Layers of Learning
Hi CALers,
Thanks for the replies to my "Guru" post.
Before the questions, I'll fill y'all in with where I am in my dream ...
I bought the boat while she was in the water. She needed too much to worry about hauling her out for a survey nor did I have the money to pay for it. While she was in the water, I decided to find the cause of some of the leaks. The deck core is rotten through most of it (stanchion and hatch leaks), the mast beam under the deck is rotten in the center (mast wire hole leaks), the bulkheads have rotted under the chainplates (chainplate leaks), but luckily, somebody sealed the deck/hull seam with fiberglass so no leaks there.
So I've been bent over scraping that darn rotten plywood (the bottom 2 layers of the plywood come out easily but that top layer embedded in the resin is a pain if it's not totally rotten) from the inside of the deck. I've removed the stanchions and temporarily sealed the holes with some thickened epoxy to stop the leaks. But the wood frame of the sliding hatch still leaks into strategically placed buckets.
My Cal does not have the famous, long, raised hatch thing-a-mabob. It just has a regular sliding hatch and I can find no signs of fiberglass work showing that somebody changed it in the past. Did the original Cal25's (mine is hull # 104) have one of those pop top hatches? I've seen pictures of the pop tops and they appear to be fiberglass where my hatch is wood laminated in fiberglass on the top, bare wood underneath.
So after scraping a bunch of rotten wood out but not finishing, I decided to haul her out. Since just about every repair is new to me, it takes me a while to learn how to repair it and I always start with small jobs, working my up to larger jobs, so each job is taking me a while to complete.
When she came out, I figured I better replace the thru-hulls and proceeded to remove them. Some were not findable from underneath as they had been plugged, sanded, and painted over.
Inside I found a piece of wood on the keel with a plug in it with a handle. I unscrewed the plug and removed it finding nothing on the end but bottom paint. Later I found a similarly shaped plug but with wires on one end and a paddle wheel on the outside part and determined this was for the knot meter mounted underneath the hatch entrance in the cockpit above the drains. I checked out the knot meter and the hands have come off and are laying inside of the face with lots of corrosion so I decided not to try to make this system work again.
The next hole was a thru-hull with an old gate valve underneath the aft galley table seat. I could find no purpose for this t-hull, not even for a washdown pump, so it goes.
Of course there are the 2 cockpit drains which for my boat, consisted of 2 hoses connected to 2 holes in the cockpit with silicone and going to the old t-hulls with no valves. These will be replaced.
Next I found 2 head t-hulls, also with gate valves, these will be replaced.
Then I found 2 transducers with cut wires. Instead of trying to see if either work with a new depth finder, I'm getting rid of them. Since I can't afford a decent depth finder right now, I'll have to opt with the "In hull transducer" setup after she's back in the water.
First are the cockpit drains. I've read that they're too small so I decided to enlarge mine, especially since the hose was simply attached with an adhesive, no drains! They looked like they were about 3/4 inch so I upped them to 1 1/2". I bought plastic drains (should have gone with bronze) but they had to be recessed and there's only about a 1/4 inch of fiberglass in the corners of the cockpit. So I built up a thick layer of epoxy on the underside of the cockpit to recess the drains. I only have some small countersink drill bits so I drilled the main smaller hole first with a hole saw bit through the epoxy layer I have created and then used my Dremel tool to create the angled recess for the drain. Not neat but okay, anybody know how to drill large angled recessed holes? Is there a bit for that?
Next came the thru-hulls for the drains. An opposite problem here as the old t-hulls were recessed but the new ones are not. So I use thickened epoxy again to fill in the recess. Then I also built up an epoxy mound about an inch tall to mount the new thru-hulls on to give them a stronger wider base. Then redrilled the the holes with a holesaw bit. The first one I drilled from inside but quickly learned that it's important to drill from the outside to get the angle correct. After test fitting the t-hulls and seeing how the inside nut lay, I sanded the top of the inside mound until the flat spot on top matched the angle of the nut.
Then I used expensive black water line with wire inside to attach the t-hulls to the drains. With less than a foot between the two and an angle from the t-hull (hull angle), I found I had to install the t-hulls, then after a week for the 5200 to set, I had to first install the hose to the tailpiece and then 5200 in the cockpit drains. A day later, a had a bubble of 5200 that came out each drain and t-hull fit. Is that bad? Heat heating a pocket of air or something in the seal and creating a void?
The hole underneath the galley seat, the hole for the speed paddle wheel, and the 2 holes for previous transducers were repaired the same way. I ground the 12 to 1 bevel from inside and glassed in the holes using West. I found placing a cut piece of plastic (like from a thick plastic bag) over the hole,under the tape, creates a nice smooth outside surface needing little sanding after curing.
I also found damage on the fore and aft sections of the bottom of the keel and repaired them with layers of mat, cloth, and roven woving. Near the top of the keel was damage as from the top of a piling that went almost through the keel. I beveled that on the outside and built up layers of glass until flush with the keel. Then at the same area of damage but from inside, I found delamination at the top base of the keel, grinded that off, and added layers of mat and roven woving.
The t-hulls for the head were also recessed so I epoxied them in and redrilled them as well as building a mound of epoxy for strengthening purposes.
I removed the rudder ... took a while to figure out those oddly shaped and positioned pins that hold it on. It was delaminating and when I pulled on an exposed part, I pulled off an entire side of fiberglass. So I removed the other side through grinding and wedges, and sanded the foam down smooth. The foam at the aft edge had been melted or something, probably from too much buildup and heat or maybe from chemicals of the resin used. I tested some West on the foam and it doesn't melt or anything so I've used 12 oz cloth with West and graphite (West says it's common for rudders so what the heck, I want it strong) for the top small part, will do the larger sides and small bottom soon.
Once out of the water, I took the rig down so I can do the deck core repairs. Once in the water, is it safe to remove bulkheads for replacement or will the hull bend out of shape? Lots more questions to come.
There's much more done but I guess this is enough for chapter one. The questions will follow soon but I wanted to let y'all know the level of knowledge I have on repair, which is little but I love to learn. Hope to learn from y'all.
Peaceski
Mattski
"Lost Sailor"
Cal25104