It's All Those Little Things That Drive You Crazy

SHIP'S LOG:

The only major project that needs still to be done is the painting of the bottom but that doesn't mean that thee isn't a whole host of other smaller projects that still need doing.A couple of examples:

 - The Deck: Even though I re-caulked the entire deck two summers ago, there are/were still a couple of places where the re-caulking "didn't take."  This meant find thing them first. Wen a teak deck gets wet after a rain or if you hose it down, it will dry out but the places where the water  is getting through the caulking and under the deck  stay wet longer. They stay dark while the est of the deck lightens as it dries out. SO I went around marking the "wet" spots and hit them with "Captain Tolley's Creeping Crack Cure." This is great stuff, wetter than water, you simply drip it on a spot. If the puddles, it is leak-free, if it disappears, you have a leak.With enough applications, it will actually seal the leak but a little 6 oz. bottle is very expensive.  If it were cheap, I'd just spray the whole boat but then , if it were cheap, it probably wouldn't work. When the spots were all identified, it was dig out the old caulk, a spritz of Capt. Tolley's, border it with masking tape, forced in the caulking and work it in, scrape off the excess and let it set. Then remove the masking tape and Voila! leak proof decking . . . hopefully!

- Electrical Bus Bars: There are five of these secreted around the boat, all in not easily accessible places, to which all electrical  items are connected.  They are all subject to corrosion, being on a boat and all, and need to be cleaned of said corrosion as the corrosion will limit, even block the the passage of electrical current and you end up with all sorts of things that don't work or work poorly.  So putting yourself into a contorted position in order to reach the bus bar, you carefully remove each connector one at a time, clean it off with bronze wool and/ or sand paper, clean the connection on the bus bar with bronze wool and/ or sandpaper, spray both with an electronic cleaner spray, re-connect and then spray the whole mess with with a corrosion inhibitor.  It can take an uncomfortable hour to do each one and a half hour to re-align you spine once you are done with each one. Doing one of the bus bars, the one that "controls all of the wires going up the mainmast, I was faced with a dilemma.  Two wires, one brown and one blue, insulated together, where hanging loose. There were five or six free "spots" on the bus bar and so I was unsure which wire should go to what connector. Luckily friend Fred was aboard at the time  and was able to figure it out with amazing rapidity. He tried to explain it all to me but electricity is still voodoo as far as I am concerned.

- Hinges: I had to replace the hinges on the fold-out supports for the b\double berth in the salon. The two platforms had originally been attached with piano hinges but in that the platforms were plywood and the hinges had been screwed into the edges with 30 tiny, tiny screws, after years of swinging back and forth they had ripped out and I just could get any bite in the wood any more. So out with the piano hinges and the 30 screws and in with door hinges and more substantial screws which went into the sides. The two platforms fold in on one another and I made a mistake in putting in the bottom one in that I forgot to make sure that there was enough clearance so that it could open and slide out from under the top. I only discovered my error after the entire project was done and is I had to dismantle the whole thing, reposition the bottom and screw everything back in place.

AH! Owning a boat is a true learning experience. You learn about engine mechanics, plumbing, electricity, metallurgy, painting, wood working, and most especially humility, patience and anger management!