Me and My Boat: Yes, There was Dust and.....

September came to an end and with it the nice warm weather we had experienced in early fall.  Somewhere around there is the last time I had the boat out.  I think it was on Lake Superior.  Anyway, after that the Beast found her way back to my yard, waiting to be reborn.

One thing that Tim told me when I got started is this, “Sailing is easy, just put the boat in the water, put up the white fluffy things, and drink beer until you go straight”.  Words of wisdom to be sure.

The first weekend in October I started in on my plan for the refurbishment of the boat.  The only set back was that I would require a place to work on her for the duration.  My garage would dooly serve.  However, there was only one problem; the garage itself was already in use and had been for some time, as my music studio.  I had spent many long hours in the garage cultivating my love of the art of noise.  But a lass, I couldn’t have it both ways.  Something would have to go; that something being the studio.  After all it wasn’t like I had much of a choice.  The boat wouldn’t fit in the house and I didn’t have another area suitable for my needs.

I had been planning on redoing the studio anyway into a more permanent set-up, so my boat project gave me an excuse to get started.  This was not meet with a great deal of enthusiasm by my band mates, who had become use to playing music in my garage.  But they’d get over it.

So, I tore down the wall.  That is, I removed the make shift wall I had constructed back in 2002, in order to fit my boat into my garage.  All of my musical equipment was either relocated or covered with old blankets.  The new location worked just fine, but the blankets failed to keep the fine green dust from getting on the remaining stuff. 

Dust, yes there was dust.  Copious amounts of dust.  So much dust that everything in my garage has a fine green sheen from its presents.  You wouldn’t think that a small 21 foot sailboat would produce that much dust, but you would be wrong.  In fact, by the time I had finished sanding the obnoxious green paint off her hull,  the boat had lost half its mass and had been reduced to just a small fraction of its original length.  I’m kidding of course, but there was an endless amount of dust. 

Sanding the Hull

I started sanding on her port side near the bow, and I think that first day I only removed a couple square feet of paint from the hull.  Underneath the green paint was a layer of yellow paint.  This I already knew from the boat exquisite appearance up to and beginning at that point.  I was curious as to what was under those two layers.  I would soon find out.

After some intensive aberrational activities I revealed the original paint job, or at least the color the boat use to be before Dr. Frankenstein did his work on it.  This I believe was the original color, which was white with blue trim.  The coloring also matched a photo I got of the boat which was stuffed in the Sailing for Dummies book.  The remnants of which could still be seen on the very bottom of the hull; the blue anyway.

“A sanding we will go, a sanding we will go, hi ho the merry oh, sanding that frick’n boat we’ll go, until that entire God forsaken obnoxious green crappy paint is off the frick’n boat”.  Wow, that was a chore! 

During the two month period of time from October through November and a solid week’s effort near the end (I took a week of vacation, dedicating myself to the effort); I was able to remove virtually all of the accursed green paint from the boat.  Of course I did have some help.  My father, my sons and their friends, all chipped in at various points.  However, it was I, who did the bulk of the work; spending endless hours toiling away to rid my sailboat of its former hue.  It wasn’t just sanding either, there was much that needed to be done in order to reverse the degradation process and begin rebuilding the boat to a useful and esthetically pleasing condition.

The Old Interior

When I would get tired of sanding I would go about ripping the guts out of the boat.  This also proved a monumental task, and required the skillful use of both power tools and sledge hammers; well, hammers anyway.  As I removed more and more of the wood from the interior it became apparent that there was almost nothing that was worth keeping.  All of the wooden decking had been water logged and was rotten.  As I removed various sections revealing the flotation foam underneath; it was evident that it was a loss as well.  The only salvageable parts of the original interior were the narrow wooden shelves that had been spared the water damage suffered by the rest of the structures.  It all got ripped out, except the shelves. 

I estimate that I remove 300 plus pounds of rotten material from the interior of the boat.  The wooden parts were enough to fill the back of a pick up truck; full.  The foam and other smaller debris filled six 45 gallon trash bags.  The large amount of weight was due to all the water trapped in the foam from being immersed in it for so long.  It became clear that if the boat had taken on water while in use, it would have sunk.  However, at the time I had no way of knowing that fact, or I might not have ventured so far from shore.