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!