Report from the shipyard

Another three weeks have flown by here in Mamaroneck in the blink of an eye, and once again I find myself needing to use part of the weekend to catch up here on the blog. We have just a week left here in this apartment, after which will will move to another place on the other side of the tracks. We booked one overlapping night to be able to move across town in reasonable fashion. On the yard's best guess, we've booked that unit for an even month.

The flybridge shortly after my last post, a tableau of old paint, bare metal, gray primer, and pink fairing compound.

Yard work over these three weeks has principally consisted of the paint contractor grinding, blasting, priming, fairing, and sanding. Just in the last two days we started to see some white finish paint on the flybridge, even as prep work continues on the hull sides. There have been at varying times from one to five workers on the boat, with work continuing six to seven days a week. Working hours are all over the map.

The beer store is a short walk from the house, and I like to fill my growler, which we acquired in Yarmouth, NS, from their tap selection.

I continue to go to the yard every weekday, arriving around 8 and leaving around 3. Not only because I have plenty of work to do myself, but also because mistakes by the contractor in this phase of the project, unnoticed, will get covered over and be hard to correct later. For example, they faired over a number of mounting holes for various pieces, and we had to have them sand it all down to find the holes and then fair around them again. I also found untreated corrosion in hard-to-see places that got covered in primer before I could point it out, and that, too, needed to be sanded back down. I attribute a lot of our corrosion problems to not having spotted these issues the last time around.

They replaced the pilothouse door with this piece of lauan, with tape down one edge for a hinge, and a block of wood for a pull. So much paint dust and blasting media came in that I rigged up this bungee cord to keep it tight; later I added a Visqueen curtain as well.

After I inspect the previous day's progress, usually before the contractors even arrive, I set about my own projects. Those included removing the locks and latches from the pilothouse doors just before the contractor took them off the boat altogether, a project which took me far more hours than it should have, owing to corrosion of the hardware. I had to Dremel through a couple of the proprietary blind nuts, which I fortunately was able to find on eBay.

Pilothouse doorlatch. The bits in the middle are blind nuts; two rotated in their holes and I had to cut slots in them for a screwdriver.

I also continued refurbishing many of the components I removed but intend to reinstall later. I fabricated a dielectric separator for the windlass from a thin sheet of HDPE, learning in the process that the template I worked so hard to print accurately did not conform to the reality on the deck, requiring a last-minute adjustment. And I had some trial-and-error parts ordering for a more robust mount for the Starlink mast.

I was very glad to have this template, but you can see where the separate piece for the spurling pipe did not line up. And my note-to-self to check the template on the deck before cutting.

It all worked out in the end. 1/8" HDPE from Amazon, cut with a jigsaw and hole saws.

I fabricated a new mount for the Comnav satellite compass, which will be returning to the flybridge coaming from its more recent perch on one of the mast spreaders, and I ordered, received, and tested a new depth display and new radar repeater for the flybridge from the ever-dwindling listings on eBay. I also took advantage of the already dusty environment in the saloon to saw through the settee to install a badly-needed power outlet.

New outlet. This is actually an extension cord, with a plug on the end, made to go into furniture. I did not need the USB but that's how it comes. No room here for a regular outlet. I spent over an hour with an oscillating saw and rasps cutting the hole.

A couple of other pieces of equipment needed repair. I had found a broken bolt on the cable gland when I removed the radar, and I spent a couple of hours carefully removing it and cleaning up the threads, which broke my M4 tap. And the VHF radio on the flybridge had become barely readable after two decades, so I tore into it and replaced the polarizing film on both sides of the LCD, which worked remarkably well. I found the basics of the procedure in a YouTube video about a motorcycle dashboard.

Flybridge VHF, barely readable after 20 years outdoors.

After replacing the polarizers with $7 worth of material from Amazon.

I still have plenty to do on the refurbishment and organization of exterior hardware, but I had to stop procrastinating on the bilge work, and this week I tore into the engine cooling intake plumbing, which had sprung a slow saltwater leak that I discovered on our northward journey. I had wrapped it in a towel to get us to the yard, not wanting to even probe at rust-damaged steel while still in the water, for fear I would cause the need for an expensive haul-out before we even arrived here. Similarly, some rust in the bilges needs attention.

Smoke from the Canadian wildfires on a clear sunny day. We could smell it.

My reluctance to touch the leaking pipe any more than necessary proved correct -- when I sawed through that pipe to remove it, the area in question had become wafer thin from corrosion and a pinhole leak resulted. Putting a wrench on it would have crushed it, creating a full-on flooding situation that would have had us dead in the water. As it stood, it took a reciprocating saw with a fresh carbide blade, cuts in four places, a big wrench, and all my body weight to remove the problematic section over the course of two days.

A very thin spot in a galvanized nipple; it was actively seeping.

The very last fitting, threaded into the sea strainer, needed a MAPP torch, a bigger wrench than I own, and a guy half my age, who got it out in less than five minutes. This is another reason why I'm doing this work here at the yard, where I can call for help if I run out of equipment. Or skill. He put a lot more heat on the sea strainer, with acrylic bowl still attached, than I would have been comfortable doing -- the hallmark of years of experience. Now that it's all out I will be replacing it with something other than the original galvanized steel, which, to its credit, lasted two decades in salt water.

The connector on the masthead light turned out to be an obscure instrumentation cable, but commercially available. Old one on right.

In the course of doing this I was reminded that replacing the hose section of this system nearly a decade ago was made extremely difficult by having to thread it past part of the hard-piped emergency bilge pumping system connecting to an engine-driven pump. The likelihood that this pump would be working and usable in the event of flooding while the larger and more powerful electric pump was somehow incapacitated is so vanishingly small that I had taken the belts off it years ago, and now it was once again in my way and needed to go.

I knew I had crossed some kind of threshold with the yard manager when he told me I could use the Genie lift. I needed it so I could drill out the ten screws holding this bezel in place. We're going to clean this up and leave it bare aluminum to avoid a similar fate later.

Thus it was that I spent the past two days removing another ten feet of galvanized piping and the pump itself, then capping off the two tees where it had tied into the system so that the electric pump would remain usable. More time with the reciprocating saw as well as the wet vac for all the ancient water that was trapped in those pipes. But as a bonus, having all of this out of the way will make it much easier to get to all the rusty areas in the bilge. I'll chip and descale what I can, but most of that work will be left to yard guys in Tyvek suits and respirators.

Skiing, anyone? This mountain is outside the commercial ice plant a block from our unit. Behind it is an industrial supply house that turns out to be a full-service hardware store that Google does not know about.

The tender was still in the water as of my last post, and shortly thereafter I went to breeze it out but found the battery dead. That meant releasing the hydraulic pressure in the tilt mechanism so I could pull-start it. After breezing it out just past the harbor limit, the yard agreed to crane it out of the water altogether before it grows a beard to rival ZZ Top. 

Flux in the rigging yard. They lifted it out with the crane they use to step masts.

On other fronts, we both managed to get massages at the nearest, uh, legitimate spa over in Larchmont.  There are several massage places here in town, including one less than a half block from here, under the dentist office, but they have all the hallmarks of focusing on a very specific part of the anatomy. The place in Larchmont was good, if a bit spendy. And I made it over to the eye doctor at Costco for my second exam this year -- my prednisone-initiated cataracts continue to cause deterioration in my vision and I now have my third script in two years.

What a 65' aluminum catamaran looks like when you take it out of the IKEA box. Some of the ring frame are leaning against the port keel. Bow at right. All of this is being made right here.

Two weekends have come and gone since my last post. I spent a good part of the first working on parts orders and drawings, but we also attended a lecture at the local library on the topic of George Lucas and the creation of the original Star Wars. While there we learned we could get temporary library cards just by showing some mail we had received here, and Louise has already checked out a couple of books.

We asked the yard to cut this drain hole in a spot where water accumulation has been a problem. They did a cleaner job than I could have with limited tools.

Later that week our friends Tim and Crisálida, fresh from moving their sailboat s/v Paquita to Long Island Sound all the way from Fort Lauderdale in just two long hops, stopped by for a visit. The yard very graciously allowed them to stay on the dock, and after I helped them get tied up we walked over to Peruvian restaurant La Gladys, where Louise had already staked out a table, for dinner. It was an excellent evening catching up, and, consistent with Tim's schedule of always having to move the boat during his three off weeks, they were off the dock before I even returned to the yard the next morning.

Flybridge faired and fully coated in gray primer, the first visceral indicator of reaching the hump.

A few days later it had been painted. Tacky overspray on the boat deck kept me from going further to get a photo.

Last weekend we rented a car and drove up to visit my cousins in New Hampshire. We're clearly not going to make it that far north in the boat this season, and that's when our schedules aligned. I took the county bus down to Mount Vernon Friday morning to get the rental car, and we arrived at their place just in time for dinner Friday. We had a lovely two nights, including taking in a show at Jimmy's Jazz & Blues Club in downtown Portsmouth. We stayed through Sunday afternoon, arriving home in the evening and returning the car Monday morning.

Alastair Greene trio at Jimmy's. Dude with the sax was sitting near us in the audience and went up to play two numbers; I missed his name but he clearly has chops.

One of the things we did with the car was to drop off an enormous box of Louise's finished quilts at UPS; she's been quilting up a storm. The car prompted us to do the shipping before she could fill the "quilt niche" all the way to the top. She also knocked out a project for good friends Stacey and Dave, sewing up a new helm cover for Stinkpot using their old tattered one as a pattern. She ordered extra of the same material to re-make our flybridge console cover as well.

As high as the stack got before a handy car prompted shipment.

The box dominated the back of our rented Rogue. UPS was our first stop.

We've only added a single restaurant to our already extensive list, Zenzo Sushi, which was not worth a repeat visit. We now have our list of favorites which we seem to rotate through regularly. The Village Station pub, where more or less everything went wrong on our first visit, is among them, and Hannah the barkeep now recognizes us and knows our drink order.

Dave sent us a pic of the new cover in place, after he added the snaps. Loose appearance was as designed.

There is a nice community theater in town, the Emelin, attached to the library, and when we learned they would host a Crosby, Stills, & Nash cover group last night we put our name on the waiting list for tickets to the sold-out show. I got the call just as we were heading to dinner last night, and our last-minute seats turned out to be front row. The group, Laurel Canyon, was quite good and quite knowledgeable about CSN history. We had a great time, even if we got back way past "boater's midnight." Our second live show in just over a week, when it's literally been years since our last one.

Graham Nash, David Crosby, and Stephen Stills mimetics.

The work ahead is still cut out for me on the boat, and I will be lucky to get through my whole list before the yard is done. That puts the lie to the fantasy we had, coming in, that we'd have plenty of time to visit friends and family, or spend some fun afternoons in the city. But we've been enjoying what Mamaroneck has to offer, and if the weather forecast improves, we might even try to catch some of the Pride March tomorrow in downtown Manhattan. It looks like most of our NYC ambitions will be on hold until we get back that way in the boat.

Finish paint on the flybridge coaming juxtaposed with areas still being faired.

We've chosen a color for the hull paint, Clay Tan, and I expect paint to be showing up on various  parts of the boat over the next couple of weeks. We're still resolving details about work on the anchor roller, gate latches, and other miscellaneous bits that need to happen before final coats, but it is feeling like we have passed the hump and are now on the downhill run. Stay tuned for more pics as things take shape.

Cat starting to take shape. These are the watertight bulkheads in place. Sheet aluminum comes in the front door and a complete Savannah Belles ferry will go out the back. Fascinating to watch as I cross the shop several times a day.