Downeaster Yachts.com

This was another project from a few months ago.. actually last october.. since then both cowls have been replaced with Nicro Solar vents.

The plastic cowls on Valkyr’s dorade vents had become very discolored and brittle with large chunks broken out.

As a last project before we left the boat yesterday we decided to replace the cowls on the dorade boxes. Angela who we bought the boat from had already bought a couple Nicro plastic cowls.. They were the exact same cowl as was originally installed on Valkyr so all the holes perfectly matched for the mounting screws. We thought it would take a few minutes to do this. Two hours later we actually finished. The screws holding the cowls on were all bronze with a nut on the opposite side. So we ended up taking the entire top lid off the dorade box to get to the underside. I’m very glad we did. There was really nasty stuff in the dorage boxes. Mud dobbers had been living in one years ago and left behind about a two cups of dirt that was holding moisture. The other dorade box was a cockroach motel. Shop vac to the rescue.. it sucks dirt and cockroaches equally well.

Also as you can see in the above images the wood in the cross pieces the box is attached to on deck is starting to rot out.

The design of the current opening through the deck leaves something to be desired. It is a flanged piece of pipe that is screwed to the underside of the deck and comes up through a hole cut through the deck. It only extends about an inch above deck level. It also doesn’t have any way of sealing it closed. Under most conditions it is probably adequate but if the boat ever took solid green water over that area it would be possible for it to work its way through the dorade box and into the boat. My second issue is the hole cut through the deck. I need to pull the pipe out of the hold so I can get to the core. I’m not sure when they cut the hole that they sealed the core. It is open from on deck as the hole for the pipe is about 1/4 inch larger all around than the pipe with flange any water or moisture that gets in there will drain into the the core if it is open.

So we got the cowls replaced but found some other areas that needed to be addressed in the near future.

To fix or change.. Longer pipe through deck and one that can be sealed water tight. Fix rotted sections of boxes. Check core of deck. Seal pipe in better. Varnish boxes.

Good varnishing brushes are definitely not cheap! The quickest way to ruin one is to let varnish dry in the brush – not something any of us wants to do.

But cleaning a brush is not an easy task. You may think that after triple-rinsing it in fresh paint thinner, the brush is clean. But put it away for a couple of days, and when you go to use it next, the bristles are  disappointingly stiff.

As a Chemical Engineer, I learned several things that have made brush cleaning a lot easier.  (What?  Practical knowledge?  Who knew?):

• Use a counter-current wash system. This keeps the clean end of the system separate from the contaminated end. In a real chemical plant (for example, an alumina refinery) there would be as many as 10 stages or more. Here we will make it simple – we’ll use only two.  Do it like this:
  • Save an empty paint thinner container. When you rinse out your brush, dump the now-contaminated solvent into this container. Soon you will have lots in there. As soon as you have enough, this is now your stage 1 rinse.  Squeeze out all the varnish you can from the brush, and then clean it thoroughly in the stage 1 rinse solution. Squeeze out all the stage 1 rinse, and wipe the brush on a rag, trying to absorb as much of the stage 1 rinse as possible. Dump the stage 1 rinse back into the stage 1 container.
  • Next, rinse the brush in 3 small changes of clean solvent. As above, drain all the now contaminated fresh solvent into the stage 1 rinse container, wiping the brush nearly dry between rinses.

  This works because even tho the stage 1 rinse is not pure solvent, it is not very far from it, as compared to the varnish itself. Then the pure solvent is only used to rinse out the stage 1 solvent – not raw varnish. There is a secondary effect: some of the varnish (and paint, and stain, and…) precipitates out in the stage 1 rinse container. When it does so, the stage 1 rinse liquid becomes less contaminated. By doing things this way, your use of fresh solvent will go down considerably, even while your brush gets cleaner.

• Exclude one of the reactants, and a chemical reaction will stop.  Curing paint or varnish is a chemical reaction between the resins in the varnish and the oxygen in the air (and water vapor, if there are urethane resins involved).  Exclude air, and the reactions stop.  This is why varnish does not cure in the can.
• Reaction rates roughly double with every 10° rise in temperature. For our purposes here, the converse is the more valuable: reactions rates are halved for every 10° drop in temperature.

Putting these things to work, on a day when I just need to preserve the brush for tomorrow, I give it a quick but thorough rinse in the stage 1 solvent, getting most of the varnish out of the brush, and then wipe it mostly dry on a rag.

Next, I tightly wrap the brush in aluminum foil – this excludes air and water vapor.

Finally, I store the brush on top of one of the holding plates in our freezer.

I really have no idea how long this process will preserve a brush, but I can set a lower limit.  I have pulled a brush out of the freezer (I forgot it was in there) after a month, and it was still pliable, ready to use.

for more articles by Bob please visit http://windborneinpugetsound.blogspot.com/

Since hauling Windsong out of the water I have been focusing most of my energy on her hull below the waterline. My goal was to get the hull to the point where it could dry out for the rest of the time on land. This would mean removing paint and the gel coat (if necessary) and then leave the hull alone while I worked on the rest of the boat. Fiberglass boats do in fact absorb water through osmosis (what creates blisters). The hull needs to be completely dry before I apply the planned epoxy barrier coat (protects against water absorption) and then paint.

Here is the hull after a week or so of grinding. I started the port side when I came to work on the boat early on a Sunday, the sun was on the other side so I switched to the shady one

I finished grinding the starboard side today

Took approximately 40 hours, mostly 3 hour shifts after work till dark. Hopefully I can finish the other side quicker with what I learned on this one. Opened up about 40 blisters as well. It is difficult and boring work. Holding the grinder above the head and away from the body is hell on the shoulders and back, but my endurance is getting better. This is probably the worst job of the whole rebuild, glad it is over halfway done.

For more about Windsong visit http://erickswanderlustblog.blogspot.com

he Monday after we sailed Windsong into St. Augustine we finally hauled her out to begin the massive rebuild. I had been anticipating this moment since I bought the boat about a year ago. I had never seen the hull below the waterline but knew a little bit of what to expect. I dove down to check the bottom once, but it was too murky to see anything. I could feel blisters however near the waterline so I figured I would have a few of them. Windsong was kept in warm Florida fresh water for a long time without a bottom job, ripe conditions for blister problems. I feared that she may have a case of full blown pox – a condition of thousands of tiny gel coat blisters covering the entire hull. This was the worst case scenario and I wanted to be prepared for it. I didn’t expect any other major problems with the hull, though I anticipated some damage on the keel from when we ran hard aground. During the past year I have been studying all that I will need to do to the hull depending on its condition.

Proud owner