Back to Work - Finally

It's been hard regaining our momentum, but we are back at work.

Our SeaCamper has a new floor, and the windows are reinstalled. We have one leak, in the rear port window. That was the first one we reinstalled, and we didn't quite have our system down yet. I'm hoping to get down to the boatyard later today to see if I can see where the leak is, and squeeze a bit of sealant into the gap from both the inside and outside. I suspect one of the little wooden dowels that we used as spacers stuck all the way through the sealant and actually created a channel through to the inside. The spacers are important to make sure there is a good bed of sealant between the aluminum window-frame and the fiberglass of the boat. If you just squirt in the sealant and then screw the windows up tight then you squeeze out the sealant. With the extremely thin and fragile seal that results, the first flex of the fiberglass breaks the seal, and the leak returns.

I also need to take the needle nose pliers down, and make sure all of the little wooden sticks we used for spacers are all the way out. As soon as that's done, another quarter turn on all the screws that hold the windows in should tighten the windows up against their 1/4 inch rubber gaskets, and we should be ready to move to the next step in restoration.

The new floor and transom were installed last winter, and they look great. With the new floor, and the windows installed, she's starting to look like a boat again, not an abandoned wreck.

Here is a of photo of the interior with the new floor and rear bulkhead in place. This shot shows the new transom (the exterior steps are doing temporary duty indoors).

The light spot to the right of the photo is the old blackwater discharge, through which you can pump your sewage overboard. We sealed it up, but haven't yet brushed on the gelcoat outside.

My next little job (after tracking down my last window leak) is to install new through hull fittings that drain the trough around the engine compartment and direct the water out through the transom. My 1 7/8" hole saw is going to get quite a workout cutting through the new transom with its two sheets of 3/4 inch plywood, a layer of MAS Epoxy between them and a nice thick layer of fiberglass on the inside of the transom. Good time to have a drill with a cord.

After that's done, it's time to install the new plumbing system and get the shower and head back into shape. I'd like to have plumbing pretty well wrapped up and the electrical system roughed in before we need to re-wrap her for the fall.

Spring! Well, sort of

Spring is here, time to start the boating season! Unfortunately, it doesn't look or feel like spring. There are snowflakes swirling around my window right now, and an inch of new snow is on the ground.

Glen called from the Watergate, and the little boat is ready to roll. (The little boat?) That's right, we now have two boats. At the end of last season, as you may remember, we were looking for a wrecked boat with a 4.3L GM and a MerCruiser Alpha 1 I/O. Well, I didn't find exactly the boat I was looking for, but I did find an older Glastron with the same engine as the SeaCamper that has a MerCruiser lower unit. So, I made the deal. Now we have two boats.

We also didn't get the glass work done on the SeaCamper over the winter as I'd hoped. Glen's guys stayed busy through the winter, so they are going to do the transom/stringers/belly tanks/bulkheads/mounts/floor job this spring. In the meantime, we are going to have the little boat to play with. I'll get a photo of her to post as soon as I can.

Here's some spring time inspiration from Captain John: On top is his houseboat, the Reprise. She's a 43 footer. Below her are a couple of shots of the Patty Lou. She started her voyage last fall on the St. Croix river, just east of the Twin Cities. These photos were taken at the Port of Guttenberg, Iowa, 200 miles south, on September 13. 2007. She was last seen heading south to Lock and Dam #10. Hopefully she made it safely to New Orleans or wherever her destination may have been.

Getting By With A Little Help

Scraping the fake wood stuff was turning out to be quite a difficult proposition. Dad tried all sorts of chemicals and scrapers, but was only getting molecular sized bits to come off the side of the boat. So, I turned to the SeaCamper Group at Yahoo Groups for help. Three trusty new friends had suggestions, and they all agreed on the approach - heat!

So, thanks to Dave, Bryan, and Bud from the SeaCampers group! Kim hopped up on the ladder, pulled out (and burned out) her old blowdryer, and got a ton of the sticker stuff off before the dryer went the same way as the stickers!

You can check out more SeaCampers here:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SeaCampers

The group is moderated and open to members only, but if you ask nicely they'll say yes.

This week, we plan to get the rest of the woody sticker stuff off, and wrap up our SeaCampering for this season. Glen and company will (hopefully) get to work on stiffening the structure and installing the floor, and I'll keep looking for a new motor and lower unit. If I don't have any luck by spring, we'll buy a reconditioned set from the MerCruiser dealer and install that. At least then there will be something about this boat that comes with a warranty!

Here's a picture of Kim scraping sticker stuff with her trusty blow-dryer.

Demolition is Complete - Dad Helps Out

This Saturday looked like a bust for working on the boat. Cool, cloudy, and rain was threatening. We grabbed a late brunch with Kim, and as we were eating the rain came streaming down.

To keep the day from being an absolute zero progress day, we headed to Menards to pick up some solution for dissolving the glue that holds on the "woody" plastic film material, and a new grinding disc and safety goggles. As we exited the store, the rain quit and the clouds lifted. It turned out to be a nice day after all.

So, down to the boat. Dad scraped the woody film, and didn't make near as much progress on this side of the boat. The film was in better condition, and it was nearly impossible to get more then the tiniest fragments to come loose. Two types of adhesive dissolving goo didn't make much difference, nor did the wallpaper scoring device.

Inside the engine compartment, I kept grinding and sanding away at the remaining edges of fiberglass and the last bits of plywood clinging to the transom. After too much dust, demolition is complete. Kim and I have decided to ask Glen and his crew to pick up work over the winter and install a new set of motor mounts, stringers, bulkheads, and a new floor. I'd like to do it myself, but time has run out for this season, and we want to be able to enjoy the boat, not just work on the boat.

The top photo is dad working on the film, next is me in the hold finishing up the grinding, and finally a shot of a smooth, clean transom with zero rot and crap.

Next weekend hopefully we'll get her all cleaned up and ready for Glen and his team to go to work with the new fiberglass and structure.

Stay tuned!!

The Rot is Out

Yesterday was a gorgeous Saturday afternoon in Minnesota, and Dad's visiting from Boston. I talked him into helping out with the SeaCamper. We only spent a couple of hours working, after a late brunch of gingerbread pancakes and bacon and needing to get ready for an early show at the Brave New Workshop comedy theater.

I worked on the transom, and dad tackled the faded "woody" stick-on material. All of the printed on fake wood grain is faded, and the brown color itself no longer shares even a slight resemblance to wood, so the plastic contact paper type material just has to go. Dad scraped, picked, pulled, and scraped some more, managing to get a six or seven foot long strip by about eight inches peeled off.

I spent the time in the engine compartment, digging out the last of the rotted plywood. At the end of our work-session, I am glad to report that all of the rot has now been removed from the SeaCamper. Of course, this is just because all of the material capable of rotting has been removed. There's barely a molecule of wood or any other natural product remaining in her. As Glen, the service manager described her, "she's a wet noodle."

Next steps - hopefully next weekend - sanding out the last few fragments of plywood that are bonded with the transom and preparing the transom for new fiberglass including sanding the areas around all penetrations down to the 12:1 ratio needed to securely install new fiberglass patches. The rest of the brown fake wood needs to get peeled off. A little bit of existing fiberglass needs to be ground out of the areas where the rotten floorboards and waterlogged foam were pulled out. After all that sanding and grinding, demolition work will be complete, and we'll be ready to start the rebuilding process.

The hull will be restored to waterproof integrity, which will wrap up this fall's activities. I'll let you know how it goes.

Sorry there are no photos, I intended to take the camera and get a few shots of Dad working on the boat, and have him take a picture or two of me grinding and chipping away in the hold. Next weekend I'll do better.

Demolishing the Engine Compartment

Today was the first fall weekend in Minnesota. Deep blue sky, light north wind, absolutely perfect (for working inside an engine hold grinding fiberglass)! I only worked for about 4 hours today, but that was enough. I was itchy, fiberglass dust covered, and sweaty even with a cool temperature of only 64 degrees.

I got a lot done in a limited time. Most of the inner layer of fiberglass is cut out of the engine room, and a lot of rot is out. There's still a lot of rotten wood, rotten plywood, and waterlogged stinky foam to dig out, though. Any volunteers?

Above is a "before" picture (before today's progress, that is, not a true before, before picture). She didn't look like this when we bought her.

Below it is a shot where you can see what I got done today. I'll admit, you need to look kind of hard to see the difference. It's the little piece at the bottom, the bulkhead between the cabin and the engine compartment. The piece of plywood at the bottom has been cut out, and better, stronger, rot-free wood and fiberglass will replace the old rot infested mess.

I've also added a photo of the cartload of rotten fiberglass, wood, and foam that I pulled out today and threw into the dumpster. That's it for today.

Most of the Back Story

Labor Day – Another Day Working on the Boat, not Enjoying the Boat

This was a beautiful, thankfully cool Labor Day morning. I got up and headed out to the Marina, hoping to finish the process of pulling rot out of the SeaCamper. Rot removal has been a long process.

This will be one of my last “catching up” posts, and it will conclude with today’s activities, so I’ll be (and so will you) all caught up.

Rot removal started soon after we bought the SeaCamper. I knew there was a lot to do, but not as much as it turned out there was. I’m pretty comfortable working with fiberglass, having been taught at college by a friend who did composite work on experimental aircraft in Europe in an earlier life. I figure if my technique is half as good as his, and his was good enough for experimental aircraft, mine’s probably okay for a small houseboat. Thus, when I looked over the boat and saw that there was some work that needed to be done, I wasn’t too worried about it.

I knew that the windows leaked, and that explained why the paneling in the aft was looking poorly. It also explained the bit of funk in the air. I knew that the toilet was missing, and the shower leaked a bit. I knew it was over 30 years old, and a lot can go wrong in 30 years, even if a boat isn’t used too hard.

So, we bought the boat, and paid the owner to haul her up to the Twin Cities. She arrived in fine shape, and was installed at her new home, the Watergate Marina in Saint Paul, Minnesota. This was the fall of 2006. There wasn’t a lot of time to get work done before the freeze, so Kim and I got started right away. The windows were removed (and we discovered that the problem wasn’t that the seals were shot, the problem was that there weren’t any seals on the windows at all!). The interior paneling was removed, along with the cabinets. All the curtains were taken down, and the cushions removed. The carpet was pulled up. The boat was clean, and we were feeling pretty good. Spring of 2007 would be a great time for rebuilding, and our goal was to launch by Independence Day weekend. Hah!

Spring 2007. In mid-April, we removed the shrink wrap and crawled inside. We were ready to start reconstruction. Except there were those two soft spots in the floor, and they probably should be investigated. So, I took my wrecking bar, and gave the floor a good solid “whack” in the middle of one of those soft spots. The bar went right through the think veneer of fiberglass, and through the plywood. Water jumped out of the hole as the bar penetrated. “That’s not right!” I thought to myself. Indeed, not right at all. So, most of the floor was pulled up that afternoon. Next the waterlogged, stinking foam under the rotted plywood was dug out, fully explaining the “funk” in the air. Next, the rotted stringers and bulkheads were removed. Below the foam, we found the blackwater tank (that’s sewage). Turns out the waterlogged foam wasn’t just waterlogged, it was sewage-logged – that’s right, the blackwater tank had a leak in it and it had been leaking sewage into the foam for probably over a decade. I guess more can go wrong in 30 years than I had anticipated.
So, Kim and I dug foam, pulled tanks, ground out the fiberglass tabs that had held in the now rotten stringers and bulkheads, and postponed our Independence Day weekend launch. We were now hoping for a Labor Day weekend launch.

By Independence Day, we had her thoroughly cleaned out. The entire interior was gutted, from the shell of the hull to the ceiling-liner. All the rot was out, and we were ready to begin the rebuilding. We would remake her better than she was before. Instead of crappy plywood and 1x2 stringers, she would have solid 2x10s. The stringers wouldn’t be just tabbed in, but would be completely surrounded by fiberglass to prevent future rotting. The blackwater tank would have a trapdoor to allow inspections and the potential for repair. The floor would be made of a new rot-proof plastic marine plywood. Better plumbing, and renewed wiring would be safer and easier to maintain than the old system had been. We were ready to roll.

Before starting out, I stopped by the service desk to review my plan with Glen, the service manager at the Watergate. Glen thought the structural plan that I had drawn up made pretty good sense, and had some suggestions on epoxies. He also asked two questions that I should have been able to answer yes to, but couldn’t. Namely:

1. Did you check the motor mounts to make sure they are solid?
2. Did you check the transom to make sure it’s okay?

So, I trotted back to the boat to check both. As Glen rightly noted, I’d hate to get half way rebuilt and then find out that I’d missed a problem. Of course, both the transom and the motor mounts were as rotten as 6 hour warm potato salad on a 90 degree day.

My discovery was followed by a glum walk back to Glen’s office, and a discussion of what to do now. Glen’s crew pulled the motor and lower unit over the next week, Kim and I pulled out the water tank, the pumps, more rot, some air and water hoses last weekend. This weekend I went back for the fuel tank. I siphoned 25 gallons of gas into plastic tanks, lined them up behind the boat, and managed to wrestle the tank out of its spot. Now it’s next to the plastic tanks. Next weekend they are heading for the toxic waste disposal site. Seems a shame to throw away $75 worth of gas, but as old as it is I sure wouldn’t put it in my car.

So, that’s where we stand now. My next task is to finish cleaning out the rot from the engine compartment, get her down to bare fiberglass, and get ready to finally start rebuilding first thing next spring. Hopefully one or two weekends will do the trick.

I also want to get more pictures and links attached to this here blog, but that’s going to have to wait for another day.

Have a great Labor Day everybody, and if you spent yours not doused in gasoline, with the taste of gas in your mouth, but burning of gas on your lips, and the smell persisting through the day on your fingertips, you did something right!