Why To Not Use Particle Board

In the process of removing some more hardware yesterday I discovered another interesting build detail.

I was attempting to remove the sink from the galley, so I looked under the galley counter to see if there were any fasteners.  There weren't any, but I did notice a lot of water droplets hanging off the underside of the counter.  This was strange, as the boat has been pretty dry for the last couple weeks.

To remove the sink, I moved back up to the top surface of the counter and started scraping away the top surface around the sink.  Here is what I discovered:

Galley counter.

The galley counter was built from particle board with a plastic veneer glued to the upper surface.  The stuff was completely waterlogged, and was just a pile of mush between two intact sheets.

The best and most satisfying method to remove this stuff was beating the hell out of it with a hammer to break up the outer surfaces, then grab it by the handful and pull it out.

This entire surface was removed with those two tools you see.

Elastic Sealant

Spent a few hours yesterday removing more hardware from the boat.  There isn't too much left at this point.  Still have the stbd stanchions, both pushpits, the pulpit, the winches, and a handful of other things that I'll have to remove the tarp to get at.

In the process of removing a lot of the older fittings, I discovered that most of them were installed using an elastic sealant.  Well that's just great because around every single one of those fittings, guess what I found.  Thats right, black, soft balsa.  I will not be repeating this mistake.

Going up into the mountains today, but tomorrow the plan is to get some PVC pipe and fittings and try to set up a better frame for the tarp.  My current tarp setup does not give enough clearance for air flow along the port side, and there is no way that I'll be able to do the cutting and re-coring with so little clearance.

First Rot Sighting

Tonight, in the process of removing the cable thru-hulls near the mast step, I uncovered the first rot. The fittings were thru-bolted in 4 places each and the only bedding material used was a very flexible sealant. The balsa was a lovely shade of dark grey, and offered almost no resistance to my screw driver. This is the first section of deck core that I have opened up. I have a feeling that the whole deck is like this.

Starting The Drying Process.

Yesterday, I removed the port stanchions, port windows, and the remainders of the electronics from the boat.

Removed windows. Fein Multimaster with the scraper worked great for removing the old sealant.

Former site of compass on end of cabin.

Former site of electronics on back of cabin.

 It was pretty cold out today.  The bit of water in the bilge was frozen solid.  The bucket that I had been using to catch the drip from the foredeck hatch was frozen solid, about 5 inches thick.  I kept picked up a 1500W space heater to keep on the boat while I work on it.  It only managed to melt a bit of the frozen condensation from the inside of the cabin top.  I am borrowing power from my landlord here, so I can't keep the heater going all the time.

My main goal for the day was to cover the boat.  The tarp is a little oversized, which I am a bit concerned about.  I did manage to get it wrapped pretty tight around the boat.  It is draped over the mast, so there is a pretty good air gap to get air through.  I left the foredeck hatch off, the windows are removed, and the companion way hatches are off.

I've got to get down to the boat over the next couple weeks and remove the stbd windows, stanchions and the deck gear.  It should warm up a bit over the next week or so and the boat will start to dry out.

Final Sail Inventory.

After scrambling over the Christmas weekend, I managed to get most of the place cleaned up before Kimi came home from vacation.  I have gotten the sails sorted out finally:

Final sail inventory.

Starting from the left:

• Mariner Sails code zero (in blue bag).
• Mariner Sails PBO main.
• Spinnaker pole.
• Mariner Sails D4 main (in long orange bag).
• Unknown dacron main.
• Mariner Sails D4 selftacking jib (in orange bag).
• Auckland Sails dacron storm jib (in long yellowish bag).
• Unknown 130% dacron jib (in yellow bag).
• North Sails spinnaker (in blue bag).

Old Wiring & Interior Damage

I spent about 4-5 hours today tearing old wiring and fittings out of the interior of the boat.  The end result:

The pile of wires, hoses and rotted cabinet doors that I removed today.

There was one section of wiring that I wasn't able to remove.  There is a conduit molded into the the structure of the boat that starts under the stbd settee about even with the back side of the keel and wraps around the front of the keel and comes out in the cabinet under the galley.  There are a couple cables and a water hose that run through it.  I'll have to work on removing these parts later on after I tear out some of the interior.  Here you can see what I'm talking about:

Stbd end of conduit is just forward of the water tank.

Port end of conduit is just forward of the valve.

As for the rest of the interior, it is in pretty bad shape.  I'll have a lot of plywood to replace after I get the deck fixed up.  I'll step you through it starting from the bow.  Sorry for the quality of the pictures, I've been taking these on my cell phone.

First, the v-berth:

Damage to interior in v-berth.

The big problem up here has been the fordeck hatch leaking.  In about an hour of collecting water from the worst drip spot, I collected about a half inch of water in that pink bin you can see in the corner of the picture.  Getting a new Lewmar hatch to replace the old RC Marine hatch is a top priority, along with all the deck recoring.  In the picture below you can see the lovely color of rotten plywood.  This plywood had been coated by some kind of resin system, but it is so old and out of repair that the stuff is just flaking off.  On top of that, the hatches outboard of the toilet on both sides are badly warped and wont lay flat.  I tried to remove the stbd side one today, but I couldn't get the screwdriver to grip on a few screws.  I'll have to come back with the right tools.  By the way,  I'll most likely be getting rid of the head... it just doesn't seem worth the hastle.

The stbd side forward of the companion way:

Stbd side, forward.

Stbd side aft, former location of the electrical panels.

In the first picture here between the two access hatches, near the bottom of the pic, there is some water damage to the plywood.  The area moves under my weight more than I would like it to.  So probably the whole stbd side settee will need to be replaced.  Just aft of those two access hatches is the water tank, which I havn't had a chance to access quite yet.  The second pic is further aft, near the companion way where the electrical panels had been installed.  There was a plywood panel in place over the upper section here, but it was completely water logged and tore right out.  It seems like holes were drilled through all the woodwork here to run the wiring to and from the breaker panels and the radio, but no one bothered to seal up the wood.  Lots of locations for water to get into the plys here.  Also, notice the little pad in the upper right corner of the pic.  It is a lovely piece of work that I'll tell you about down the page a bit.

Port side, bulkhead and galley:

General view of galley and bulkhead.

Close up of damage to bulkhead.

It is hard to see much in the first picture here.  The actual surface of the galley seems to be in decent shape.  The plastic glued to the top of the plywood must have saved it from some water damage, and this is one of the drier places on the boat.  There is some bad damage to the underlying structure however.  I didn't take a good picture of it, but you can see it a little if you go back and look at the port end of the conduit.  the panel against the keel trunk is a bunch of rotten mush.  I'll probably just be extending the settee and getting rid of the galley idea.  The bigger concern here is the damage to the bulkhead.  The two holes you can see are where wires passed through for the galley and head cabin lights.  Once again, it looks like holes were drilled and not sealed.  There also seems to be some water getting into the bulkhead where it intersects the deck.  Not good.  Not good at all.


Stbd side, under the cockpit benches:

Battery box?

I'm not quite sure what this box was intended to be used for.  Maybe for the battery, but we always kept the battery just forward of here under the settee.  In any case, this box is going to have to go.  It is just soaked through.  The joint on the left side of the image had a nice generous fillet of epoxy or something on the inside, but the wood swelled so much that the epoxy just popped right off.  There is also extensive water damage to the bottom few inches of the longitudinal bulkhead under the cockpit floor here.  It is the worst on the stbd side (probably because this box gave water a way in) but both sides have it pretty bad.

Now for that pad that I pointed out earlier.  You've already seen the stbd side one.  Now look at the port:

Mounting pad for port cabin light.

These used to be the mounting pads for the cabin lights.  The first day I was taking things off the boat I bumped the port side one and the plywood just fell apart.  There are still 2 or 3 plys attached to the boat  The white dot you see is what is left of a screw used to hold the plywood in place.  You can also see where someone had the bright idea to mold the wires into the deck.  Completely useless.

The result of all this surveying:  The entire interior of this boat is going to have to be torn out and replaced.  Also, the cockpit benches are so badly delaminated that they are going to have to be declared no-step zones until they can be repaired.  It is so bad that the interior skin is actually starting to have major cracks open up.  I tried to take a couple pictures but they didn't turn out.

This is all much worse than I feared and it also means that I probably won't be going sailing much next summer.

Catching Up on Week 1, Part 2

Saturday morning rolls around, and I have to get up at 4:15 to give my girlfriend a ride to the airport.  Kimi is going out of town to visit family for Christmas.  She'll be gone for 10 days.

WOO!!!! Free run of the apartment.  I can dry out sails anywhere!

After getting back from the airport, I start in on the cushions.  A good serrated knife and a box of garbage bags.  Bend, cut, stuff, toss, bend, cut, stuff, toss.... A wind storm is passing through the area with gusts into the 60s, and one of those manages to kill the power.  Now, keep in mind that it is winter, and it is very early in the morning.  The power goes out, and I'm standing in a pitch black room with a knife in mind hand and surrounded by a pile of cut up cushions I can't see.  I somehow managed to find a flashlight and I continue to cut up the rest of the cushions.

Once it begins to get light out, I load up the bags of cushion chunks, drop them in the dumpster, and head to the boat.

I load the rest of the sails into the truck, remove all the hardware I can without opening any holes in the deck, take off all the running rigging and everything else that isn't tied down to the boat, and generally try to strip her down.    There is a lot of crap on this boat.

Later, at home, I draw a nice cold bath to throw all the lines into, and go out to buy some institutional quantities of bleach.  Bleach the lines and that main with the leather bits.

First sail:  Code Zero from Mariner Sails.  Seems to have some surface mold, but otherwise looks like it is in pretty good condition.  Toss it in a bleach bath, rinse it off, dry it, and pack it.

Next sail:  spinnaker.  This is the newest chute on the boat, probably 6 years old or so.  A little beat up, a little blown out, but still usable.  Dry it out, pack it.


That brings me to where I am now:

Boom, spin pole, and D4 jib in storage behind the couch.

Main (with the leather bits) and lines drying in the living room.

Sorted dry sails, dry lines, and boxes of stuff.

Storm jib and 130 drying in the guest bath.

Sails, tillers and battens that still need sorting.

Kimi gets back into town on Monday.  6 days to have this all finished and cleaned up.