August 29, 2007

It's hard to imagine that I have been here at the boatyard for over two months. I have stayed pretty busy and have gotten a lot of work done. Gibson Island is still a beautiful place. The boatyard is a great place to do work except for the problem of getting provisions and supplies. Not having a car makes it dillicult since there are no commercial entities on the island except for the boatyard.

We pulled Bella Vita on June 25 and pressure washed the bottom. I had scraped most of the bottom before I left St. John although I couldn't reach the keel. I was amazed to see that almost all of the growth that was on the keel was gone when we pulled her. I guess it didn't like the cold water or the polution of the ICW and Chesapeake.

I had been thinking of painting the topsides but was waiting to see what it looked like when I got a better view out of the water. It didn't look good. The paint was really dull and was worn through in spots and there were also several blisters in the paint so I decided to go ahead and paint her. I worked to open up some blisters on the topsides and get them prepped for painting. They still had a good seal and there didn't seem to be any water inside and no rust so it was a matter of grinding the surface for better adhesion, putting on a couple of coats of an epoxy barrier coat and then fairing it into the old surface. That took about a week to get the blistered spots ready.

There are two painters here at the boatyard. One of them was in a car wreck over the weekend and was off work for a few weeks. The other one was leaving on July 3 for a vacation so I had almost a week before I would be able to get started on the new paint.

I was on the hard in the parking lot then and wanted to get back in the water ASAP so I decided to go ahead and do the bottom over the July 4 holiday and following weekend. (Normally the topsides would be done first to minimize the masking required.) That is a pretty nasty job that requires sanding the entire bottom. Any loose spots in the paint, blisters, need to be opened up and cleaned as above although I don't normally fair them much.

I had that all done and ready to proceed with the topsides paint. The painter, Jim, did most of the work but I did a bunch of the work. It took about a week to finish the topsides paint and it turned out pretty good. I was back in the water on July 16. It's much more comfortable living on the boat when it's in the water so I was glad to be there.

The next task was to pull the mast off. There is a conduit inside the mast that the wiring for the lights and radio antenna go through. It had come loose and would clang on the sides of the mast everytime the boat rolled. I had never had the mast off and wasn't real sure what to expect. I got it ready to come off by pulling the cotter pins from the rigging turnbuckles and also had to take off the triatic stay. That is a stay that goes from the top of the main mast to the top of the mizzen mast. I had to go up the mizzen, using ascenders on one of the halyards, and remove the pin from the turnbuckle. With the triatic off, the mizzen was free to move around quite a bit and with my wieght on top of the mast, it really moved. I sure was glad to get down although I kept thinking about how I was going to get it connected again after the main mast was back on.

The conduit was originally rivited to the inside of the mast and I wasn't quite sure how to go about fastening it down again. Fred, the boatyard operator, suggested bolting one end of the conduit to the mast so the bolts would carry the wieght of the conduit and then put in rivets the rest of the way up. It actually went quite well and I had it fastened down in a few hours. I replaced the masthead lights and was getting the mast ready to go back on when I noticed a large crack in one of the spreaders. It had to come off and go out to be welded so the mast installation was put off for a few days.

While waiting for the spreader, I started clening up the rust spots on the deck and getting it ready for paint. It took about a week to clean up the rust and put on two coats of epoxy barrier coating, two coats of primer and three coats of finsh. After getting that all done, we reinstalled the mast. I tried to plan out the process for reinstalling the triatic before going up. I took all the tools and parts I though I would need and went back up the mast. I quickly found that I could not hang on the the top of the rather floppy mast and pull the stay tight enough to reconnect it. So it was back down the mast to ponder the situation some. Eventually I decided that if I took the mizzen halyard and ran it to the winch on the main mast, I would be able to bend the mizzen mast forward enough that I could connect the triatic without having to pull so hard on it. I pulled the mizzen mast forward as far as I could and went back up. This time the triatic went back on easily and I was able to finish the job and get back down with no major problems. But then I went to take off the halyard from the winch. There was an override on the winch and I could not get it off. I had to tie another line to the halyard, run it through a block and back a sheet winch. With this setup, I was able to take the load off the override and get the halyard off. This simple job took most of a day.

The one other major problem I still had was the smoke from the engine which I've had for several months. I called the guy who had rebuilt the engine before I installed it two years ago and he agreed to come over and check it. A compression test showed a dead cylinder so I had to remove the head. That only took a couple of hours and the problem was pretty obvious. One of the exhaust valves had a chunk missing from it. I called the guy back and he said he would pick it up and rebuild the head but I would still be here for a while.

Later that day I got a call from one of my nephews. My brother Joe had died that afternoon from a heart attack while working in his yard. He appeared to be in great health and this was a real shock. I rented a car and went back to Lexington to pickup my sister and go to his place near Cleveland. They didn't have the normal viewing or funeral but had a memorial service in the high school gym. He had been coaching for several years and was well known in the area. About 1,200 people came to the memorial service. It was a very moving experience and he will certainly be missed by many people. He was planning on coming over for some sailing in the Chesapeake as soon as I got things finished here. He was lucky in that he went quicky, hopefully with a minimal amount of pain, doing something he enjoyed. I hope I am as lucky.

When I got back to the boat after two weeks away, everything was fine and I kept the rental car to do my provisioning before heading out. I still haven't gotten the head back yet because of a problem getting the new valves. It should be here anyday now.

I'm not sure what I'll do until the end of hurricane season. It's getting a little late to head for Maine but I may go a little further north.