WE CAME, WE SAW, AND WE KICKED SOME A$$… oh wait… that was Bill Muray’s line is Ghostbusters… but it’s true! I got about 80% of the boat washed today. Cockpit took 3 hours as described above, that was fun, then I started working on the gunnels, which lead to the foredeck. The best method I found was a tire brush and straight Simple Green followed by a hose off. There are some before and afters below. Tomorrow is all goes well, I will climb up on the deck and scrub that… Cinderella style on my hands and knees. Last will be the blue below the rub rail which will be followed by a nice polish.
After
Before
After
Work in progress.
See the huge difference between clean and not. This is crazy. I didn’t think I would like the blue on the non skid, but now that it’s clean, it looks pretty good.
And the cockpit. Yea there is still some water in it, I will take care of that in a bit.
A Veteran, is someone who, at one point in his or her life, wrote a blank check made payable to "The United States of America" for an amount of "up to and including my life."
So after a semi stressful day at work, I decided to tackle some more of the mess that is by boat. Good news… there isn’t much mess left! Woo hoo! The decks are about as clean as they are going to get, I even ran a buffer over the white slope in the middle of the non skid. It’s nice and shiny now, no more oxidize.
Speaking of oxidize and a buffer. I washed the starboard side with some simple green, and then took my buffer to it. The oxidize really sucks up the moisture in the compound making the progress really slow. With all the scrubbing on the top deck, and the 7 or so feet of the STBD side polished, my arms are jelly. I miss being able to do stuff like this all day with no issues… oh how I miss my 20’s.
As always comments are welcome.
A Veteran, is someone who, at one point in his or her life, wrote a blank check made payable to "The United States of America" for an amount of "up to and including my life."
Jimmyt wrote: ↑Thu Jun 24, 2021 4:06 am
It's really cleaning up nicely! The good news is, you're getting it done. Think of the money you're saving on gym membership!
Lol
Not sure if the money spent on getting it ready for the water is cheaper than the gym membership or not.
One thing I like to do is buy things that most people would consider junk, and then fix them up to like new condition again. Some things I sell, some I keep. I have a 1978 Honda Trail 90 that I paid $250 for, and today it’s almost like brand new, and at a very low financial expense. Mainly because I rebuilt it myself. My wife sometimes grumbles when I bring home new junk, but I usually make everything right when I sell the things for a profit.
Now you may be thinking I will be selling Water Lilly after fixing her up… well yes, that was the idea, but not for a few years, as I plan on using her to learn to sail, and I plan on going on a few adventures with her first. When my kids leave the nest, my new home will be a sailboat, just not this little one.
A Veteran, is someone who, at one point in his or her life, wrote a blank check made payable to "The United States of America" for an amount of "up to and including my life."
So we are closer to the water. The 100+ degree day with no air movement is preventing me from doing the last bit of work to see water! So I got the water pump and carb rebuilt on my Evinrude 8hp engine and it runs like a top now. It idles great and purrs. So that’s done! All’s that’s left is the new mast step and the straps for the mast’s stabilizer rigging. I know that’s only a couple hour job, but in this heat right now… not gonna attempt it.
Oh and I got a cover for the boat too. It was a custom fit cover for a 35’ sailboat so it should easily cover my 25’ boat with the mast down no problem. It may be floppy but I only need it while the boat is in storage.
Well off to play in the water to attempt to keep cool.
A Veteran, is someone who, at one point in his or her life, wrote a blank check made payable to "The United States of America" for an amount of "up to and including my life."
Ok so not much in the way of pictures today, but I just wanted to show my idea of a good solder joint where there used to be those stupid suitcase connectors. This is my mast light, all sorts of happy once again.
I also got a new deck plug fit to the end of the wire. Over the weekend to beat the insane heat we had here… over 100 topping out at 112 on Monday, I decided to pressure wash my driveway to help keep myself cool. Well it worked perfectly, but what does this have to do with Water Lilly? Did I pressure wash her too? Well kinda. I had my halyard for my jib hanging around and it was not happy, it was dirty, moss/algae coated and stiff from dirt so I put it in a bucket and used the pressure washer as a agitation device and would you believe that the line is now perfectly white with nice little blue patches? I did the main halyard too. They are a bit fuzzy now but nothing big, they will still work fine till I get my new lines. They are actually soft and very flexible once again. Well I’m off to bed, another step closer to sailing and if the weather doesn’t get stupid again I will get the mast step on the boat here really soon.
A Veteran, is someone who, at one point in his or her life, wrote a blank check made payable to "The United States of America" for an amount of "up to and including my life."
They look great but I zoomed in as far as I could and I still could not see any solder in that picture.
The only downside to solder over properly crimped butt connectors is vibration cracking the solder joint. Strap them so they can't swing or shake and you are good to go.
Bill
2001 26X Simple Interest
Honda BF40D
"If I were in a hurry I would not have bought a sailboat." Me
Well… today was a good day… have I used that one here before? If I did, it’s well deserved once again. I got the mast step installed, and the side stays installed too. It looks good. I bedded the screws with some 4200, along with a couple of the screws that hold my teak under the deck. Oh and not shown I got the bow light installed and wired up too.
Then I decided to replace the weatherstripping on my bow hatch. Well the original plan was clean, repaint, and reseal… well things escalated quickly and it’s now a full on fiberglass restoration. The glass is extremely dry so I am going to put a thin layer of resin over the entire underside, and fill the voids that failed with some fresh glass.
The glasswork around the wood isn’t great, but most of it is filled with resin. This area had the glass fail and it was flaking off and creating a void. I ground off the bad glass, and then beveled it to accept the repair. I ran out of time tonight to continue with the work, I will try to get more tomorrow after I get home from a job.
A Veteran, is someone who, at one point in his or her life, wrote a blank check made payable to "The United States of America" for an amount of "up to and including my life."
So today I got a pretty decent amount of work done. I got the hatch fixed, see below, and the hardest job of the day was removing the keel cable from the keel. It was the original cable, which means the original bolt and all the corrosion that goes with. It took drilling about 1/2 the bolt out then I was able to punch it out the rest of the way. Not fun… Tomorrow I’m going to instal the new cable, winch and bulkhead, rebed the screws for the front hatch as I reinstall that and I should be good to go.
Here it is all painted and ready to go… well ready when the paint is dry. Next up is the hardware and then the seal.
After all this is done my next adventure is going to be the electrical. I will prolly go sailing before I finish the electrical as I won’t need it really for what I have planned with just an out and back day sail in Port Orchard.
A Veteran, is someone who, at one point in his or her life, wrote a blank check made payable to "The United States of America" for an amount of "up to and including my life."
What is left of my seals look just like canopy tape, and knowing that Roger would use off the shelf stuff to keep costs down, canopy tape seems logical for the seal. So canopy tape it is. I will put it on today after work.
A Veteran, is someone who, at one point in his or her life, wrote a blank check made payable to "The United States of America" for an amount of "up to and including my life."
Smiley face truck and the USPS gal dropped off some goodies for me today… all for Water Lilly.
Pics to come.
So I bought a pool noodle for resting the mast on the stern rail and pulpit while in transit. It should make 2 or 3 sets of pads for the job.
Power is something my boat still needs. I have the switch panel, which has built in circuit breakers is great, but it didn’t come with a ground bus. I went online searching for a marine ground bus and ran into a marine fuse panel with a ground bus. This is great as it will allow me to create a fused power tree as well as the breaker set up. So I’m going to reconfigure my original electrical design to incorporate this system along side my original idea.
Ok well I have a winch that needs a keel, and a hatch that needs attention too so lemme let you all go and show some love to Water Lilly.
A Veteran, is someone who, at one point in his or her life, wrote a blank check made payable to "The United States of America" for an amount of "up to and including my life."
Today was productive. So I got the bulkhead reinstalled, along with the new winch. I ordered the keel cable bolt from BWY and it was too small. I’m not happy about that and will be calling them in the morning. I was sent a 1 1/2” bolt, which is just the width of the keel, so that’s no bueno. I went to Tractor supply and got myself a 3” bolt and that was perfect, actually a 2 3/4 would have worked but they went from 2 1/2 to 3. Anywho, the bulkhead needed a bit more modification to fit properly, and now it does. The winch handle needed to be reshaped to clear the hull, thankfully it is made of mild steel and bends easily.
Pool noodle pads were made. Fire extinguisher was mounted to the bulkhead. The front hatch was reinstalled with canopy tape as a seal. It seals up pretty ok, there is a tiny bit of light forward of the opening but that should go away as the foam flattens out a bit. Here is a pic of the finished product.
And lastly the mast is back onboard the boat!! I set it on top and tied it off, it is good and secure. Tomorrow I will set the shrouds and hoist it up with my new winch system! I promise to get some pics as I get it done! If the weather holds I am splashing this weekend!
A Veteran, is someone who, at one point in his or her life, wrote a blank check made payable to "The United States of America" for an amount of "up to and including my life."
I know you will do a great job bringing it back to life. 
