Last Few Pre-Haulout Loose Ends
June 26 thru June 29
—Blogpost written by Bob
Saturday, June 26
It is overcast again today. It rained last night and scattered thunderstorms are expected this afternoon. Yesterday, during a break in the rain, I took our forepeak tent down and temporarily repositioned it over the companionway coaming forward of the dodger.
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| Yesterday I repositioned our forepeak tent to cover the companionway coaming to see if the rainwater leakage stopped. |
There were no signs of leakage this morning after it rained last night. So, I believe that this little experiment confirms that the leak is coming from the companionway coaming. We intend to remove the coaming on Monday morning and see what we can find.
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Maggie got back her week at the beach today, all tanned and relaxed.
Sunday, June 24
There wasn't much to do today except read and I just finished reading an excellent book by Madeleine Albright entitled Fascism: A Warning.
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| This is Madeleine Albright's sixth book and I think it is her best! |
Madeleine Albright, Clinton’s Secretary of State, was born in Czechoslovakia and had to flee the country to London when she was a young child. She eventually came to America with her parents in 1948. She has earned a PhD from Columbia University. She taught at the Georgetown University and later served on Jimmy Carter's National Security Council. She served as ambassador to the United Nations and was the first woman to serve as Secretary of State.
Her book covers the rise of fascism in Europe in the 1920's (Mussolini in Italy) and in the 1930's (Hitler in Germany). There are many parallels between the early Trump presidency and what happened in the 1920's and 1930's in Europe. Both Mussolini and Hitler came into office legally and did it through an agenda aimed at older white nationalists. Did you realize that the phrase “drain the swamp” was first used by Hitler in Germany in the 1930’s?
Just to show how far we are already down the slippery slope toward fascism in the United States, who would have imagined just two years ago, that the President of the United States would be telling the American people that the "press is the enemy of the people"? Or that American judges would be belittled by the President as being biased and referred to as a “laughing stock”? That true war heroes of the past (like John McCain) would be ridiculed by the President? Who would have thought that bad actors on the international stage (Putin, Kim Jung Un, etc.) would be praised by the President as strong leaders while the leaders of our democratic allies (Canada, France, Germany, etc.) would disrespected like they were at the recent G7 meeting in Canada?
Do you really think it can't happen here? Germans and Italians didn't think so either. I realize that this sounds alarmist and we are all too busy with our normal lives to pay close attention to the daily barrage of lies and falsehoods that have become a new normal but we must if we care about America's future.
I think our country will make it through the Trump fascism stage and then swing toward a socialist extreme and (hopefully) settle back into a more moderate democracy again.
Her book covers the rise of fascism in Europe in the 1920's (Mussolini in Italy) and in the 1930's (Hitler in Germany). There are many parallels between the early Trump presidency and what happened in the 1920's and 1930's in Europe. Both Mussolini and Hitler came into office legally and did it through an agenda aimed at older white nationalists. Did you realize that the phrase “drain the swamp” was first used by Hitler in Germany in the 1930’s?
Just to show how far we are already down the slippery slope toward fascism in the United States, who would have imagined just two years ago, that the President of the United States would be telling the American people that the "press is the enemy of the people"? Or that American judges would be belittled by the President as being biased and referred to as a “laughing stock”? That true war heroes of the past (like John McCain) would be ridiculed by the President? Who would have thought that bad actors on the international stage (Putin, Kim Jung Un, etc.) would be praised by the President as strong leaders while the leaders of our democratic allies (Canada, France, Germany, etc.) would disrespected like they were at the recent G7 meeting in Canada?
Do you really think it can't happen here? Germans and Italians didn't think so either. I realize that this sounds alarmist and we are all too busy with our normal lives to pay close attention to the daily barrage of lies and falsehoods that have become a new normal but we must if we care about America's future.
I think our country will make it through the Trump fascism stage and then swing toward a socialist extreme and (hopefully) settle back into a more moderate democracy again.
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Tomorrow we begin the task of removing the companionway coaming...
Monday, June 25
This morning is breezy (10 knots from the northwest) and very cool (71 degrees at 7:30 AM) with lots of sunshine and low humidity—perfect weather to be outside. Police sirens are screaming several miles away (from the direction of downtown) and I can hear the morning hum of traffic as commuters drive to work. Believe it or not, birds are chirping nearby, a sound not often associated with the city. Little duck families are out and about on the water. Even though the chicks are getting bigger, I’ve noticed that there are fewer of them in each family as we approach summer.
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We went out for breakfast (at Towson Hot Bagels on Boston Street) before starting today’s project of removing the companionway coaming. We started this project at 9AM, a bit later than I wanted but we moved along rather swiftly.
When we removed the coaming there was a lot of dry dirt in the cavity. The 35-year old butyl gasket was squeezed out thin in some areas and lumped in globs in others. The gasket came apart quite easily, about half of it remaining on the deck and the other half came off with the coaming.
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| This photo was taken just after we removed the companionway coaming and the sliding hatch. |
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| The old original butyl gasket on the starboard side. |
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| There was a big wad of dirt on the starboard (lower) side of the companionway. |
We found no area that allowed direct leakage into the companionway except possibly through the screw holes around the perimeter. Rainwater could have easily entered through the gasket on the port (high) side and come through one or more screw holes on the starboard (lower) side. After scraping all the gasket remains off we thoroughly cleaned the deck and the coaming. When everything was dry, we applied the new butyl gasket to the cabin top where the coaming mounts. Then we mounted the coaming over the cabin top, inserting two screws at far ends of the coaming to hold its position. We then inserted all the other screws using a dab of silicone sealant on each one. (We pulled out the original two screws used to hold it in position and put a dab of silicone on these as well.) I tightened the screws down tight all around the perimeter. The new white butyl gasket squeezed out fairly evenly around the perimeter.
Accessing the bottom of the six bolts that mount the traveler was difficult—there is just a hand-sized hole to get to the nuts and washers underneath. I replaced most of the old washers with new fender washers. The remainder of the project was simply putting canvas things and lines back together. We completed the project by 3 PM, even taking an hour off going out for lunch.
While we had the dodger windows off I plugged two old holes (with epoxy and #407 filler) that were once used for penetration seals for the first solar panel panel I mounted on the dodger. (The solar panel cables now come thru the SCANSTRUT-brand deck seal shown at the bottom of this image.)
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| The two holes toward the top of this image are the two holes that I filled with epoxy. This was after the first step of the filling. |
Assuming the hole filling to be a two-step process, I filled the two holes to about 90% of the depth—the remaining 10% will be filled using a white colloidal silica filler (West System #406) to get a good white surface that can easily be sanded smooth.
In the evening when the first step of (brown colored) epoxy cured, I applied the second step using white colloidal silica filler. Allowing the second step to cure overnight, I can sand it smooth tomorrow morning to complete this part of the project. (Since this is normally hidden by the dodger window, I am not too concerned about getting a perfect color match.)
Tuesday, June 26
The whirring noise of my vibrating pad sander broke the silence of another cool morning (68 degrees F) as I sanded down the second step of epoxy filling on the two holes in the cockpit coaming. The color of the resulting plug is more like a medium translucent white against the grayish cloud white color of the hull. (I’ll have to get some matching gel coat to cover the plugs but at least I won’t expect to get any rainwater leakage. It is possible that the rainwater leakage I experienced last week came from these two holes even though they are sheltered by the dodger window.) Rain is in the forecast for Tuesday night—we’ll see if the leak reappears.
Maggie helped me get the starboard dodger window back on—this is always a struggle requiring two people pulling and getting the snaps aligned.
Early this afternoon I had my annual physical exam in Annapolis. So, we headed to Annapolis in the morning to get some other things accomplished, namely stopping by our storage unit to drop some things off and pick up others in preparation for our boat's haulout.
When we returned to the boat I researched some options for getting some matching gel coat and I rented a color book from FIBREGLAST.COM so that I can determine the color of gel coat I need to order. The other option I have is to have the boatyard touch up the spots (using gel coat they mixed last summer for the repair on the bow) during our upcoming haulout. I’m going to leave both options open until our boat is hauled out. In the meantime, I’m going to do some more small fiberglass repairs so that all the gel coat work can be done all at one time.
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| In the evening, a common event is a Maggie sitting outside in the cockpit with Captain Jack. We had a nice breeze this evening, about 8 knots from the southeast. |
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It is rare that I read and review two books in the same blogpost but I’ve had a lot more time to read with all the rainy days we’ve had lately. This book will certainly be of greater interest to boaters—it is about the sinking of El Faro, an American-flagged container ship near the island of San Salvador in the Bahamas while traveling from Jacksonville, FL to Puerto Rico. I feel like I have a special connection to this ship because we saw one of the containers from this ship that had washed up on a beach on the southern end of Great Abaco, maybe 100 miles from the place where the ship sank. Also, the ship was made in Chester, PA which is about 40 miles from where I grew up.
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| A great book for readers interested in ships and the lives of mariners. |
This book, Into the Raging Sea: Thirty-Three Mariners, One Mega Storm, and the Sinking of El Faro was written by Rachel Slade in 2018. It covers some of the personal lives of the mariners who went down with the ship, some background from the shipyard in Chester PA that built the ship in 1974, some of the renovations made to the ship over time, the recovery of the ship’s black box, the outcome of the hearings and settlements, and and why the Captain stubbornly directed his ship directly into the eye of Hurricane Joaquin in early October 2015. (One can read the original announcement on CNN about the ship's sinking at this link.) While reading this book you really develop an understanding of how today’s mariners live.
I highly recommend reading this book, available here on Amazon, if you have an interest in this subject.
Wednesday, June 27
Today started out overcast with a light rain falling. According to this morning's weather forecast the 70% probability of rain continues throughout today and tonight. We'll certainly know soon enough if we fixed the rainwater leak or not.
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| The sky was overcast and it rained lightly throughout the day. |
I had planned on plugging four old unused bolt holes in the hard dodger today but the rain will postpone that project. I have two small fiberglass repairs that I can do in the areas being sheltered from the rain by the hard dodger.
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| This 1/2-inch long repair spot is on the upper inside port edge of the companionway opening. This is one f three spots to be repaired. |
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| The epoxy with colloidal silica filler was smeared into the repair spot and then wrapped in wax paper and taped in place until it hardens. |
I repaired all three spots by using epoxy thickened with colloidal silica by inserted the epoxy into the holes, wrapping in wax paper, and taping in place until the epoxy hardens. The epoxy doesn't usually stick to the wax paper and it forms a nice smooth outer surface and should minimize the amount of hardened epoxy I have to sand off.
We went out for dinner with Maggie's son-in-law at My Thai on Central Avenue. The Thai food was fantastic--the best we have found in Baltimore!
Thursday, June 28
A sunny day greeted us this morning as we slept in until 7:30. After all the rain we had yesterday and last night, we had NO leaks around the companionway! So, the repairs we made were successful!
After I got up and drank a strong cup of (Earl Grey) tea, I pulled off the tape holding the wax paper over the three small fiberglass repairs. One looked like it barely needed any sanding, the second needed slightly more filled epoxy, and the third needed a significant amount of sanding to make it smooth. So, I added some thickened epoxy to the one repair that needed it.
Taping wax paper over the fiberglass did result in some adhesion of the wax paper, apparently as the epoxy curing produced heat it melted the wax and allowed it to partially adhere. (A plastic sheet probably would have worked better than the wax paper.) I noticed that covering up the epoxy repair lengthened the cure time over leaving it exposed to air. (The remains of the thickened epoxy in the mixing cup hardened long before the actual repair areas did.)
After thinking more about the application of the gel coat over the repairs, I am going ahead with the selection the color as if I were going to do it myself but I will likely add it to the list of things being done by our boatyard during out upcoming haulout since they already have the gel coat mixed to match the boat's fiberglass.
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We are finding that Lola, our now huge Maine Coon kitten, is quite unique. We have found her sleeping in the litter box but more frequently on the top of our ice box/refrigerator. She is quite playful and her favorite toy (out of four or five toys) is a ping pong ball—she actually plays with up to three of them at one time. In the morning, we find the boat carpets all piled up from her chasing ping pong balls all over during the night. Like the kitten she is, she plays very hard then takes a short nap, then plays hard again.
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| Lola laying on the ice box/refrigerator lid, taking a little break from playing hard. |
Friday, June 29
A beautiful day awaited us as I woke up at 8:15, and Maggie a little more than an hour later. Today was warmer (reaching well into the 90’s) and much more humid, without much wind (only 5 to 6 knots at best).
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The senseless shooting of five people at the newspaper office in Annapolis (my adopted hometown) was all over the news. I wonder what kind of whacko was responsible for this killing spree with a shotgun. I would never have expected this type of thing to occur in such a peaceful town.
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My simple goal for the day was to sand down the fiberglass repairs I recently made at three spots in preparation for them to be coated with gel coat. First, I cut off some of the excess fiberglass on one of the repairs with a razor blade to reduce the amount of sanding that was needed. However well intentioned my goals were, we ended up driving to Annapolis, having lunch at Italian Market, stopping by our storage unit to pick up some more things in preparation for our haulout, and getting groceries for the next couple of days. By the time we got back to the boat, it was too hot and humid outside to sand down the fiberglass repairs—it will have to wait until tomorrow morning...
Thanks for following our blog!
Albright's book is excellent
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