Good Day! Lots of work done.. but lots more problems

Today was a good day for me and the boat. I was able to get the 2 remaining hatch frames scraped free of old sealant and caulking so they will properly glue down to the deck when I put them back on. It was a cold morning and I awoke to find a huge puddle of ice and icicles from where the marina turned on the water on my dock to keep the lines from freezing.


I got up and went straight to work on scraping and just trying to get it over with. Its hard work and with the cold weather my hands are in constant pain from being numb and working the screwdriver and utility knife. I made some calls and am now waiting for quotes to send in the hatch frames to a local company to have them sandblasted and then powder coated black again. The original paint is chipping off at a rapid rate and they don’t look as good as they could so if the price is right we will have them painted.

I made some calls to West Marine and had them do some checking on me for our Garmin GPS Chartplotter which doesn’t seem to want to turn on for me. I have checked at the plug in that I have 12vdc and I do but the unit refuses to power up. I tried the factory reset HOME+POWER keys for 30 seconds or so and still nothing. Im researching to whether or not Garmin can honor the factory 1 year warranty but I doubt it as the West Marine guy confirmed that the serial number shows a manufacture date of 2007. There is still a dim hope that this unit sat on a shelf for 2 years but I highly doubt it. The good news is Garmin will honor the fact that we purchased this unit and will take ours and send us a refurbished unit for $500 with a 90 day guarantee. That’s not a bad deal considering a brand new unit will set the owner back $1800 so I guess we are heading down this road.

I also undid all of the steering lines today to get ready to replace them. I demounted the wheel steering until so I could disassemble it but I ran into problems yet again. I need to disassemble the home-made unit so I can remove and repair the Raytheon AutoHelm that is attached to said wheel. However, a few of the set screws that hold the whole thing together are severely seized so I ran it to a local welding shop only to find they were closed. Im considering checking into having this whole thing remade or just making another one from glassed plywood. The drum that the tiller line wraps around is slightly out of sync with the wheel and I think the whole thing can be made to steer a lot better. However, Im trying to save the owner money so I will just try again at the shop tomorrow to see if they can heat the metal and get the set screws out of there.

My problem lately is my infatuation with this boat. Im having so much fun that Im forgetting its not mine. I want to redesign so many things and change this and that to make it even better but then I have to remind myself that this is not my boat and the owner is already throwing a fit over the money he is putting into her. I have tried many times to reassure him that this boat is worth much more money than he paid and anything he puts in is just an investment into the boat and her longevity.

Jason, the owner has paid local author, carpenter and boat builder Scott b. Williams from Mississippi to come out and advise us about some of the damage and rot I have found inside one of the main hull beams. Im pretty excited about meeting him because I have read 2 of his books and been following his blog for about 2 or 3 years while he has been building a very similar boat but at extremely high standards. He should be coming out next week sometime when the weather is supposed to be a little warmer and better. Im also excited about the warmer weather because I have literally been freezing here on this boat and working in 40F everyday with inadequate clothing. Sure I could go buy more but at the rate of pay which I am receiving it would be literally several days boat pay just to get some good working clothes so I have decided to rough it out. When it gets warmer next week I will start preheating my cans of epoxy and hardener and try to keep them at or around 70F so it should go on nice and smooth when I begin glassing the wooden deck frames for the hatches to sit on. A lot of water gets trapped under here and I would feel better if they were sheathed in epoxy before I reseal everything.

Well that about does it for this post. Im headed to my brother’s place in Biloxi this weekend so I should have something fun to write about afterward.