2.9.4 Refurbish the Boat
Do the work.
We
started the refurbishing work as soon as we brought her home on July 8, and
concluded just before taking her down to the river for sea trials on November
5, working intermittently evenings and weekends, except when we were out of
town on vacation or for business travel, and except for Sundays in September
and October, when we were serving as race crew on Lightnings, or on race
committee, in the PRSA fall series 2000.
One
needed item of refurbishing we overlooked was the required repair to the hole
in the centerboard trunk where the pin goes through. We didn’t understand what we were looking at when we first
removed the faceplates (we had decided then not to remove the centerboard, so
never gave the pin another thought). So
it wasn’t until after we started racing in the PRSA spring 2001 series, and went
to investigate the mysterious leak of water coming past the centerboard pin
face plates, that we understood what had happened, and what repair was
needed. More on that later.
The
major boat refurbishing activities included:
·
Remove all hardware,
including the sail track, from the boom, and the metal pole ends from the
spinnaker poles;
·
Remove all hardware from
the deck and cockpit;
·
Strip old varnish from
all wooden parts (boom, spinnaker poles, seats, floorboards, splash shield, and
coaming);
·
Make replacements, and
replace broken pieces of seats and floorboards;
·
Re-varnish all woodwork;
·
Re-install all woodwork;
·
Reinstall all hardware;
·
Caulk and seal the seams
for the forward and aft air tanks;
·
Re-finish the hull
exterior (gel-coat);
·
Add names, numbers, and
graphics to the hull;
·
Replace the canvas
rudder bag;
·
Inspect and replace
rigging as needed.
The
most challenging part of this project was removing the old varnish. We tried every chemical stripper on the
market and found that getting down to bare wood was hard, dirty, disgusting
work that still required heavy-duty sanding to finish it up. We started the sanding with a borrowed
orbital sander, but really didn’t get anywhere with that, and decided that we
needed a heavy-duty belt sander to get down to clean wood. So we bought one. Even with that we couldn’t completely eliminate the black stains
where water had leaked through cracks and bare spots in the varnish, and the
chemical bleach and spot remover products we tried didn’t help much
either. We finally gave up trying to
remove the worst of these spots, and just varnished over them, leaving them as
testimony to the “character” of the boat.
The
other activities were much more straightforward. We elected to repaint the hull with a high-gloss polyurethane
solid color paint, rather than restore the gel-coat. That was fast and easy, but restoring the gel-coat would have
been better, as the paint does come off when the hull rubs up against the dock
(or other boats). The deck hardware
came off easily and went back on the same way.
The only problem there was in bolts that had been installed, then cut to
a shorter length with bolt cutters. The
bolt cutters had destroyed the threads in end of the remaining part of the
bolt, making it difficult to remove then nuts (often stripping the threads on
the nuts in the process) and requiring filing and cutting to restore the
threads on the bolts before reinstalling.
One
thing I would do if we ever do this again is to make detailed sketches and take
photographs of the installed locations of all hardware and wooden parts, before
removing them. When four months
pass between removal and reinstallation, what looked logical and easy to
remember during removal suddenly becomes a giant puzzle when time to reinstall,
when all you’ve got is a pile of wooden parts and cans full of hardware and
fasteners.
Keeping
detailed records of the diameter, length, and type of metal of all removed
fasteners (bolts, nuts, washers, screws) would have been smart, as it was often
difficult, during re-assembly, to figure out what fasteners went where. Since some of these fasteners broke during
their removal, measuring and recording the measurements before removing
the fasteners would also have been a great idea.
Finally
we acquired a canvas mast cover and trailering top cover and new hiking straps,
and replaced the jib and spinnaker sheets (the main sheet was still
serviceable), and the boat was refurbished.
Except
for the leak around the centerboard pin, that is.
After
we started sailing in the spring series, we thought that the small amount
collecting in the floor of the cockpit during each race was seeping in at the
bailer. But, even when we sealed the
bailer with Vaseline, the water continued to accumulate. So, we looked carefully, and saw water
dripping in around the centerboard pin faceplates. So, after the races that day I pulled the faceplates, with the
intent of re-caulking around the pin to stop the leak.
That’s
when we saw what really was going on with the pin mounting.
On
the starboard side, the pin was seated nicely into a hard plastic resin
fitting, and was sealed well. But on
the port side, the resin fitting was gone, the hole had enlarged, and the pin
was resting on the wooden base of the centerboard trunk. The wood was wet and had started to
rot. So, we left the faceplates off to
let the wood dry out, took the boat out of service, and went home to
contemplate how to fix this problem.
We
got some very valuable expert advice from Jim Dillard and Craig Thayer, and
then went to work. First I removed the
fiberglass where it had de-laminated from the wood in the area around the pin,
exposing a surface about 6 inches long and 4 inches high, still very wet. Then we removed the centerboard, pulled out
the pin, and waited for the wood to dry thoroughly.
Once
the wood was completely dry, we removed all rotted wood, sanded around the
area, and washed the area liberally with acetone.
Then,
following Jim’s expert advice, we used an epoxy-based filler called Marine-Tex
to fill in the void created when we removed the rotted wood. We wrapped the pin in Saran Wrap and
inserted it into the wet epoxy, in order to have a properly located and
right-sized hole for the pin when the epoxy hardened. Marine-Tex is better than straight epoxy, because it has
micro-fibers of a filler material, giving the cured installation some ability
to flex and to avoid cracking under stress.
But,
as Jim said, the Marine-Tex is very difficult material to work with, because it
smells terrible, exudes caustic vapors, sets up fast, and in the meantime
sticks to everything, except that which you want it to. We put newspapers down in the cockpit to
protect the cockpit floor and walls from spilled excess Marine-Tex, and used
lots of clean rags and acetone to immediately wipe up spills on the exposed
wall of the centerboard trunk. We took
our time, going through 5 cycles of applying, allowing to harden, and sanding,
much as you would do with drywall mud.
In fact, for the last two applications, we used a drywall blade to
smooth the surface of the applied epoxy. Each cycle took a minimum of 24 hours, but we spaced them out over
a 6-week period, meaning that we missed most of the spring race series.
But
in the end it was worth it, because we wound up with a tight seal.
While
the boat was out of service, we also took the opportunity to tune the standing
rigging, requiring replacement of the two turnbuckles on the lower shrouds,
because when they were adjusted to the tightest setting, the tension on the
shrouds was still way too low. We also put a 3/8 inch shim under the sole of
the mast, raising the top of the mast just enough to provide the rigging
tension we wanted. That probably will
prevent the boat from passing a weights-and-measures inspection at the
Lightning Nationals, but at the moment that’s hardly a concern for us.
By
the last race of the season we were back in service, looking forward to an
enjoyable summer on the water and full participation in the fall series of
races.