Outfitting - A Boat Out of Water - Part Two

The long, hard weekend haul-out is done and we are back home for two weeks while the boat sits on the buoy up north, bottom freshly painted and pristine.

There were no major problems and parts of the weekend were actually kind of fun, but we're wicked tired tonight.

We were scheduled to have the boat lifted at the Port of Port Townsend's Shipyard at 12:30PM on Friday. We had to motor up from the south end of the bay, and I wanted to spend a little time troubleshooting some ugly autopilot problems which had reared their head on the way up from Seattle, so we left a little early... around 8:30AM. After messing about with the autopilot (another post on that later), we headed to the Boat Haven at the north end of the bay.

We tied up at the lift staging area and checked in at the yard office. Since we were early, they offered to pick us as soon as they were ready next--almost an hour early. We jumped at the chance for more time on the hard: the yard costs for your first and last day are waived, so we had booked back to back lift and drop days to save money. Every extra minute out of the water had value.

The yard staff were great. They asked a bit about our hull configuration, looked at some pictures we had from the inspection haul-out (and shook their heads--apparently it was done extremely poorly by the yard in Seattle, which made sense to me when they explained why), and then went and got their travel-lift. They waved us forward into the U-shaped dock the lift sits over and jockeyed us into position over the straps quickly and competently. We were up and out of the water in no time and after a quick pause at dock level so we could hop off, the boat was trundling through the yard in the slings.

We got a half-hour (more like forty-five minutes; it was their lunch break) in the washdown facility and we used the pressure sprayers to blast a couple years worth of Lake Union slime off the hull. I was a little worried as we did; it was nice to get the thing clean, but the sprayers were taking off paint down to the glass in some places... not a good sign. But all the slime came off, and the lift moved the boat over to our tarps and the yard crew blocked it up. They eyeball everything but they've done it so often that, although playful, the operation is safe and the result solid as a rock. They put wood blocks under the keel and fore and aft, and then adjustable pads to either side to steady the whole thing. When it's all done, it's sturdy enough to walk on. We walked over to Sea J's for some lunch while they were finished up.

When the yard crew was done, we (only Mandy and I at that point; all our help was coming up later in the day) immediately started sanding. Something to watch for on fiberglass hulls is something called blistering--water intrusion into the gelcoat and fiberglass laminate which comprise the hull. Although most glass boats experience this to some degree and in many cases it's a strictly cosmetic issue, at worst it can dramatically delaminate the hull and hurt the structural integrity of the vessel. The surveyor had pointed some of this out when the boat was hauled out for the pre-purchase inspection and so I looked for it now. Fortunately, there was nothing worse visible now than then. We were only sanding enough to rough up the surface for the next coat, not to take it all the way down, so it went quickly.

Something we did find that was a problem was a long crack at the front of the keel, where the lead meets the fiberglass hull. This sort of thing is not unheard of on older boats (it's so common on a certain era of Catalina 30's that it's known as the "Catalina Smile") and although it seemed to indicate that the keel was falling off, I wasn't actually too worried--I check the keel bolts regularly and there's been no sign of movement, and the keel didn't budge when pushed, so it seemed mostly to be an issue with the paint cracking off. I decided to patch it with some epoxy and shredded fiberglass and then paint it again (you can see the patch job to the right on this photo).

Mandy actually ended up doing most of the sanding, since I had to run over to West Marine for some rags and resin. We were able to start painting within a couple hours of the haul-out, much better than we had expected, and important to give the paint some good drying time.

It doesn't really take all that long to paint a boat. Other than some tricky bits around thru-hulls and the prop shaft, it's all long, unobstructed surface. The paint is some nasty stuff--we used Pettit Unepoxy, a hard bottom paint (hard meaning it stays on--some marine bottom paints are ablative, designed to flake off as crap attaches to keep the bottom smooth) and it's a bear to mix properly. The stuff has heavy metals in it as the active ingredient to prevent marine life from taking up residence, so you have to re-stir it frequently as you work. We used rollers to put it on and it went on thick and fast.

Our work crew showed up when we were about half done--Ed and Terry took off work early and showed up around 4:00PM. Ed took over painting and Terry gave me a lift back to my parent's place so I could pick up our truck with the additional supplies in it. As it happened, we didn't need most of what I brought... the painting was pretty much done when I got back. We finished up and called it a night.

Matt, Lindsay, and Luke showed up later in the evening and Terry fed us a fabulous dinner.

We headed back to the yard early on Saturday and did some touch up work on the paint and some other random bottom work (cleaning the knot log impeller, replacing the propeller shaft zinc) but the big focus of the day was getting the radome mounted and other topside work done. It's much easier, we've found, to work up the mast when the boat isn't wobbling around below. Actually, even on solid ground it's a little wobbly up there, but it's better than doing it on the water. Mandy and I took turns getting hoisted up and riveting the mount on, bolting the radome to it, and hooking everything together. Below, we had Matt and Ed working on caulking, while Terry made provisioning runs, and Luke and Lindsay went hunting for a new portlight (the old one having been snapped in two during caulking operations).

I'll put another post up dealing with the radome mounting, since it was a project in and of itself, but we finished it up about an hour before we were scheduled to get picked up again.

After the yard crew brought the travel lift over and hoisted us off the blocks, we made a hurried round of sanding and touch-ups to get the bottom of the keel and areas covered up by the blocking. It didn't get a lot of dry time but they were small patches so hopefully it was enough.

They put us back in the water with no problems. The crane operator asked me right after I went back in if I wanted to check my bilge, if I'd done any thru-hull work or similar, before the slings came off--apparently it's not all that uncommon that people will have taken apart thru-hulls and reassembled them improperly and find a geyser down below as soon as they get back in the water. I hadn't messed with any of the holes in the bottom, however, so I just backed out and tied up at the staging float so we could load all our food and gear. Matt and I hauled it all down to the float and onto the boat (minus one can of corn, which "sleeps with the fishes" now). I also filled the water tank up, cleared the deck up as best I could, and then we headed south for the mooring while Mandy drove the truck back.

Terry made another great dinner and we all went to bed early and exhausted.

I spent the day today organizing and stowing all the food and junk we loaded aboard, and got probably 90% of it done. All things considered, we got less done than I had hoped, but all the important stuff is out of the way. Still, we'll probably need a day or so to take care of other odd jobs before I'll be comfortable taking her across the Strait.

We really want to thank Ed and Terry, and Matt and Lindsay for taking the time to come all the way up this weekend; we never would have got through everything that we did without them, and even if we had, it wouldn't have been nearly as much fun. Thanks!