bottom has been stripped once with Soy Strip Marine. I followed the directions including putting plastic over the thick coating to prevent drying. It worked OK - nothing that three or four days of sanding won't finish.

Next up is to finish fairing and put a thin piece of cloth over the entire keel. I might add tape to the lead/fiberglass seam. I have sufficient epoxy on hand for a serious barrier coat. A final coat of S3 SilverTip primer will keep the UV off until it is time for bottom paint.

The drive train rebuild is about finished. A bit more paint and reinstallation of the waterlift muffler system, three bilge pumps, bilge alarm, and some hose will do it. The PSS shaft seal requires finishing off, as well.

2010-06-17T13:09:00.010-05:00

Top photo: the driveline all together and ready to reinstall. From the forward end is the Aquadrive mounted on its bulkhead followed by the PSS seal and the 1 3/4" Vernatube epoxied in the 2" Vernatube, a new cutless bearing sticking out of the tube, and finally the Max-Prop.

The Aquadrive is all painted, actually too painted. I had to remove paint from a couple of mating surfaces before assembling the thing. I sawed the bulkhead out so that it can be repositioned to precisely match the new engine position. The Vernatube worked well. I cut two small rings off the end of the 1 3/4" tube and glued sections of them on to the end of the long tube. Following sanding, they make a nice lip. The body of the tube where the seal bellows fits required a bit of filler and sanding to make the surface smooth. The PSS seal has new O-rings and will be replumbed. I will thicken up the aft end of the stern tube to about 3/8" and then install two set screws seating into dimples in the bearing. The Max-Prop is out of a vinegar bath to remove encrustations. It will be sprayed with Pettit Zinc Coat as recommended by Max-Prop. I am also going to tap in two grease zercs like the newer Max-Props have. That will alleviate having to disassemble the thing just to grease it.

Lower photos: the driveline back in and awaiting bog around the tube and tabbing around the bulkhead. I did not want to do anything more to it until the epoxy putty set up. The positioning of the two CV joints section of the Aquadrive is critical and was much easier to accomplish by fiddling with the bulkhead than fiddling with the engine mounts. With a digital micrometer, one takes measurements top, bottom, and on both sides between the adapter at the back of the transmission and the heavy ring on the forward end of the Aquadrive. The average must be precisely 130-131 mm. Furthermore, the two collars you see on the CV units must line up. Finally, one must not exceed a maximum number of degrees out based on rpm. I am right at four degrees which is fine for the rpm of this engine.

Rebuilding the hull around the tube will begin next week.

2010-06-12T21:15:00.006-05:00

The engine is back down. The rest of the bolts went in this morning. The fit is really tight, but is at a better angle to the shaft than before thus reducing the angle the Aquadrive must account for to only about two degrees. The test fit of the shaft and stern tube went fine. The keel trim tab is mostly glued back in place with a rather lot of epoxy thickened with silica. Spots of dry glass are ground out. Next up will be to lay fabric on the joint. Following that I will use a foam replica of the end of the stern tube that was whacked off (minus about a half inch on all sides) as a mold to build up the new one. I figured the usual 12:1 chamfer and ground that away. Fairing will take numerous iterations of filling, sanding, guide coat, beer, etc.

2010-06-08T12:53:00.006-05:00

The new and lower forward mounts are in. The clear span between them is only 1/2" wider than the engine. Tight. I glued the blocks in place with thickened epoxy and then added 15 layers of long tabbing on the top and four on the bottom. The paint is drying. Later in the week I will bolt the engine down. At that point lining up the Aquadrive and new shaft will not take long. Rebuilding the last foot of stern tube will require some time. The trim tab can go back in at that point, as well. I decided to go ahead and grind all the old barrier coat off the entire keel, set 6 oz cloth in epoxy and coat the whole thing out with four layers of epoxy. That will be the last I think about the keel, etc. I do hope this is the biggest sidetrack that I encounter.

2010-05-29T18:37:00.005-05:00

This morning's work went well. I set up a support structure and lifted the engine. The two forward engine mounts had to be lowered which amounts to sawing the mount bases off the hull and making two new ones. Thankfully, the two aft mounts have room to drop without modification of the bases. I fabricated two new bases for the forward mounts that I will epoxy and tape into place. Drop the engine back down and call this bit of jiggling complete. The new mounts to be bonded to the hull are simple (and upside down in the photo).

I know I discussed the mounts previously, but this is the single most insane design for stuffing an engine into the bilge that I have ever seen. The original Westerbeke was hung on the aft end from long steel straps with the engine mounts at the level of the top of the engine. You can see the mounts in the photo - the port mount is just under the dry riser and the starboard mount is next to the end of the heat exchanger. The forward mounts were long arms attached to the hull well forward of the engine supporting the Westerbeke in a cantilever fashion. Sparkman & Stephens must have thrown an engine in the plans at the last minute. This thing is "kluged" in the best engineering tradition.

2010-05-28T21:17:00.004-05:00

Whacked the stern tube out. And as we all know, one job leads to another. In this case, after peering into the now missing backside of Yankee's bilge, it seemed like a great occasion to fidget with the engine placement just a bit and then align the new tube to it. I always wanted to drop the engine about 3/4 of an inch. The total space available above and below the engine totals a whopping 2 1/4 inches. Really tight. But if I lower the engine just a tad, a nice 316 dry riser I had fabricated in Florida will fit perfectly. Yankee will have a clean 12 inch drop to the muffler.

I know, I am so far from where this particular adventure began that I cannot find all of the breadcrumbs, but the result will be a fit for the new engine, Aquadrive, Aquadrive bulkhead, shaft, stern tube, and cutless bearing that can only be achieved with this sort of attention. Happily, Yankee is built like a 1950s dump truck and she does not change shape enough upon reentering the water to make additional jiggling necessary. So, tomorrow I fidget with the engine position and next week will see the stern tube in and trim tab back on. Since there are no parts on the far side of the already reconditioned feathering prop, I should be able to get back to whatever it was that I was doing before ending up here.

2010-05-25T19:30:00.010-05:00

There are issues with the aft part of the keel. A weird weeping plug. The odd spongy spot. A couple of patches of dry glass that had never seen resin. I suppose most all of this is the product of age on a part of the boat that has never gotten a lot of attention, certainly not stripping down to glass. Even here, though, the boat is built like a tank.

All removed bits will be replaced with thickened epoxy, glass etc. before glassing the trim tab in place. The tab contained mud and some small mussels that somehow entered through a tiny crack in the bottom. I kept drilling the top and bottom and flushing the interior. It is now dry, plugged, and has layers of epoxy and cloth on the top and bottom.

One troubling and hopefully final issue with this small problematic area has been put to rest. I am going to whack out the old bronze stern tube and put in a new Vernatude. It will be 1.75" OD at the forward end to accept the PSS seal. The rest will be slipped inside a second 2" Vernatude sliding on a thin layer of epoxy. A 1.5" OD cutless bearing should slip in nicely. More on this soon.

2010-05-20T21:35:00.008-05:00

Good day, if itchy. The shaft log box (whatever) is cut away and ground to fit the water lift muffler. Next I will glass in the hole for the trim tab, build support for the muffler, and put the keel trim tab back in. The muffler will be a bit more than two inches lower. This is good. The PSS shaft seal will fit on the shaft log aft of the muffler, but still accessible (in the shadow in this photo - I will make a better one). It will be easier to adapt to the old bronze tube than to bore it out and install something else. The thing is still in great shape, so why not use it? The keel sump will no longer have the PSS seal blocking access and it will easily house the three bilge pumps. A little paint and all will be copasetic.

I do like the Aquadrive, but what a terrible paint job. Almost every part of the thing will rust like crazy in nothing more than high humidity. As part of the process above, I removed the Aquadrive and treated, primed, and painted the thing. Hopefully, it will no longer attempt to camouflage itself as a ball of rust..

2010-05-14T08:35:00.009-05:00

I whacked out the top of the stern "tube" (box, actually). The drive shaft is clearly visible as is the stock to the trim tab. I then spent several hours yesterday afternoon removing the PSS seal, Aquadrive, drive shaft, and trim tab stock. The Aquadrive is a a wonderful device, but it is a real pain to remove (and reinstall) as it has more stuff to unscrew than one can imagine. Aboard Yankee one does all of this unscrewing, knuckle smashing, swearing, sweating, etc. while hanging down into the bilge. Such a fun afternoon. Next up is to trim off more of the edges of the box, grind everything smooth, glass in the hole for the trim tab stock, and then figure out what to do with the old bronze shaft log. The replacement will likely be a fiberglass tube.

So as not to let the reciprocating saw get cold, I cut through the 1" stock to remove the trim tab. The tab will be glassed in once the cavity in the keel and the tab are cleaned.

As is so often the case, I am now completing a task that was not in the immediate plan. I was working on the new dinette. That required relocating house batteries to be sure everything would fit properly. Relocation exposed an old inspection port that led to exploration...and so on. In many ways I really enjoy this sort of project with its multiple threads. As a scientist, my research frequently works like this. I will be in the field trying to figure out a problem when a new piece of evidence will completely redirect the investigation. Lots of "ah, ha" moments. Time for a margarita.

2010-05-09T10:43:00.010-05:00

The things one discovers! Moving one of the house batteries exposed the remaining bit of bilge that has not been degreased and painted. Of course, there was an inspection plate that needed to be checked. Two of the bolt heads simply fell off. It was also kind of scary that someone had used some sort of white compound ON TOP of a crumbling gasket. Nice. The stern tube (box, actually) is there (I suspect) as a way to get both the trim tab stock and the propeller shaft into the same place. They almost touch. The propeller shaft is visible in the center of the box and the stock for the trim tab is just visible at the bottom center of the photo slightly to port (to the right) of the propeller shaft. What now?

First, I will degrease the area and be done with that chore for the entire boat. Next. I am going to try to cut through the stock just above the trim tab and then pull the one inch beast up and out. We shall see if this is possible. I previously removed the quadrant, pulleys, wires, etc. Why did I remove such an innovation (just like was used on the memorable S&S sailboat "Intrepid")? Three reasons. Yankee is now free of 50 lbs of space-hogging gear that controlled an ineffective device that had seven feet of turbulence-producing slots. Glassing the tab in will also permit me to fair the aft part of the keel properly.

One huge problem I had with the installation of a new engine was getting sufficient drop to the water lift muffler. I am now coveting part of this new space in order to drop the muffler a couple of inches.

2010-05-08T21:16:00.005-05:00

The dinette is coming along nicely. A house battery is under the aft part. Switches for the engine and main DC circuit and breakers for the DC panel, windlass, charger/inverter will be mounted behind a door in the pocket adjacent that battery. Circuit breakers will then be close to the house bank as required by ABYC. The engine and battery bank switches and DC panel and windlass fuses were in really hard to reach locations both forward and aft.

Two of three fresh water tanks are under construction and will fit under the center and forward parts. These two tanks will hold 25 and 20 gallons. One larger tank to starboard will hold 50 gallons. The tanks are stitch and glue marine ply with System Three epoxies. They are baffled and have large inspection ports. Each will have a thick interior coating of one of the new FDA approved epoxies for the interior of water tanks.

2010-05-02T21:46:00.004-05:00

The AC is almost in. A bit of insulated duct work, a little plumbing, and that job will be finished. The second photo is a rather modified plastic transition box. I cut the collar collar off a straight in box, rotated it 90 degrees, filled the space with an inflated balloon, and fabricated the structure with strips of cloth and epoxy. A bit more fairing compound and a coat of paint will do it.

2010-04-25T11:21:00.004-05:00

Moving the Mermaid AC unit is providing diversion until I get a chance to run down to Houston to choose mahogany lumber and plywood for the dinette and a bit of holly for the sole to finish up the woodwork part of the saloon remodel. The photo is of a new stitch and glue supply plenum made of 1/4 plywood with fabric reinforcement, wide internal fillets, lots of System Three laminating epoxy, etc. The sleeves are made of cloth and epoxy rolled up on appropriately-sized cylinders and sliced to length on my table saw. They are attached to the plenum with epoxy fillets. One more Saturday morning should about do it for the AC.

I also began moving wiring over to the new house battery location under the port settee. There is not an old wire in the lot. How nice.

2010-03-24T15:25:00.004-05:00

Most everything is off the mast now. Only four of the 150 screws in the trysail track refused to give it up. (I cannot imagine drilling and tapping for 150 screws in the first place.) The mast should be completely stripped by this weekend. It only took two months of an hour here and an hour there. Much less frustrating that way, I am sure.

2010-03-22T12:39:00.004-05:00

Sometimes one just gets lucky. I was out putzing around in the dinghy away from our anchorage at Punta Balandra when this large humpback tooled by. He repeatedly surfaced right in front of me as he worked his way out into the open Sea of Cortez. For some unknown reason all I could do was put my hands on my head and make incoherent noises. What an astonishing moment!

2010-03-12T15:05:00.005-06:00

Framing up the new dinette is going well. There is provision here for two freshwater tanks, one for drinking and one for the new Lavac head. An 8D battery will also live under the seats.

Nine-inch-deep drawers will fit in the aft and center openings in the back rest. The forward opening will be hinged and will house the water tank manifold. All will be hidden by cushions.

Teak for the sole arrived from Florida. I have yet to obtain the holly. I am also still searching for 1/2" plywood that looks something like the old Philippine "mahogany."

2010-03-10T15:16:00.004-06:00

Hardware is yielding very slowly to every devious persuasion that I can dream up. It is not uncommon to spend an hour on one item. In general, these are the things I have learned.

1) Never be in a hurry. PB Blaster will often do its job, but not as fast as usual. I found that after several squirts over several days, screws would budge a half turn or so. Following more of the same, a full turn. After a couple of turns, all come out easily. The worst screws are taking a full month of this occasional process, but they are giving up.

2) Use an impact screwdriver wherever possible.

3) Never mess up a screw head. Every possible bit of square contact is necessary to budge a slightly loosened screw (often with the assistance of a wrench on the shaft of the screwdriver).

4) As a last resort, drill out several screws in sequence lubricating each in turn. The bit stays cool and lasts a lot longer.

5) I found the best way to take a 40-year-old aluminum cleat off was to cut it. Each part could then be spun off with Vise-Grips as the stainless screws were permanently seized in the cleat.

6) I have found moderate heat to be ineffective. I am unwilling to really blast the aluminum.

7) After painting, all screws which will all be new will be coated with Tef-Gel before use.

2010-02-08T10:51:00.008-06:00

The old integral tanks are now trash. Plans are drafted. A full-size mockup is complete. An old drawer front was cannibalized for corner trim and plugs. It is not easy matching forty-year-old "Philippine" mahogany.

2010-02-01T18:43:00.004-06:00

Remodeling begins. Tearing out the settee and pilot berth are no big deal. All of the "Philippine mahogany" will be carefully saved. The 65 gallon fiberglass water tank that is one with the hull is going to provide lots of entertainment. I should be able to bend a large Sawzall blade flat to the hull and cut the thing out. We shall see come this weekend. Whatever else happens it is certainly going to be loud, dusty, and itchy.

Materials for the new dinette including teak and holly for the floor are ordered. Progress posts will follow.

The model for the dinette is from a Sparkman & Stephens classic 37 by the name of Amanzi. Same design firm. Same beam.

2010-01-24T08:45:00.006-06:00

The haul went just fine. Yankee is resting quietly on jack stands not far away which is a big change from the 4.5 hour trip to the coast. The crane registered 16,300 lbs which I thought was great given Yankee is documented at 16 NRT and she had about 60 gallons of water and 30 gallon of fuel aboard although she was minus her mast and rigging. I am going to do what I can to keep the waterline high over the course of this rebuild.

We brought the mast to my house for a complete revamping and painting. I began trying to remove the 1, 437 screws (just barely kidding) with an impact screwdriver after treating with PB Blaster. Nothing moved. This is going to be a challenge.

2010-01-18T20:18:00.004-06:00

I give up. No more trying to get significant work done driving to Galveston (five hours each way if all goes well), working for a few hours, and then driving back. So, Yankee is headed to Dallas for the rest of this refurbishing. The commute will shrink to a mere five minutes. A bunch of projects are in the offing including getting rid of the port settee and pilot berth and putting in a cozy dinette with more storage. Water and holding tanks will change. The head will be reoriented ninety degrees and receive a new toilet. The cockpit will be modified to improve people flow and drainage. The mast will be stripped and completely rebuilt (hardware, spreaders , wiring, instruments, etc.) and painted white. Then there will be all new paint everywhere else. The topsides are going back to their original blue with gold cove stripe. The details will appear here. Advice is always welcome.

2009-11-10T14:04:00.003-06:00

Has work ever slowed! Lots of projects as a faculty member at the University of Texas at Dallas are keeping me occupied. And then there is this addition to the family. Darwin requires a lot of running and such. He is a great deal of fun, though.

I have been detaching everything from the deck in anticipation of painting. This is a tedious job. I have also been removing varnish. This is also a tedious job. Next will come filling and sanding and priming and painting. All tedious jobs. The result should be spectacular. I hope.

2009-08-17T12:20:00.006-05:00

I have never been able to get rid of a slight lingering odor from a holding tank or hose or whatever source. The head is plumbed with fresh water and, thus, the bowl never smells from decaying plankton pumped in from the bay. The head is rarely used anyway and is always pumped out and rinsed right away. The vent hose originally looped down and was kinked. That I replaced upon purchasing Yankee. This vent hose remains inadequate (read Peggy Hall) in ID, overall length, and upward angle. I replaced one malodorous hose that connected the head to the tank (hose removed and inlet sealed in this photo). Although it has an improper but unavoidable low spot in it, the pump out hose was not producing the odor. This weekend I finally got tired of the entire setup and ripped everything out. Stainless is a piss-poor material for a holding tank, anyway.

Where to go from here?

Decisions. Decisions.

2009-08-17T12:12:00.004-05:00

The new swim platform is finished. I cut up a 4/4 teak board, glued and blind screwed the pieces together, tapered the forward edge to match the transom, and mounted the Dive-N-Dog ladder. The trick will now be to attach this thing to the transom. It must be able to survive everything from getting ripped off by waves to impact by dinghies. I have two substantial stainless brackets that should provide serious support. Coupled with large stainless backing plates, the platform should be able to take a beating if the occasion arises.

2009-06-28T16:31:00.005-05:00

Last weekend I went on a quest to see what temperature differences can be observed for different topside colors. At left is the first experiment with my infrared temperature gun simply shooting the Perfection color chart. Few surprises. Wandering around the marina and selecting topsides of different colors that had similar attitude to the sun produced similar overall results except that the range of temperatures observed was much greater. Yankee was 91 degrees while a nearby boat with flag blue topsides registered 151. While it is difficult to tell what variation air conditioning might play on a specific boat, I tagged various other topsides and found similar results comparing a first group with and a second group without air conditioning running. Yankee's new white topsides are looking better all the time. The heat in Galveston can get you down a bit, especially in the afternoon. Yankee's air conditioning is noticeably more effective with this lessened heat load. When I get the decks painted a similar white, I expect to be even more satisfied. I am now curious about the differences while out sailing.

2009-06-27T16:10:00.008-05:00

The new headstay and furler are a reality. We were quite impressed with the Harken package. Good friends and experienced boat owners Terry and Ken helped me take down the old furler, headstay, etc. and replace them with all new components. The Harken instructions were spot on. Every part fit perfectly. Harken even gives you spares for the odd screw and such that get whoopsed into the water. Restoration projects would go a lot more smoothly if all manufacturers provided well-thought-out instructions. It is not every day that you put in a new engine or whatever. So, who gets the worst marks for "Installation Instructions"? Aquadrive. Absolutely pathetic. I love the device. It is a great piece of machinery. But I had to guess my way through much of the process and it is not particularly intuitive. Some of the figures are purely interpretive, no text. So, Aquadrive, write a manual that is in keeping with your excellent product!

2009-06-09T22:32:00.004-05:00

What better time to change the roller furling than while waiting to get the new pulpit welded together? The old (ancient) Harken furler is mostly off. Figuring out how to take the thing apart was a mystery eventually solved by several of us on my dock. Unlike the new model (a Harken MKIV Unit 1) there are a lot of bits screwed or pinned into other bits on the old one. It is not at all obvious how to dismantle it. Having been smashed up a bit during Ike meant nothing slid past anything else and not a part came off without force. The whole lot was buried in the guts of the bent and seized lower unit of the furler. I was half tempted to simply get my Sawzall with a big stainless-cutting blade and go after the thing. PB Blaster, a pipe wrench, and a hammer were the tools of choice. Oh, and beer.

Of course, why didn't I guess by now, but some idiot had welded an extension onto a swaged threaded stud (that was also bent). A welded swage fitting? Who does that?

I just ordered a new 5/16" 1x19 headstay, Sta-Lok eye, stud, and turnbuckle, and a Harken 5/8" pin toggle. Soon this whole mess will be in tip-top shape. I still might have at it with the Sawzall just for the fun of it.

If you look closely you can see the remains of the anemometer. The poor thing is cupless. I will get around to installing a new one at some point. Perhaps a Maretron might be nice.

2009-06-07T08:43:00.005-05:00

It was time to get over my anxiety and attempt to bend some 316 stainless tubing for a new pulpit. The anxiety had to do with all the stories I had heard about crimping and flat spots, and other failures. Much advice falls into the category of "Don't try this at home." At about $100 per section of pipe, crimping it up has an immediate consequence to one's pocket, but the idea of simply trashing pieces of pipe in failed experiments was worse.

I built Don Casey's tubing bender (figured in This Old Boat) with two ideas comforting me. One, Don has provided all sorts of reliable advice in the past. Two, if this thing did not work I could blame him! So, here it is, two pieces of birch plywood glued together to make a rather rigid slab. I cut the circle (of proper radius) out of the corner with a band saw but will use a router in the future. If you have not bent 316 tubing, the stuff is difficult, really difficult. The eight foot 2x4 provides an adequate lever, but I should have used rather larger plywood so that four people could stand on it without getting in the way of the moving bits. If you cannot get the plywood to stay put, the lever will rotate the entire device including the people standing on it and the tubing will laugh at you.

Cutting to the chase, I swung the arm, it gripped the pipe, and the tubing was pulled around the circle. Perfect. The process was a ten second anticlimax. If you are having bending anxiety, try this thing. I will probably bend all sorts of other components with it.

I cut "mouths"and bevels in other pieces of tubing to make the additional components. It amazing how easily stainless cuts as long as you go slowly and use a lot of lubricant. A good welder will stick all the bits together. The welds will need to be passivated. I expect the process of grinding, sanding, and polishing to take a while.

2009-06-02T20:18:00.003-05:00

Yes, indeed. Sometimes you just want to do some surgery. Figuring the completely neglected, ugly green thing was surely long overdue for replacement, I removed a 40-year-old bronze Wilcox-Crittenden "full-way" seacox that was plumbed for overboard discharge of the head. What a hunk of metal! I threw the thing in a box and took it home not knowing what else to do with it. Now, after spending a few minutes disassembling and cleaning it, the thing appears to be in near perfect condition. Who knows what a massive device like this would cost today? Nobody makes a tank like this anymore. A high-end Groco bronze thru-hull looks like a toy compared to this beast. Incredible.

2009-05-31T15:42:00.007-05:00

Yankee's new transom. The heavy vinyl lettering is from Gulfstream Gear. With a little care the application is easy. We purchased a Dive-n-Dog ladder that will bolt on just below the hailing port lettering. Kind of jammed up, I know, but there is not much space.

2009-05-31T15:11:00.008-05:00

Before and after photos of the starboard bow. Some of those scratches were pretty deep. It took approximately 15 applications of two-part epoxy fairing compound (alternating tan-colored System Three and blue Interlux) with lots of long board sanding in order to repair this damage. New LED nav lights fit in the recesses. We have gold mylar tape for the cove. The new teak toe rail is also almost in. Some 3/4 inch plugs and a bead of Sikaflex for bedding are up next.

I am not going to revarnish. An architect friend in the UK highly recommended Semco teak sealer after using it on his Westerly for years. I will try almost anything to avoid the tedium and ultimate anguish of varnishing. As far as I am concerned, there are only two reasons to do much varnishing. One is that you are a dedicated masochist. The second is that you have buckets of money to regularly hand over to someone else to do the varnishing. I apparently fit into neither category.

Painting the deck, renewing the nonskid, bolting on the new pulpit to replace the one that was crushed, and stringing up new lifelines will bring the deck back to proper condition.

2009-05-20T21:00:00.006-05:00

We had Yankee put back in the water and then made the trek back to our marina. The trip through the ICW is usually pretty much uneventful aside from sometimes having to sort out a bit of a traffic jam of barges at the Galveston causeway railroad bridge. The gap is so narrow that only one barge at a time is all that can squeeze through. With a cross wind barges approach the gap at an angle and then kick the stern in at the last moment to shoot the gap at full throttle while hoping not to get blown into the numerous (banged up) pilings on either side. We were only about 30 meters behind a barge out of New Orleans when we went though. The maneuvers are fascinating to watch.

Of note is the performance of the new engine and repitched prop. Two thousand rpm produced 6.5 knots. We sustained 7.2 knots at 2,400. Theoretical hull speed of Yankee is 7.1. Since hull speed should theoretically be reached at a minimum of 85% of maximum rpm, I think the next time the boat comes out of the water, we will repitch down to 26 degrees. We are close, though.

The Aquadrive did its job to reduce noise and pretty much eliminate vibration. Of note, the Aquadrive thrust bearing gets hot until it is run in. Upon asking about this I was informed that it will reach 65 to 70 degrees C for a while, an aspect that I could not find in any Aquadrive literature. Finally, the new PSS dripless packing is in and working perfectly. For the first time in her life Yankee has a completely dry bilge.

Next up....some sailing.

2009-05-17T21:29:00.004-05:00

Attempt One: This adventure painting the topsides has been traumatic. I first tried the Interlux Perfection color (Lauderdale Blue) closest to the original Hinckley light blue. Once one side was painted I found the color simply dreadful. It had all the class of some of the paint Detroit chose for its cars in the 80s. Yech! Additionally, no matter how much I experimented with roller covers, rolling technique, brush tipping technique, thinner amount, area covered per roll and tip application, Feng Shui, etc., the finish never leveled out to my satisfaction. I spent half a day removing the dreadful blue with an orbital sander and 220 grit discs.

Attempt Two: I resorted to snow white applied with a firm, closed-cell foam roller with 9% 2333N solvent (10% is the maximum). I both tipped and did not tip. The result is that this paint will suffice until the next haul out when I will sand it all flat (at least it will be a nice base coat at that point!) and I will get a skilled friend to shoot two coats of Imron. Until I can see my face like looking in a mirror and not see any orange peel texture or hints of ridges from the brush, I am not going to be satisfied. Topsides just must be right.

One interesting note, in online videos demonstrating application of Perfection, the roller cover used is apparently one of those solvent resistant yellow ones that all the chandleries sell. Those things are pure bubble factories. The white, closed-cell foam roller covers from Home Depot or West Marine produced far (far!) fewer bubbles. I confirmed this result half a dozen times as I sought various ways to obtain a better result. I even tried adding a second person to either roll or tip. It turns out that I am fast enough to do both jobs and maintain a wet edge. That was not the answer.

Finally, one yard employee after another came by shaking his head knowingly and inquiring if I was happy with a roll and tip finish. They all knew the answer. I was certainly not the first person to exhibit a degree of frustration. The best roll and tip finish any of them could recall was done by a husband and wife team on a big Hatteras. Apparently the couple had had a good bit of practice and the result was pretty good (not sprayed good, though). The guys confirmed that no one else they had seen was in their league. I am not in their league.

Looks good from this distance, yes? Despite my protestations, the finish is not that bad even from a couple of meters. It is just not what I had hoped for. Imron next time.

2009-05-12T21:17:00.009-05:00

Yankee has been hauled for painting and to complete other projects such as installing a new PSS dripless seal and removing a 40-year-old thru-hull/seacock.

The trip over to Pier77 in Galveston was uneventful and was a nice test of the new engine. I kept thinking both how quiet the Volvo was and how I just was not making the headway I expected. Both observations were accurate. I called Max-Prop for advice. They were most helpful. I gave the fellow on the phone all of the parameters he requested. It turned out that my 14-inch prop was on the small side. He expected me to have a 16-inch prop. When I told him the prop was pitched at 14 degrees (the setting for the old Westerbeke 4.107 engine - which was also incorrect), he paused a moment and connected me with another fellow. They both came up with a pitch of 28 degrees. I thanked them and dutifully tore down the prop, degreased everything, dissolved the remains of barnacles in an overnight vinegar bath, scrubbed the parts with a fine pad, packed the gears with waterproof grease, reassembled the bits for 28 degrees, and put stainless cotter pins in the six bolts. (Newer Max-Props have set screws that can be swapped for zerc fittings which makes greasing much easier.) I will bet my impression on the way home is one of how quiet the engine is. The only worry now is that the pitch ratio is rather high suggesting inefficiency. I will deal with this later.

Now that the bottom has two thick coats of Interlux Micron Extra, my attention has turned to the seemingly endless prepping required before painting the topsides. More about this adventure shortly.

2009-04-04T08:19:00.015-05:00

Replacing worn galley counter tops makes a great difference. You can imagine how lovely the 40-year-old Formica and equally ancient mahogany trim were. Happily, the Formica Corporation still makes the same exact color of almond. The new laminate was applied over the old after first degreasing, then thoroughly scoring with a really rough sanding disk, and finally using contact cement formulated for adhering laminate to laminate. Extra strips of laminate were used to keep the new separated from the old until positioning was correct. Use a hard rubber roller for best results. Finally, the edge overlap was trimmed with a router. One modification of note is that the new fiddles are considerably taller now.

The ice box now sports six inches of closed cell foam and a small Rule pump in a sump to remove meltwater. This setup is fantastic. Ice lasts for a week and nothing sloshes about. The blue tape is off now that varnishing is completed. The coffee pot in a sliding drawer is also new and it works well. All good.

2009-02-03T19:27:00.005-06:00

This weekend I was in the starboard lazarette in order to install a new Volvo Penta engine control at the helm. New Teleflex black cables were also run. The old creaking, two-handle MJB was retired.

The photo is of the Mermaid cool/reverse cycle heat unit (16,000 Btu) that I installed 2 1/2 years ago. It has performed flawlessly. I love it when a product works as advertised with no peculiarities. My only wish would be that the fan was a little quieter, but that is not a major issue.

Condensation runs to a sump that also handles the ice box and the shower drain. It works well and never gets overwhelmed.

Doors

2009-01-27T20:01:00.009-06:00

We finally tired of taking the hatch boards out every time we popped in or out of the saloon. I designed and built these teak doors so they fit in the channels for the hatch boards and they pop out by undoing only two screws. The long stainless screws are at the top of each corner. Hinges are stainless and continuous. The glass is tempered. I figure these will be fine for day to day activities. They will be pulled when headed offshore as we prefer to trust solid 3/4 inch teak to take a load of water. I would not recommend making a set of doors without constructing a full-scale set out of plywood or foamboard or whatever. The angles can be subtle, but you must get them correct. Build in features (lap joints, gaskets, etc.) to keep the water and weather out. The light is terrific below decks when spending time aboard. The doors survived the full force of Hurricane Ike with no damage at all.

Shades

2009-01-26T16:08:00.005-06:00

It is nice to take a break from the heavy lifting of replacing an engine to sit down at the sewing machine for a quick project. It took only a couple of hours to make these Sunbrella Shade "curtains" and only about an hour to put in the snaps. The coverings match the color of the canvas topsides. Living in Texas, these things are wonderful as they knock down heat like crazy. I figure they are worth at least 2,000 BTUs of cooling. Pretty good for under $50. The other advantage is that they are not bulky and thus do not visually clutter up the place. Perhaps the one disadvantage is that they are not great for privacy at night. No big deal.

It runs well, very well

2009-01-24T11:03:00.012-06:00

What a difference. I love this setup.

A few more modifications have been required. The D2-40 now sits high enough to touch the new sound barrier I put on the bottom of the solid teak and holly floors. The only change I had to make was to move the coolant tank off the engine and mount it forward. The raw water filter and March AC pump are now in a nice open spot. The automatic fire extinguisher is just off to port. It is great having access to the front of the engine now. For the first time, I can get to the raw water pump without special tools. With the old Westerbeke, the battery box (that was in this now open space) was three inches from the front of the engine. Changing an impeller was almost impossible. The big 8D battery is now located just aft of the engine. The move required some rewiring, battery box modification, etc., but was well worth the trouble.

Because the Aquadrive required the engine to be mounted several inches forward, I used the space aft of the transmission and above the Aquadrive to install a large, inline Centek wet exhaust. (There is zero space for a water lift anywhere below the level of the transmission.) The Centek is huge. I calculate that it only fills to about 1/4 of its volume when all of the water from the hoses on either end drain into it when the engine is shut down. There seems to be remarkably little water in it when running. All of the hoses are cool. I can put my hand on pretty much any part of the exhaust or engine when it is up to temperature. This is a far different situation than existed with the old engine. No longer is this a worrisome and rather obnoxious system. The old Westerbeke 4-107, once rebuilt, will live again in a lovely old Alden.

Models

2009-01-21T10:51:00.008-06:00

I simply could not figure out which engine would fit without making a model of the bilge. Perhaps it is more accurate to say that I could not make any engine fit without using a model. No engines on the market in the 35-40 horsepower range would fit without building special mounts. The forward mounts had be modified to have closer centers. The aft mounts could only be hangers, for lack of a better word.

This is the pattern with cushy mounts attached. I know it is pretty weird looking, but it worked well.

We purchased a new Volvo Penta D2-40, the engine that was closest to fitting and whose mounts were easily modified. I fashioned half-inch-thick 6061 aluminum into appropriate mount modifications. A plywood pattern of the new mounts permitted installation of new tabs (engine bed) on which to hang the engine. Each tab is two pieces of marine 3/4 plywood laminated together with System Three epoxy (my favorite stuff). Each was attached to the hull first with thickened epoxy and then with ten layers of ten ounce cloth top and bottom. The original tabs were attached with heavy mat, but they were in the wrong place and had to be removed. The result is extremely rigid.

The new cushy mounts are pretty soft. In addition to that, I wanted to keep the engine as quiet as possible given its location. This led me to purchase an Aquadrive from the UK. The Aquadrive consists of a thrust plate and two CV joints. Although expensive, it permits some misalignment and it allows the engine to jiggle about on soft mounts without torquing the transmission or shaft. It also dramatically reduces driveline noise.

Mounting the thrust plate required epoxying in a strong bulkhead. The bulkhead on Yankee is composed of two pieces of half inch marine ply attached with Gorilla glue to either side of half inch 6061 aluminum plate. Stainless bolts with large washers and lock nuts tie the pieces together mechanically. The bulkhead was glued into the hull with thickened epoxy; edges were filleted and covered with four layers of tape set in epoxy; and two layers of cloth set in epoxy were applied to both faces. White bilge paint finished the piece. In the photo the engine had not yet been aligned and bolted in.

An Aquadrive requires exceedingly careful alignment. The angles of each CV joint relative to the Aquadrive shaft should be equal and must not exceed noted parameters for both angle to shaft and rpm. Additionally, the distance between the opposing faces of the CV joints must be within critical tolerance, within a mm or two (depending on model). I used a dial micrometer to measure the distance between respective tops, bottoms and port and starboard edges. Those values are summed and divided by four. Adjusting the tightness of the two bolts that secure the thrust bearing to its bulkhead compressed the plump rubber washers slightly. This was sufficient to hit the mark for my CVB05.10. I checked alignment and distances again after running the engine a few hours. A miniscule bit of tweaking was necessary. Much of one's success aligning an Aquadrive begins with getting the bulkhead set very close to right on before permanently glassing, welding, etc. it into place. If you are too far off (even a millimeter or two) you may be forced to move your engine a bit.

Two new bilge pumps and two alarms were also installed. A third electric bilge pump will go in at some point. That is in addition to the enormous bronze, one-gallon-per-stroke manual pump that lives below the galley sink. What a beast.

Out with the old

2009-01-21T09:07:00.007-06:00

1969 Westerbeke 4-107 with a Paragon transmission. The engine mounts are quite unusual and were a custom Hinckley item that permitted insertion of an engine into a space that is actually too narrow for it to fit into. (More about engine mounts later.) This engine is going into a friend's classic Alden following a minor rebuild.

Removing the old iron can be more of a challenge than one might think. Forty-year-old engines have generations of wires and hoses to detach. I carefully labeled and photographed each before detaching anything. This process required pretty much one full day of work. My friend Don and I devised and carried out a successful plan.

Once detached from the boat, lifting the 525 lb engine up and out was not all that difficult, but a great deal of planning is required in order to prevent smashing the greasy beast into something. Once in the cockpit, the boom was used to swing the 4-107 onto a waiting cart on the finger pier. The assistance of a few of your clever and strong friends can be a great asset in this process. One tip, pad and shield every surface that the engine could possibly come into contact with. An engine dangling from a chain will swing dangerously if one of your helpers merely shifts his/her weigh. Do also be careful moving the engine with the boom. Run a spare halyard from high up the mast to the point of connection to the engine. When you swing the engine the boat will heel. A lot. If you do not have control of the mainsheet, a disaster will surely ensue. Be careful. Think each step through very carefully.

Now the real fun was at hand. A bilge caked with 40-year-old drippings from a diesel engine is a hideous place. We began by scraping the gunk off. We found screws, bolts, nuts, a hinge, hose clamps, a screwdriver, a socket, and other bits embedded in the tar-like substance. The next step was using a bronze brush alternating Simple Green with Dawn. We eventually graduated to blasting with a power washer. All greasy liquids should be sucked out of the bilge with a big wet vac. Keep the bilge pumps off. In all, degreasing the bilge required approximately 30 iterations. Old grease does not give up easily.

Hello

2009-01-21T08:14:00.006-06:00

As anyone who owns one knows, restoration of an old sailboat can be daunting, particularly if you are interested in returning your boat to "Bristol" condition. We are fortunate to have a boat with a charmed history of caring owners. Yankee suffered some damage from Hurricane Ike in September of 2008 when the sailboat in the next slip lost its mast. That boat sank and ended up with a big Beneteau on top of her. The mast smashed onto Yankee's bow crunching the pulpit and scratching up the topsides a bit. The insurance settlement was adequate and all damage will be repaired.

Hurricane Ike was a surprise to many, including me. I stayed away for most of the storm but drove to Galveston from the west early Saturday morning as the winds were starting to abate. I was almost blown off a couple of overpasses, nonetheless. No traffic lights were functi

oning. Emergency teams were going door to door rescuing people. The water was so high that we could not get into my marina until the afternoon and then only aboard a fire engine and a big 4x4 diesel truck. The damage to the marina was done mostly by the backside of the storm as it swept a huge washing machine of water in from the flooded marsh, not from the bay.

NASA GOES-12 image of Ike @ 0732 UTC 12 Sep 08. Location of Yankee indicated. None of us can adequately imagine the chaos that must have prevailed. The floating docks are perhaps the strongest on the Gulf coast and some of them were torn out along with several boats, some secured with enough heavy lines to tow a barge. My lines, those still attached, were like plastic. You could break them with a hammer. They had gotten so hot from the working that they essentially changed into a different material. One of those silly things one notices among all of the destruction was a zillion threads twisted around Yankee's shrouds and halyards. The air must have been thick with shredded sails and biminis and the like. We all survived, even if some of the boats did not.

Our projects aboard Yankee to date include such items as new A/C and reverse cycle heat, new stove and complete propane system, AGM house and starter batteries, numerous other rebuilds, and, a new engine. I will begin this blog with the engine. Installing a new engine in the narrow V of a bilge is not for the faint-of-heart.