Home at Last!!!

The boat was delivered Monday. It wasn't easy getting it in my driveway, but thankfully the guy from the yard was a very skilled driver. The first thing I did was suck all the water out of the boat and then set up a heater and fan in the cabin to dry it out over night. As I said in an earlier post, I was concerned about all of the corrosion in the aft bilge area surround the lifting eye and plate. I scraped out as much corroded metal and debris from the area as I could and applied multiple coats of liquid wrench to the aft keel nuts. Next I bought a 1 1/8 deep socket and a large torque wrench. I was able to loosen the nuts with little force. I removed the rusty eye/plate assembly and discovered that there were more bolts under the assembly. They appeared to be tight and in good condition. I then cleaned up the nuts and bolts using a small wire brush attachment on my dremel. I was very happy find two rust free bolts underneath the old bilge paint and corrosion. My original plan was to tighten the bolts with 60-80 lbs or torque but I think I will leave them alone because they appear to be tight.

Next I began to remove the old deck hardware. I was able to pull everything off the cabin and cockpit area. I am going to get some help removing the other deck fittings. In the next couple of days I will enlarge the holes slightly and look for any balsa core rot. The balsa around the old instrument cutouts appeared to be in good condition for the most part so when my MAS epoxy order arrives I will start patching those holes.

Today I spent some more time sanding the bottom paint and I was pleased with my progress. I decided to try a 3m stripper pad attached to my drill. This worked very well for removing the thick antifouling layers. The key is to apply ample pressure and constantly move the pad in a back and forth motion. The result looks splotchy and uneven but I should easily be able to smooth it out with my orbital sander. Based on my progress thus far I probably have 5-8 more hours of sanding to do. This will mean that the total time sanding should be no more than 12 hours.

I recently purchased two books that I have found very informative. The first book by Don Casey is the "Complete Illustrated Sailboat Maintenance Manual." This book is an incredible bargain at 37.77 from Amazon. The book combines six of Casey's previous books into a single hardcover. It covers everything from painting to canvas work and I can already tell it will be a great resource. The second book is "Fiberglass Repair" by David and Zora Aiken. This book provides a more in depth look at fiberglass repairs and also offers some great suggestions for hull and deck reinforcement.

I have been doing a lot of planning and research in the last week. I am going to order 1/4 sheet of smoked Lexan from a local plastics supplier to make a new main hatch, sliding hatches, windows and front hatch. I also have decided to paint the topsides with Dupont Imron. I found a great paint store the carries Imron and I purchased a gallon of their generic high-solids primer. I am not completely decided on the color scheme yet but I am leaning towards a Swedish flag scheme ( Blue with yellow trim).