4/23/99 | The boatyard beat

the wheels of progress

Day by day, the boatyard slowly empties as boats are launched and head over to the marina. We are making steady progress in getting ready for our turn to leave. Of course, some boats never make it out at all.

We had clipped several magazine articles on "spring recommissioning", so we went through them and made a checklist, and then started working through it conscientiously. Items on the checklist include inspection and tightening of all the bolts on the propeller, the steering system, and the engine; checking cable tension in the steering and engine; cleaning the knotmeter impeller; replacing the sacrificial zinc anode on the prop shaft; replacing the engine fuel filters and water pump impeller; cleaning the engine's seawater strainer. Most systems were in pretty good shape, since the boat had seen such light use, although some bolts were very loose, and we felt pleased to have caught them now, before any problems arose.

The engine's a Yanmar, and most things are labeled in Japanese. A few things are in English -- more or less -- like the warning on the water pump impeller cover:

Drain the pump of water, removing pump cover
or drain plug, while turning the engine, after
the engine stopped in cold season, because the
pump is broken for freezing!

The final step in preparing the engine was to fire it up, to drain out the antifreeze preservative and test that things still worked after the winter's layup. The engine normally sucks seawater through itself for cooling, so in order to run it out of the water we needed to rig an artificial ocean. Britt disconnected the water intake hose, and replaced it with a longer piece we'd bought that could reach to the cockpit, where I sat with a bucket of water and a running hose. We stuck both hoses into the bucket and fired up the big diesel. Sputter sputter smoke smoke kaVRRRRRR and it settled into a steady rumble. I was amazed at how much water the thing sucked in; fortunately, the water pressure from the outside hose was strong and I was able to keep the bucket full.

one thing leads to another

We were pretty excited about flushing the antifreeze from the freshwater tanks too, and putting in some water, since that meant one more step in our moving onto the boat; since we don't have running water here, we either cook and eat in Cafe Camper Van, or we bring everything we need up here to the boat, including water, and then take the dishes back down to the van for washing up. The tanks were pretty gunked up; after rinsing out the tanks, the water strainers looked disgusting. Enough slime and algae had grown on them to qualify as ecosystems of their own.

The way we rinsed out the tanks was to fill them up, then hose them off from the inside access lids while letting them empty through all the sink faucets. This is how we discovered a leak in the kitchen sink drainpipe (ok, it's a boat, so it's really a galley, but heck, we call it the kitchen anyway). The cheap chrome-plated plastic drain fittings had corroded away, perhaps from the antifreeze solution. All four -- two in the galley's double sink, and one in each of the heads -- require replacement.

(Aside:  we have been continuously amazed at Caliber's inconsistencies in the quality of the equipment used in their boats. The chintzy drain fittings which failed -- which, incidentally, are hardly cheaper than the brass replacements we bought -- led into sturdy, good-quality hoses. Some components are solidly built almost to the point of overkill, yet for example the bilge pump is completely inadequate.)

Whenever we find things that we need to do, we make a list of what we need, and when the list is big enough, we go on a shopping spree. That's because buying boat parts around here is generally an all-day affair. On April 16, for example, in order to buy new sink drains, a new bilge pump, and all the wires and hoses and fittings needed to install them, we went to two marine stores and a hardware store in Rock Hall, a plumbing supply store in Chestertown (15 miles away), two marine stores, a hardware store, a marine store and a hardware store in Chester (50 miles) and a marine store and an electronics store in Stevensville (a few miles past Chester). By the time we got home with our loot, it was after 6 pm. Rock Hall is a nice place, but considering the amount of outfitting we need to do, we'll probably have to move the boat to Annapolis, where there are lots of marine stores.

It would be easier if we could call places ahead of time to find out if they have what we need, but our plan to be connected via wireless phone is not working out. Service on this side of the bay is terrible. Chasing a good enough signal to actually make a call is like chasing butterflies. Good reception lasts exactly long enough for me to notice it and attempt to make a call; as soon as I start to dial, the signal weakens and disappears.

toxic pudding

Another task in preparing for launch was recoating the bottom with two coats of new antifouling paint. The first step in this process was sanding the old bottom paint to prepare the surface. Since the purpose of bottom paint is to prevent barnacles and other gunk from growing on the boat, it's clearly pretty toxic stuff; de rigeur sanding gear consists of disposable Tyvek coveralls with hood, goggles, rubber gloves, and a respirator. Chipping off the big flakes, and sanding the rest, took a day and a half.

The former owner had stayed in the Chesapeake, but we plan to head south eventually, where warmer water causes worse fouling problems, so we chose a different bottom paint with a higher amount of the active ingredient, copper. A gallon of this stuff costs about $100 and weighs on the order of 35 pounds! The high-copper content paints tend to be brown, red, or black, and we picked brown; the paint was so thick that it looked exactly like chocolate pudding! Mmm good. The thick paint was a pain to spread, but eventually we got two nice coats on. Not as pretty as the old blue paint, but heck, it's going to be underwater anyway.

Speaking of painting: on April 19th, the marina's name painting guy came by and repainted our boat's name and hailing port. Now Windom really is named Windom!

splish splash

By noon on Thursday, April 22nd, we had finished all the tasks we needed to do to get Windom ready for the water. The bottom paint was dry, the hull was waxed and buffed, the checklist was full of checkmarks. We were getting more than a little tired of living in the boatyard, so we were quite pleased when Al, who is in charge of launching from the yard, said he could fit us in at high tide.

It's pretty wild watching the boatscooper (Travelift) scoop up boats, especially when it scoops up your own. Windom weighs about eleven tons, but the hydraulic lift easily raised it up off the jackstands it had been sitting on since November. Al lifted our boat and then left it for an hour or so, so that we could sand and paint the bottom of the keel with antifouling; then he drove it across the yard to the launching rails. Slowly, Windom was lowered into the water. The yard workers checked all of our through-hulls for leaks and verified all systems were working, then motored us across the creek to our marina slip.

And here we are, on the water at last!