All hauled out

The sky was still dark at 5:30 when my alarm went off.  I awoke to find that I still had my jeans and t-shirt on from the night before.  I hastily crammed down a pop-tart and hopped up into my lifted Jeep Cherokee.  Down at the Marina I met up with Mark shortly after fumbling with he keys in the creaky gate.  It was only 6 hours prior that we had dropped the mast on my Bristol 24.
Dropping the mast was a stressful proposition as raising it had been a nightmare both times.  The mast was old heavy aluminum, and the forces being exerted combined with the leverage placed on all the components worried me.  I rigged up the boom to act as a lever arm, and used the main sheet to do all the work of lowering it.  I also ran a precautionary line from the back stay to the stern rail just to be safe.  We had another couple people helping out, but in the end the mast lowered very slowly and smoothly.  It was as uneventful as I could have hoped for. 

After saying goodbye to everyone and tidying up I took a moment to pause in the companionway hatch to think about my boat.  It had been almost a year ago that I had bought it.  She had come a long way.  There are a lot of cosmetic problems that I fixed, and some that I inflicted over my ownership of her.  I had traveled over a hundred miles aboard her over the course of the summer.  It wasn't quite as grand as I had planned, but there are times when you just need to take a step back and re-evaluate what's going on.  My trip to Manitowoc had been my final sail.  Had I known I may have carried it out with a bit more fanfare, but still it seemed a fitting time to say goodbye to my boat.  It wasn't just the last sail of the season, but the last I would ever have on her.  I'm thankful she sold so quickly, so I wouldn't have time to change my mind.  Still I'd like to get her cleaned up for the next owner.
Mark helped steer while I rowed my 8 foot pram dinghy.  The key to effectively pulling such a heavy boat by such primitive means is to use a very long line to absorb the shock as you row.  We were making probably a knot-an-a-half over toward the boat ramp.  We tied up and I ran errands until the moving company came to pull her out. 
The big semi trailer backed down the boat ramp and easily slid Aequitas up out of the water.  I had forgotten how pretty she looked when you could see all of her.  Admittedly she needed some cleaning.  Algae had grown on the one side exposed to the sun, and I could see the chunk of fiberglass that had been taken out of the bow from that fateful failed voyage with the Bradings. 
After the stands were in place on the old road I went to work cleaning off the slime.  I only had one sponge and no water to use, so it kind of just mixed in with the paint, and has since flaked off into a very unattractive finish.  I intend to patch up the bow, scrub off the flakes, and if I can get around to it, apply some more varnish to the woodwork.  I want the next owners to have as little reason for remorse as possible.  She is after all a strong seaworthy boat, I just can't give her the life she deserves right now.  I daresay I'm leaving her better than I found her though.  She got to get out on the water and ride around happily on the waves.  I'm sure it won't be long before she's back out there, reunited with one of her previous owners.  I am still quite anxious to find if he has any information into her history.

A hard day's night

The only way to get rid of a dream is to forget about it or chase it down till you fulfill it.  Sometimes you need to make sacrifices to chase your dreams and reach your goals; today that sacrifice takes the shape of sleep.  Since I've been working so much I really don't have any time to work on my boat during the day, so I decided I could squeeze in a few hours after work to prep for more varnishing.  Unfortunately since I didn't get done with work until 8:30 and I had to run other errands I didn't get down there until 10:00.  Once I get something in my head I stick to it till it's done: so even though it was late I got to work. 
All but the rub rails have been varnished and so I had to sand everything down with 220 grit sandpaper until it was smooth.  Luckily I didn't need to see much to do this, so I worked by touch.  I did invest in a few small tea light candles to keep the cabin lit without the need of batteries (it looked pretty cool).
After about two-and-a-half hours of sanding I was finally done and about collapsed from being so sleepy.  I haven't gotten the best sleep over the past couple of days.  I had the foresight to bring along a pillow and sleeping bag, and thus I spent my first night on my boat.  I'm planning on living on it for the summer, so no reason not to get used to it now. 
I curled up in the foreward cabin and slept the best I could manage.  It dropped a little below 40 degrees, so it wasn't too toasty, and the amount of caffeine I had consumed to fuel my night time sanding party kept my mind running at full tilt long after my body was done for the day.  Now sitting here at the computer is interesting seeing as I woke up at 5:20 am to get my brother to seminary class at the church on time. 
I did notice that the sky began to get bright around 4:00 am, so I might just wake up early to get some work done as opposed to staying up late.  It's all good though.

Progress shots





These are the "custom" sawhorses I built to keep the mast off the ground.  It's the little things like this that make me feel better about my boat. 

You can see the frog tape and paint slopped all over the waterline here.  Also my sloppy first attempt at putting the stickers on the side.

This is the better side where the stickers are actually lined up.  (My brother's OCD is gonna go overtime on the other stickers).  And this is after I repainted the waterline.

The view from the cabnin after all the woodwork has been sanded, and the sides have a fresh coat of paint.  Much better than it looked before.  (Still need to do the floor though).

These are the 8 or 9 holes that I drilled in the port side of the keel to let the moisture drain out.  Hopefully nothing too bad going on in there.  From what I've read in the forums, it's nothing to worry about if there are no cracks, and it's prertty common.

And this is all the gear I bought to get her back into Bristol Condition.

Springtime at last

My day off at work was switched from Thursday to Friday to coincide with the last day of the month.  It was busy at work, but as the weather gets progressively warmer my thoughts turn more and more to sailing.  The forecast called for a snowy rainy mix which luckily didn't come.  I was able to spend most of the day working on my boat getting her ready for her first season of sailing in a long time.  There was a small amount of water that had trickled down into the bilge (the lowest part of the boat) and had frozen over winter.  I had thought that after the 40+ degree weather that it would all melt and I'd be able to scoop it out.  It took days before I could break up the chunks of ice and throw them overboard since the 3,000 pound solid lead ballast in the keel didn't want to warm up as fast as the rest of the boat.
Rather than worrying about buying or renting a generator I decided to just get some useful cordless tools.  I bought a drill and a circular saw.  I used the saw to cut a few boards up for a makeshift floor, and used the drill in conjunction with a wire paint stripper to do most of the other work.  It was amazing how quickly and easily I was able to get the random spills from the previous owner cleaned up when I had electricity on my side.  I had been trying to scrape this stuff out of the cockpit by hand, but it would have taken days; I accomplished the same task in about an hour.  It's so gratifying to see things start to come together.  After a long cold winter of worrying if she'll be ready in time, of being restless, of magnifying problems in my mind, I was finally getting stuff done.  I scrubbed and taped and began to paint.  I organized and analyzed. Now I know the ins and outs of the boat just a little bit better.  The part that I thought had been leaking I sealed up so that no moisture could make it through.  On Sunday when I swung by to check it out in the rain I found out what the real problem had been all along.  The cockpit is like a big bath tub with two drains close to the forward edge.  These drains go through two hoses and out the bottom of the boat.  One of these hoses was not only clogged at them bottom, but it wasn't properly aligned where the drain meets the hose, so any rain water was just filling up inside the hose and draining out inside the boat.  I tightened down the hose clamps inside the boat, and then went to see about clearing the clog out.  It was pretty easy actually; I found a long bolt, and poked it up in the drain once and a hole bunch of water splashed out on my arm.  Now when it stops raining I can go back and paint the engine bay, finish painting the cockpit, and begin varnishing the woodwork.  Varnishing will probably take a long time, but I'm hopeful that it'll look all pretty when I'm done.
The official sailing season starts here on the 15th of April.  My goal is to have her in the water by my birthday on the 24th of May.  These dates are getting closer and closer.  I do feel confident that I'll have everything done on schedule, and then I can move in and enjoy the summer aboard.  She may not be the newest, prettiest, or most high-tech boat out there, but at least I will have the satisfaction of knowing that I brought her back to life and helped her be out where she belongs: on the water.
     -I'll put pictures up next time-   Feel free to leave comments or ask questions.  Otherwise you can find me on Facebook.

A good day's work.

Today was my day off of work at the dealership, so I slept in a little bit.  I had a few delays in the morning (being called in to sell a car when they didn't end up buying it, voting, eating etc.)   After I was finally all squared away and ready to work I stopped by Home Depot to see what kind of painting supplies they had. I could see all sorts of tools I'd like to have, and that I would put to good use but I had to limit the amount of money I spent today.  They didn't have the right kind of paint, so I went to a local boat repair shop to get  some.  The stuff I was looking for was $41.00 per quart!  I can't wait till I have to buy the anti-fouling paint for the hull.  I was able to find some green paint that I thought would match the hull pretty well for $31.00/quart.  I bought that and headed over to the boat.  After a quick sample on the transom I decided that it didn't match properly, and that I wanted to have a white transom after all to contrast the dark green hull.  After returning the paint to the marine shop I headed to the north side of town to Menards to see what they had there.  I found the people in the paint department very helpful.  Obviously they didn't carry marine grade stuff either, but I was able to find a hardcore primer that bonds well to fiberglass, and some hard wearing paint to put over that.  I know it might now be the kosher way to do it, but for right now I just want to get the old patched up stern looking good again.
A quick pit stop at Subway, and a few minutes later and i was back on my boat.  I sanded, taped, primed, waited, sanded, primed, waited some more, and then got one coat of paint on the transom today.  Tomorrow morning I want to go clean up the lines a bit, and put on two more coats of paint.  Instead of being bored sitting around I decided to go to work ripping out the cabin sole.  I did as much as I could with the hand saw that I bought, and a piece of bar stock steel as a makeshift crow-bar.  Now the starboard half of the floor in the cabin is out; which is good cause it was squishy plywood not strong enough to support me.  The fiberglass underneath is solid.  I need a circular saw to get the port side floor out so I can level the fiberglass, and build a new sole.  One nice thing about this project is that I can make the floor a couple of inches lower so I have better headroom inside.
On board someone had left some WestMarine Teak Oil.  I went to work oiling up some of the woodwork.  I was planning on varnishing all the wood, but in Blue Water the author says he oiled all of his wood cause it's less maintenance, and repels water just as good.  The pieces I did are a bit darker than I would like, but it's ways easier to just dump some oil on wood and wait for it to soak in, than it is to varnish, sand, varnish, sand, varnish, and then know that I'll have to do it all again next season.
All in all I'd say it was a pretty good day.  Things are coming together on the restoration part of the boat, soon it will be the outfitting of it all.
Thanks for reading, feel free to explore the rest of my blog, and leave comments.