Work! Work! Work!

SHIP'S LOG:

     Aside from yesterday(Thursday - Launch Duty) I have been able to get up to work on ABISHAG every day. Over the course of this week, I was able to get a portion of the teak deck re-caulked.  Unfortunately, I ran out of caulk after getting the fore-deck and about 1/4 of the side decks completed. It was my plan to finish it up today and I was able to finish the port side deck and half of the starboard side deck done before the rains came.  NOAA got it wrong again. The were supposed to be scattered showers, instead  we got a downpour and the completion of the project will have to await the deck drying out. Caulk doesn't like wet decks.

     It addition, during the week, all the blocks and winches got lubed-up. Friend Fred and I took down ceiling panels over the galley and in the aft cabin in a search for leaks. we found them, or at least we found potential leaks and repaired the. The starboard main winch had to be removed and the  bolts holding it in place taken out, the bolt holes caulked and everything going back into place.Removing the winch from the combing, we discovered that there were more bolt holes than bolts. It appears that when the boat was built a different, small winch was going to be put in place. Someone decide that a bigger winch was needed (perhaps the owner?) and new bolt holes need to be cut. Unfortunately, the first set of bolt holes were no plugged and provided a perfect  route for water to create a leak.

    The second leak, the one in the aft compartment, turned out to be under the stanchion holding up the stern rail. Several years ago, on my return trip from Florida, a wave in the Delaware Bay "pooped" the boat and broke this stanchion. I had to have it welded but what I forgot to do was lift the stanchion to see if there was any damage to the deck below. The power to snap a stanchion could have caused it to do deck damage. And it did. It compressed the deck underneath and over the years since, had let water enter and soften the plywood allowing it to compress further, letting in more water and allowing further compression, yadada-yadada-yadada. The Stanchion had to be raised. That meant taking down the ceiling panel and unbolting it from underneath, forcing the stanchion up, cutting out the soft wood, caulking the hell out of it and forcing the stanchion back down and re-bolting it. All well that ends well.  While it eliminated those leaks, it means that we have less leaks. More will be, indeed have been, discovered. It is a never ending job. Ah, the joy of boat ownership!!