Do It Right

Ok, I'll admit, I'm a bit of a perfectionist.  Always have been.  Guess I've always believed in the tired phrase of "you can do it right, or you can do it over".  Unfortunately much of the work that has been done on my boat prior to my stewardship didn't follow along those lines.  Some of it might have been prior owners not knowing the right way to do things (and I know I certainly don't...but that is what the internet is for these days), but a lot of it seems to be the work of marine "professionals".

This through hull replacement project has turned into another case of discovering things done wrong.  When you have a composite cored hull, it is important to keep water from being able to get to the core. When water penetrates, it can cause the core material to separate from the fiberglass skins, and that significantly weakens the structure. As I previously mentioned, some people with Leopards have reported that they have found through hulls where the core was not properly sealed.  So, needless to say, I was a bit worried about this project, despite the pre-purchase survey finding no indications of moisture around the fittings.

Well, the good news is that all the factory through hulls are in solid fiberglass, no core material visible.  Unfortunately, it appears that a couple of my through hulls were not done at the factory.  The two through hulls that feed raw water to cool the air conditioners were not installed properly.  The holes were drilled through the cored hull, and no measures were taken, other than the bedding sealant used, to seal off the core.  In addition, they didn't even bother to remove the bottom paint from the area before the through hulls were installed.  It was a ticking time bomb.

Fortunately, we seem to have caught it in time. The sealant that managed to stick to the through hulls and the small amounts of exposed gel coat that weren't covered in bottom paint had just started to fail, and there was only a very small amount of moisture in the cores right at the holes.

The proper way to put a hole through a cored hull is to drill a hole larger than the one you need, fill it with epoxy fiberglass, and then drill the smaller size hole you need in the new fiberglass.  This results in a solid fiberglass sleeve that not only seals the core material from any potential water leaks, but also provides a surface with higher compression resistance for the clamping of the through hull.  Since I already have a hole and drilling a larger hole isn't really an option at this point, the repair technique I will be using consists of digging out some of the core material around the hole (this will also get rid of any wet core material) and then filling the created gap with a thickened epoxy to create the solid sleeve and seal off the remaining core.

Cleaned up holes packed with silica gel.

Most of yesterday was spent cleaning off the old bottom paint that was found underneath the through hull (how does pressure washing take this stuff off and yet a scraper and sandpaper have such a tough time with it) and digging out the old core material to about the diameter of the through hull head (3/4" deep or more).  It took quite a while to chip out the balsa with a Dremel tool, screwdriver, and hex wrench (think bent piece of wire).

Once I had the groove cut out and could see good balsa all the way around the holes, I decided I really wanted to make sure that all the moisture was gone.  I started with a heat gun, but wasn't making any real progress...and I didn't want to sit there for a day or more waving the heat gun back and forth across the holes.  Then I remembered I had a bunch of extra silica gel from making those desiccant packs for my tool storage containers.  We took some tape and sealed over the bottom of the holes, then filled the holes up with silica gel, working it into the areas where I removed the core and taped off the top to prevent atmospheric moisture from interfering with the gel.  Hopefully, leaving this stuff in there until we are ready to fill it with epoxy will extract any latent moisture.

We were lucky.  The poor practices of the original installer were caught before any significant damage was done.  If it weren't for the need to replace a couple through hulls and the decision to replace them all, we might not have found this issue until much more extensive and costly delamination repairs would be required.  And getting things done right is how we ended up in a boatyard doing work ourselves in the first place...well that and the cost of getting things done by "professionals".  Now is my chance to do it over and do it right.

Homeless...With Too Much Stuff

I woke up this morning and find myself, for the first time in about 23 years, homeless.  At least that is how the government sees me.  We closed on the house yesterday evening without even being there, having Fed-Ex'd the signed paperwork to the title company a couple days ago.  So today I have no fixed address.

And yet for having no house, we still seem to have a lot of stuff.  So today we spent more time trying to find places for stuff.  Ever since I moved aboard, I've been using the rear berth as a storage area. The cabinet in the berth was where the previous owner had put some spares and supplies already, so it just became the defacto garage.  Whenever I had larger items or things that I just didn't know where to stow, they ended up piled in that berth.  So yesterday I decided I wanted to reclaim that berth...or at least most of it.

We now have two nice dry storage areas in the peaks of the two hulls, and those seemed like the perfect places.  You don't really want to store heavy items in the ends of the hulls, but the space would be perfect for big and bulky items. Rolls of fabric for the dinghy chaps project and window coverings went in the hold.  Other longer term project items found their way to the spaces further from the holds hatch.

It had a LOT more stuff in it when we started.

A couple of the items that have been living on the berth bed were my bags of hand tools.  The main reason I was storing them there is that is where I also had the dehumidifier hooked up, and I figured keeping the tools in the least humid part of the boat was a good idea.  But they can't take up permanent residence on the bed, so I had to come up with another solution.

Since the port forward hold is at the opposite corner of the boat from the generator, I figured placing the tools there would help to balance out the boat (the starboard rear always sat just a little lower in the water due to the generator).  But what to do about moisture and rust.  I did some research and found that some people recommended linseed oil as a protectant and others suggested storing tools in boxes with DampRid or a similar product to help dehumidify the tools.

Anyone know where I can get a pie shaped container?

Looking into DampRid, I found the chemical they use is Calcium Chloride, which can be purchased cheaper in pool supply stores or as ice melt.  The other problem is that it dissolves into solution as part of the water attracting process, which I thought might get messy and makes reuse difficult.  Continuing my research I found a better option...I think.  You know those little packets of stuff you find in electronics packaging and medicines?  It is called silica gel (and the packets usually say "silica gel, do not eat") and it is a desiccant that doesn't dissolve.  In fact, you can reuse it by drying it out in an oven at 250 degrees for a while.  This sounded like a better option to me.

But how do you get a lot of silica gel without buying thousands of dollars worth of electronics or thousands of bottles of aspirin?  If I had only known I could have saved all those little packets, but they are long gone.  You can, however, buy it in bulk at your local craft store (Michael's or similar).  But don't go in there and ask them for silica gel or a desiccant or a chemical to keep tools from rusting or you will get some strange looks.  However, if you go and ask them for the stuff used to dry flowers, they will point you to a 5 pound box of the stuff.  Then all I needed was a way to use it without making a mess and picking grit out of my tools.

The solution I came up with is similar to small versions of the DampRid buckets.  I found some small plastic containers with screw-on lids from the dollar store, and a pair of pantyhose from the same place. I cut holes in the middle of the lids, smoothed the holes with a lighter, and cut bands of the pantyhose (also using a lighter so they wouldn't unravel) to make screens for the holes.  Fill the container about half-full of silica gel, place the pantyhose over the opening, screw on the lid, and presto - one large, spill resistant desiccant pack.  I found a couple storage boxes with gaskets and placed my tools in those boxes along with a couple of my desiccant jars.  Hopefully that along with the oil treatment will help keep the rust at bay.

Homemade desiccant jars

So, I've reclaimed some of the space in the berth now...at least enough I can now access the engine underneath without having to move a bunch of stuff.

Hold filling up.

One other interesting thing happened yesterday.  A nice guy I met back in Colorado at ZeroToCruising's party dropped by for a visit.  He is originally from the north Florida area and was visiting family.  He stopped by, and I gave him a tour of our boat (even though it was a total mess right in the middle of our reorganization attempt), a tour of the marina, and then we went to lunch.  Since he was a local and likes to fish, I took the opportunity to ask him a few questions because I still know almost nothing about deep sea fishing.  We had a nice visit before he had to head back to his family.  Thanks for stopping by David, it was good to see you again, and thanks for lunch too!

Well, I had better get back to work so we can get this boat moving north.