First up, the hull. It was in bad shape, so we decided to have it sandblasted back down to raw fiberglass. Evident were a number of previous repairs, fixed with what looked like Bondo, but absolutely no evidence of blisters or de-lamination. Whew! In fact, the hull below the gelcoat was in pretty good shape, aside from the previous repairs. So began many many months of waiting (in the Seattle rainy cold) for the moisture level of the hull to uniformly read 15% or less, which took until April.
While it was sitting there drying out, we had new swimstep brackets fabricated, since the old original ones had definite corrosion and cracks at some of the joints. We also decided to have the running gear all ground clean and coated with Propspeed. What a difference that made!
In April the real work began in earnest. We had all the previous hull repairs ground out and glassed in properly. Also, the area right around the shaft tubes was totally mickey-mouse - the shaft collar was properly bolted to the hull, but was then completely filled in with some strange caulk that was peeling, ugly, ... So out that went and glassed-in as well. Once that was done we had five coats of epoxy layered on, and then two coats of Sea Hawk Biocop bottom paint.
While the swimstep brackets were being made, we had the swimstep off and decided to completely refurbish it. Cleaned, brightened, sanded, filled, sanded, sanded, sanded, and then dressed. It turned out beautifully! In fact, it looked so good we decided to make new teak treads for the three ladders (swimstep, transom, flybridge), which tested my woodworking skills with a router and dado-saw. Though I don't have a picture, we also did the same strip/clean/fill/sand treatment to the teak bow pulpit as well. We treated the underside of it with Liquid Armour (more on that later).
Also while the swimstep was off we completely cleaned up the whole transom area, and then buffed it.
Speaking of buffing, we repaired dozens of little nicks and gouges in the hull gelcoat (my wife is a master at this!), then sanded and buffed everything to a good shine with 3M Finesse-It. But only good enough, since the boat is very oxidized, but really buffing it aggressively would probably eat through the thin gelcoat So we bought this amazing stuff called Liquid Armour - some kind of nano-technology SiO2 liquid which turns to a super-hard "glass" when it dries. We put that over the entire hull (above the waterline) and transom, and it looks absolutely amazing! Plus performs better than wax, but lasts like five years!
Ok, so the hull is done, brackets and swimstep back on. New exhaust hoses and nice new hanging brackets fabricated. We next decided to replace the old rusty hot water heater, along with the old icky holding tank. We upgraded to a Torrid 15g hot water tank, and upgraded the holding tank from 28g to 42g. The previous holding tank wasn't vented to the outside, can you believe that! So we took care of that, along with a vent filter. Delta does very nice work, so the hoses and plumbing are top notch.
But wait, while they were both out, we had tremendous access to the outboard side of the starboard engine. So we got the engine (and the whole bilge area) cleaned up (brake cleaner), rust-converted, and repainted. Plus we had good friend John rebuild both our alternators which were looking a bit worse for wear. We did the same engine cleanup for the port engine. But one step further on the starboard side, we stripped off the insulation and sound baffling from the inside hull, sanded off all the residual glue (sounds easy but took like three days), then painted on four coats of Silent Running. This is a fancy sound-absorbing paint, and when we finally got the boat back on the water today, it made a noticable difference - running, the boat is way quieter! So the Silent Running went on the inside of the hull, plus on the entire floor of the engine room. While I was down there, I also disassembled the main engine sea-cocks, cleaned them up and put them back together all greased up and moving freely. And while we were doing all this work, I installed two 2' LED fixtures outboard of both engines - the lighting in the engine room is absolutely perfect now.
We had lots of time on our hands while the boat was out of the water, so we decided to replace the old 80's fridge too with a Norcold DE-0061 drop-in replacement. Got a piece of 1/8 teak and made our own custom panels for the front, which look amazing! Plus, diagnosed a loose 12v wire in the panel, so now we have both 110v and 12v for the fridge. And while we were messing around, we also painted Silent Running in the fridge cabinet, and then stripped the old varnish off the rest of the bar teak and oiled it. So much better looking now.
And finally, I did a little bit of dingy work. The steering has been really hard for a couple years, so I watched a good YouTube video and went to work on the steering cable. Pretty straightforward, though really messy - disconnected the cable from the engine, banged it out of the tilt tube, got it all cleaned up real nice, thin layer of lube, and back in. Works better than ever now! Did a thorough cleaning of the whole boat, applied a good dressing, and went to work on the fiberglass hull. Fixed a bunch of dings, buffed it up, and applied two coats of Liquid Armour.
This blog post really doesn't do justice all the work we did. But we're super happy with how it all turned out. We literally spent about every day for two whole months getting all this work done, and riding herd on Delta Marine to keep up with us. But today was the day - everything was done, tested as much as we can out of the water, and ready to go back in the water. I was pretty nervous that everything was going to work, but by God, the old Detroits fired right up on the first crank and hardly a puff of smoke. It couldn't have gone smoother than it did. Today was an 89 degree day, so we were also blessed with high tide being at 8am when it was still pretty cool out.
This blog post really doesn't do justice all the work we did. But we're super happy with how it all turned out. We literally spent about every day for two whole months getting all this work done, and riding herd on Delta Marine to keep up with us. But today was the day - everything was done, tested as much as we can out of the water, and ready to go back in the water. I was pretty nervous that everything was going to work, but by God, the old Detroits fired right up on the first crank and hardly a puff of smoke. It couldn't have gone smoother than it did. Today was an 89 degree day, so we were also blessed with high tide being at 8am when it was still pretty cool out.
Uneventful cruise up the Duwamish waterway back to EBM, backed into the slip, quick washdown and cleanup, and we're back in business!
So, what did we learn? Liquid Armour is amazing stuff. 2000-grit sandpaper is magic on the hull prior to buffing. Watch YouTube videos to learn how to do stuff. Silent Running so far seems to be well worth the effort, and we'll do the rest of the engine room probably next year. And Magic Erasers and citrus cleaner make the dingy look like new. :-)
So, what did we learn? Liquid Armour is amazing stuff. 2000-grit sandpaper is magic on the hull prior to buffing. Watch YouTube videos to learn how to do stuff. Silent Running so far seems to be well worth the effort, and we'll do the rest of the engine room probably next year. And Magic Erasers and citrus cleaner make the dingy look like new. :-)
