Getting to know every inch of this vessel!

(April 18, 2012)
While she was out of the water, our to-do list included:

• Fix the pitting in the hull,
• Fix the keel (make it water-tight),
• Clean and/or replace the sacrificial metals,
• Replace the gate valves with ball valves.

We used an epoxy to fix the pitting in the hall.  First, her hull had to be sandblasted, to create a clean surface for the epoxy.  We sandblasted only the parts we needed to fix (the pitted areas of the hull and the keel):

Once she was sandblasted, we were ready to apply the epoxy to the hull:

 Layer one applied.  A few days later, Bruce sanded and applied a second layer.  A week or so after that, we sanded and applied the third layer.  Her hull is nice and smooth now!

To fix the keel, we applied fiberglass along the bottom ridge.  It extends up about 3 inches on each side.  This was a very interesting experience, and much "lower tech" than I thought it would be.  Bruce started at one end of the keel.  I started at the other and we met in the middle.  Once you mix the chemicals, you have about 20 minutes to apply the fiberglass and the epoxy, and about 90 minutes to work with it (rolling it with the special roller to remove any air and get it nice and smooth).  The stated timing is very accurate--thankfully we finished in just about 20 minutes.

Now we needed to clean the sacrificial metals and make a decision about replacing them.  The pitting that was on the hull looked like it was old--it had occurred before she was last painted (in fact, we suspect that the electrolysis was caused by the wrong type of paint being applied--paint that had metal in it).  There did not appear to be any recent pitting, so it looked like the sacrificial metals were doing their job.  Once we cleaned them, we determined that they were not too horrible.  While they were pitted, they were only about 20-25% gone (after 10+ years), and most articles I found said to replace them at 50%.  Since replacing them would delay getting her back in the water, and they were still at about 75-80%, I decided to keep them on another year.  I will probably pull her out of the water again next year to see how the hull looks and replace the zincs (which I think are actually magnesium).

 I really loved helping Bruce replace the gate valves with ball valves.  The through-hull pipe on the port side was stripped, so we had to sand the pipe and re-groove (I'm pretty sure that's not the technical term) the pipe.  This was hard work!

Gate valves:

 Ball valves (sea valves):

One great thing about having to completely renovate a boat like this, is that I feel like I will know every inch of her when we are finished.