Well, there goes two nice days I'll never get back. Its a phenomenon that I have been attempting to define since I retired. If there is no set deadline, its hard to get motivated on those days you just don't want to get out of bed. I guess that is what retirement is really about, making up your own schedule. Needless to say, I blew away the last couple of days. Sunday I didn't get much done, Serena came to the boat with me and tried to do some sanding, her heart wasn't into it, the dust bothered her, and the motion of sanding was hard on her aching body parts. So it was a short day. I did manage to winterize the engine and head, plus replace the pump out hose for the black water tank, as well as epoxy in the first two galley bulkheads.
I have been pretty good about not slamming the previous owners so far, and just one in particular, because I don't know which of the three is to blame, but holy crap people, its not that hard to look after a boat. For all the effort that gets put into a shoddy job, it could have been done right in the first place. The pump out hose for the black water tank had a bunch of 4200 wrapped around it where it entered the tank. I wasn't sure if it was an attempted leak fix, or somebody afraid it might leak. Anyway, I wan't to get rid of the stinky original hose and put in some good quality head hose. When I started cutting it off, I found out that the 4200 was covering a thick layer of silicone tape over a completely loose connector. As far as I can tell, the plastic connector, screwed into the plastic tank had started to pull out over the years, because everything was still in good shape, and instead of pulling it apart and putting it back together properly, someone previously just wrapped it and prayed.
I cleaned the connector up, digging all of the sealant out of the threads, put on a good coating of proper PVC to PVC thread sealant, and screwed it back into the tank. It is as strong now as it was when it came from the factory. Better maybe, because it looks like they didn't use anything to seal the joint. But I got the new hose installed and everything seems fine. Perhaps I will find out that the connection is actually flawed, eventually, and I will have to decide whether to replace the tank, or use some really nasty sealant on the connector. I don't like doing that though, because that means that if the connector goes, the tank goes.
Prior to that I spent a day getting the first two bulkheads installed in the galley.
It was a lot of tinkering to get the bulkheads to fit just right, very time consuming, but it seems to have worked out pretty good so far. I did something a little different with these ones over other panels I have attached to the hull. Because these will be carrying the weight of the stove and fridge compressor, I want some strength at the hull to bulkhead joint. So I put the 1/2 foam along the edge between the bulkhead and hull as before, but this time I epoxied filleted and taped it to the hull with over lapping layers of tape. Then I screwed some stringers to the liner above and screwed the bulkhead to them. What that effectively does is give me the strength at the bottom of the panel, while eliminating the hard point at the hull, and allows some flex where it attaches to the liner. The premise being that everything on a boat will flex to some degree, and if you don't give it a little room, it will eventually make its own. One of the guys at the club told me of a gentleman who gutted and rebuilt a boat on the inside, but when the boat was put into the water all the bulkheads and cabinets let go, because the natural shape of the hull in the water was not the shape the hull took on land. An extreme case perhaps, but even though Bayfields are built like tanks, they are not immune to these effects. In fact I noticed the door to the head does not close well when the boat is on the cradle, but works great when its in the water.
Also notice that there is a space behind the bulkheads where the plywood does not go to the hull. There are a couple reasons for this, but mainly it is to provide a plenum along the hull to allow the fridge compressor unit to draw air from the cabin for cooling. The vent will go into the galley above and behind the fridge doors. This space is extremely hard to access, and provides a good place to run the propane and refrigerant lines.
There is one more bulkhead to go in between these two, to support the other side of the stove. It leaves a small 5" wide cabinet space at the aft end of the galley which will be pretty much useless, but we'll fill it with something, I've no doubt. Next will be to frame out the galley, add the final bulkhead, then build a face frame and doors. Most of that is cold weather work in the workshop.
I also took the opportunity during a warm day last week to get the new foredeck glassed in. I ground out the gelcoat around the original anchor locker, and used some long hair bondo to set the new hatch into. I will tape and glass the rest of it in later, sand it all smooth, and gelcoat it again. I think it is going to work good. I have decided to use cloth and epoxy inside of the locker to add strength to the whole assembly, and then paint the inside. However those are intentions, and lord only knows what I will end up doing. I was hoping to get this part done before winter, but I don't think the weather gods and I are on good terms.
That's all. Tomorrow we are back to Kingston to pick up more parts, Friday I have to sew up a buddies winter cover, Saturday is a work party at the club, and then the weather god plans to rain on us for 5 days. So shop work. I need to get some of that done. I can install the cabinets in pretty cold weather, so hopefully I will be able to talk myself into doing that this winter, regardless of the temperature.
Cheers.
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