Our Old Boat This month's article is the first in a series to be written for the do-it-yourself, fixer-upper, handy person. You may not consider yourself to be in this classification, however anyone that owns a boat or aspires to own a boat needs to master some small amount of do-it-yourself skills. These skills can not only save you large amounts of money, but are necessary for safety reasons should you ever have to do some small repair or jury rigging on the water, and the mighty in heart can with much work and dedication rebuild the most pitiful of boats as we did with Cattitude2. Let's talk about surveying or inspecting the boat, and assume you already own her. You should go through this procedure at least on an annual basis, if not more often. The time schedule you adhere to for doing a survey is largely dictated by the frequency that you use the boat and for what purpose you use the boat. Many sailors use their boats mostly through the fair weather sailing days of spring, summer and some in the fall, so they are making ready now to, for themost part, retire the boat for the winter. This is the perfect time for this group of sailors to do an inspection of the boat and take care of routine maintenance or maybe consider that big bottom job. If like so many of us, you use the boat year round for racing, your schedule of inspection is ever ongoing, as the boat is used more frequently and stressed to a greater degree. The care, cleaning, and maintenance of the boat's bottom is one of the most costly ongoing expense items of owning a boat. If your boat is kept in a wet slip, this is a good time to pull the boat for a thorough cleaning and evaluation of the bottom paint. There are several different types of bottom paints currently being used and the care and cleaning of each is different - consult the manufacturer's specifications if you are not familiar with the recommended cleaning and care procedures for your type of paint, i.e. ablative, sloughing, Teflon, vinyl, etc. E & B Marine catalog offers a quick reference guide and explanation of the different properties of these types of paints and compatibility charts for recoating or changing types. When pulling a boat out of the water that has any marine growth on the bottom, clean immediately and do not allow the bottom to dry out, as the result could be having to sand the growth rather than washing it. After cleaning the bottom, comes the nerve racking inspection for BLISTERS! Osmotic blisters are pockets of water that are trapped between either layers of paint or between the fiberglass and the gelcoat. You can determine which you have by using a sharp point toprobe the blister to see how deep it goes. Paint blisters are not too big of a problem as they can be sanded off with the old bottom paint. Gelcoat blisters however are a creature of a different sort. They must be opened to the air, dried out, repaired with an epoxy filler, refaired and repainted. This job can be done by a novice with some research into the subject and an experienced person to look over their shoulder. It has been our experience that VC-17m is the most user friendly paint we have encountered. After the bottom is primed and any repair work has been done the VC can be applied with minimal effort, and in years to come recoating can be done by simply cleaning the bottom and reapplying the VC. Look for an indepth article on bottom repairs in the near future. While the boat is out of the water this is also the time to check the keel hangers; make sure the bolts are secure and show no signs of corrosion, also check the keel pin for wear. To access the keel pin you will need to loosen the hanger bolts and drop the keel down several inches - you can accomplish this with the aid of a jack under the leading edge of the keel. While addressing the keel also check the condition of the keel cable and the attachment point, looking for frayed are broken strands in the cable. Next month look for an article addressing leaks in the cabin top area, and the resulting soft spots in the core material of the decking. |