It’s been an interesting 4 days; along with the rain and thunderstorms it was just fine
The first thing we did was installing the rudder, not an easy task, as it seemed. Everything was cleaned up so it would slide out of the tube all the time. We had to block it up into place to hook up the steering plates. This was not so bad since everything was already refitted. The problem was with the cables. First the steering was stiff so the entire pedestal had to be disassembled. A slow process since I did not know how to remove the compass off the dammed thing but it was figured out without breaking anything YET. All the brass was corroded, it all had to be disassembled and cleaned up, not difficult just time consuming. That done the compass had to be remounted. The compass light did not work so that got traced back to the problem. The bezel ring had to be cleaned off so carefully disassembling the ring not to break the seal. WRONG .It broke and I got a pint of compass fluid all over me luckily it was mineral oil and not kerosene, still a mess.
All was then reassembled and then the steering chain jammed up on me, and it started to rain. SHIT .All strait again and now hook up the cables, still raining and all wet. The new position for the cable was very high and I couldn’t figure out why because it should be the same as it came out. Come to find out the cable came off one of the pulleys and was not riding in the track. Disassembled again, still raining and reassemble. Everything worked this time a good days work time to clean up and rest.
An early start on the hull I started at the bow and scrubbed a bit to clean the area for the new registration numbers. That’s a whole other story of 2hours at the DMV and $260.00 dollars later. But the boat is registered. The new numbers were placed and then I started a little rubdown to see the color of the boat. WOW that’s nice.
So here are the steps to restoring gel coat on fiberglass. Fist the weather is hot and humid besides its Saturday and none around, cold beers in the cooler. Wash down a section with the bucket and a scotch scrub pad to get off all the white streaks. Next PENITROL great stuff to get the gel coat a bit soft and bring out the shin followed immediately with marine rubbing and polishing compound. Done by hand, of course. Have a beer. Then the buffer, while everything is still wet and not dry, that’s the key, start buffing your section and keep buffing until the shine starts to come through, about half hours worth. Have a beer your first foot is done, only 28 more feet to go. I only got half the side done before I could go no longer and it was raining.
Sunday more of the same, but this time I took it a bit slower and in between waiting periods I started stripping the mast down to get an Idea of what type of work we had there, Not bad, I was pleased. More washing rubbing and buffing and the entire side was done by the end of the day, Great because it’s starting to rain again. It rained all night HEAVY and even with the hatch just cracked everything still got a bit wet.
Monday, today we plan on doing the EXAUST finally, it’s been one of those difficult projects that I have been avoiding knowing it was going to be difficult. IT WAS. First we checked the engine to make sure everything is still working and running so I don’t have to disassemble anything else once I get started. WRONG. It wouldn’t start, the fuel pump wires had got bumped loose and while checking other things I noticed that the previous person had hooked up the fuel lines backwards in the water separator thus pumping all the bad fuel into the carburetor, everything had to be drained, the lines switched and off she fired. Before getting started I better check the billage because all the cooling water is running down there because I’m on dry land, and it’s raining again. Sure enough the billage was full, not only that because of all the rain all the scubber lines were now plugged and needed to be cleaned out. NO WAY. I have to go into the billage anyway to rout the exhaust so I will deal with it then.
To get there we remove the fuel tank platform and a false bulkhead separating the exhaust pipe from the other components. Done, crawl in and what a Pandora’s bow we have drain lines vent lines loose fuel lines and any other kind of line you can think of. To fix this problem I ripped everything out. Especially the overboard drains that were all plugged and not draining. Those where just cut off with a knife and when I did all that shit that had accumulated over the past years came gushing all over me and onto the billage. Thank god for the billage pump. The exhaust started at the engine and all had to be wrapped in heat tape to keep the exhaust pipe from burning. The tape runs from the engine all the way to where the water injection port starts about 4 feet worth, all hand wrapped and then coated with stove plaster to insulate even more, all the fittings where individually installed because that was the only way to get everything to line up and fit properly. See the pictures. This was all done down on the hole after crawling through a 3 foot hatch cover. Of course it’s raining the OB drains are all cut off and I’m getting soaked. The project took all day the plumbing got all redone and the exhaust remounted and done. By this time I was soaked to the bone. I backed up the truck to the side of the boat and anything I did not want on board I threw into the back of the truck. Closed the hatch and drove off. I did not even run the engine to see if all is sealed. I figure that for this weekend. Enough is enough. That’s a sailor’s life, if your not willing to get wet and uncomfortable don’t be one. I AM A SAILOR.

Uwe