Saturday, October 08, 2005

Well, we spent all day Saturday at the barn clearing out the boat. Troy Boyer and Chuck Woods, two of my coworkers at Crown, helped Barb and I clear most of the cabin. We removed an unbelieveable amount of stuff: old wire, 50 lbs of unused teak trim, junk, old clothes, dried foods, engine and electrical parts, plumbing fittings, cans of wood oil, tools, junk, old charts, nuts and bolts, junk, screws, more teak, plywood scraps, cushions, standing rigging (the wire rigging to support the mast), junk, rope, circuit breakers, rags, spices, parts of the running rigging, two stoves (one propane and one electric that looks more like an RV item), an old toilet, more junk, the galley sink (it was on the forward bunk), pumps, blowers (3), and still more junk. We dumped seven garbage cans of junk.

It took three of us and some judiciously placed rope to get the 44 foot mast off the top of the deckhouse and into the barn loft, but we made it. Jack and Margaret Williams came around noon, as did our daughter, Rebecca, with her husband Chris and baby son Thomas. With the cabin cleared, we removed the boomkins from the stern so we could get the barn door closed (it was chilly and windy), vacuumed the interior, mopped out the bilges (they had about an inch of standing oily, dirty, smelly water), and rigged a tarp over the boat to keep the bird and bat dirt off of it.

With the interior cleared we could see what we had. Fred had never finished off the interior - no trim, no finish on the woodwork, no wiring other than to makeshift fluorescent fixtures, no finish or insulation on the inside of the fiberglass hull, some rough-cut plywood, no finished interior deck or gratings, and no latches on the doors, cupboards, or cabinets. In addition, it's obvious that at one time there was 4 inches of standing rainwater in the cabin, so the plywood is stained. We can also see where the chaulking at through-deck fittings failed and water stained the interior woodwork.

Actually, we're just as happy that he didn't finish it off, as we have plans to redo a few portions and put up a bead-board plywood (with cuts to simulate tongue and groove boards), insulate the inner hull, and paint the inside white with oiled teak trim. We can easily take kraft-paper patterns off of the existing plywood cabinetry and finish right over it.

The engine looks like a total mess, and since all the information we've received from other Westsail owners indicates that the two-cylinder Volvo diesel was inadequate for all but dead-calm situations, we plan to replace it with a Yanmar three-cylinder.

The only Westsail-unique parts that appear to be missing are the rudder pintles (the hinge pins), and they may yet show up in the many boxes and jars of odds and ends.

With the interior emptied and the bilges mopped out, we've opened every hatch, porthole and interior drawer, door and cupboard to let the interior dry out for a month or so while I build a workbench, do some drawings of interior layouts, and inventory all the myriad items that are boat-related. It seems pretty obvious that the hull is wet inside, so we need to drill some drain holes near the keel and allow it to drain and dry out until next summer before doing any exterior work.

Meanwhile, we can redo the interior: lighting runs, fixtures, new plumbing for the head (toilet for you landlubbers), braker panels, new engine, new fuel tanks, new water tanks, new through-hull seacocks, new cushions, etc. The list is pretty long, but we think that by late next summer it will be looking pretty good inside, if not fully furnished.

Visitors are always welcome (just call ahead to be sure we'll be at the barn), but wear grubbies because you never know what we'll ask you to help with. If you have any good advice, we'd love to hear it, but if you have criticism or stupid ideas keep them to yourself - we're our own worst critics and we have plenty of dumb ideas of our own!

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