November -- Working in a Boat Yard

November 5^th …. Green Cove Springs Marina, Florida

This day of reckoning that been plaguing Dan’s nights for the last couple of months.  What would the boat look like after being left in long-term storage for so long?  It's called being "on the hard” in cruising lingo … a phrase that aptly describes what you think when you see a boat on land, propped up on jack stands ….  Boats belong in the water.

We imagined a long list of surprises that could be awaiting our return on the drive from MN to FL:  mold (of course), maybe worse things growing in the cockpit, water leakage, plugged drains resulting in a flooded cabin, dead batteries (of course), no electronics, did I mention mold?  

 

In the end, however, we were ecstatic about the condition of s/v Maja.  No mold. The solar panel kept the batteries charged. The refrigerator works. The electronic are intact. No infestation of bugs.  Did I mention no mold? Basically, after being left to her own devices for 1.5 yrs, s/v Maja was just a filthy, dirty, grimy boat.  And we can deal with that.

 

Busy boatyard this time of year.

 

I did mention filthy, dirty, boat? Poor girl.....

The urge to rid the boat of the Florida green slime was intense!

Fortunately, it yielded easily to boat wash and brush and 3 hrs of scrubbing. 

Cleaning the hull of the boat was another matter.  After I scored a scaffold in the boat yard, I spent the next 5 days scraping varnish and cleaning and waxing the hull.  Wax on … Wax off … ala Karate Kid.  Usually, the wax solution buffs off like a white powder.  For 5 days, I was buffing off a  green/brown slime … heavy, sticky … OMG, such work.  But she was beautiful after the fact. Glowing. You could almost feel her sighing with relief to be clean at last.  Shaking off that clinging grime.

Bottom is marked with the boot stripe will be painted.

At the same time, it was impossible to ignore the varnish. After all, it was right there as I worked on waxing the hull.  The bow sprit (the forward-most part of the boat) was literally shedding its varnish in strips.  Along the hull, I started casually scrapping the rub rails as I waxed the hull. That quickly became an obsessive compulsion as the varnish would give way in 3”-5” sections. The varnish was both dried and burnt.  Peeling and brittle.  Getting down to the bare wood was the only option.  . Fortunately, 80% came off with a scrapper; that was easy.  The rest was picked away using the heat gun.  For the first time in our ownership, s/v Maja had all her teak down to bare wood.  The bow sprit, the trail boards (scrolled woodwork along sides at front), the cove rail and the rub rail along the sides.  (and that's just on the outside! there's more on the deck and cockpit). We love our teak!

Since I had use of a scaffold, teak became my full-time job after waxing the hull. Strip. Heat gun. Sand. Sealer Coat. Varnish 1 coat. Sand. Varnish 2 coats. Sand. Varnish 3 coats. Sand. Varnish 4 coats. Sand. Vanish 5 coats. Sand. Varnish 6 coats. Each task takes its own day. Many days you hope it won't rain. Some days you wish for rain!

 

 

Pretty lady ...

 

In certain ways, I’ve been lucky to have the same task to occupy my time for the last 30+ days on the boat. If you are going to be in a boatyard, you may as well work, right?  And the task of varnishing yields the most reinforcement of ALL jobs on a boat (except for getting the engine to start!).  It’s hard for other boaters not to stop by and ohhh and ahhhhh as the bow sprit and trailboards take on color and depth with multiple coats of varnish.

Dan, on the other hand, is juggling the rest of the items on our 2-page TO DO list.  He took off the teak companionway doors, screens, cockpit table, trim, and drink holder. He has set up a small work area behind the boat where he’s been doing is own share of sanding and varnishing. 

There are also several mechanical things to do while we are out of the water: change engine mounts, replace cutlass bearing and change stuffing box.  These projects involve coordinating with the onsite mechanics….no easy task when they stop by, work on rusted boat parts, and leave for the next 5 days.  Same with the painter we hired to repaint the boot strip (it marks the waterline of the boat) … a 2-day project has extended to day 18.  We are also changing the davits (that hold our solar panel and dinghy at back of boat), so Dan is also working with a local welder to rebuild the davits so that we can add a 2^nd solar panel (more like waiting for the welder to get back to us).  It's always such a let down when we decide to splurge on paying someone for expert help, only to find them not so expert and incredibly unreliable.  It makes me appreciate the quality of Dan's work all the more.

The new sails should be ready on the 19^th.  5 brand new sails: foresail, staysail, mail sail, mizzen sail, and a new toy, a mizzen stay sail …. Reported to add a real WOW factor to your light wind sailing -- and we got to design the color pattern! Plus, two new sail cradles that will eliminate the need to put sail covers on at the end of the day.

Making progress.  But spending 30+ days in the boat yard is a long time!  The less glamorous side of sailing is times like this -- long stretches in a boat yard, where it's dirty, dusty no matter how often you clean, where you work all day, every day, climbing a 12-foot ladder multiple times to get on/off the boat (we're on land, remember!) and then get in line at the marina bath house to take a shower.  Cook? After 8 hours of scraping varnish, you've got to be f****** kidding me... 

North Florida in December has 70deg days but 35deg nights, so we've had more than one cold night's sleep.  Our small heater does OK, but we are limited more by the amp services at the public electrical outlet shared by the neighboring boats.  Since there's no getting around the fact that we'll be here in January, we are definitely getting electric blankets!

(Note to self: Try to be south of Cape Canaveral by Christmas).

We head back to MN for the holidays via Savannah on the 21^st.  We haven't been "home for holidays" since 2009, so we are looking forward to the lights, colors and warmth of the people we hold most dear.  On the other hand, it's hard not to remember MN's winter of 2013.....