The Joys of Buying an Old Boat

 

 

 

We have been here in the Marina Seca boat yard for 6 weeks now. We've made new friends and most of them have moved on, leaving us behind. Sheryl and Frank from Serendipity but her back in long-term storage while they are visiting family for two weeks and Frank on Pacific Bliss is leaving tomorrow for Mazatlan. I'm beginning to feel lonely already; its been so fun chatting with them while we worked side-by-side.

 

We always have to laugh when someone asks when we are "putting in". Who knows? Could be two weeks or two months. We've accomplished a lot, but there is still a lot to do - and you never know what new surprise is going to present itself.

 

Greg did his research on Cal 34's before we came down here. He figured out what the mast height should be and proceeded to cut down our old Catalina 42 headsail for Gitana. When the winds settled down enough for us to put up the new roller furler and sail we discovered that the mast was shorter than Greg had estimated. Since a baggy sail doesn't work too well, we had to do something. We were unable to bring the sewing machine and Greg was not sure what our course would be. I suggested asking around, since sewing machines aren't that uncommon any more. Sure enough, Frank from Pacific Bliss had one. After a little repair and tuneup (the cost of borrowing) Greg was busy trying to figure out the best method to shorten the sail.  Cutting a one-foot section out from below the head reinforcing seemed the easiest. The hardest part was then cutting a line from the head to the clue and sewing that long length. The cutting went pretty easily on the concrete while the sewing in the cockpit was another matter.

 



 

 

At least I didn't have to eat with it this time. 



 

 

 We have a very large inventory of plumbing parts and nuts, bolts & screws that came with the boat. After getting a handle on that inventory Greg set to work on the water maker installation while I chased down hoses and diagrammed the boat's water system. It was as screwy as the wiring. Now I'm not complaining about the four faucets that crowd my only sink but it would be nice if they at least worked.  After removing the "whole boat vacuum system" (a shop vac with 50' of hose hard-wired behind a sheet of plywood) and the head cabinet, I found the water pump (not exactly easy access) which was very poorly installed. We also discovered that the main stainless steel water tank had a rather large leak. Change gears and work on water storage and distribution system.

Thanks to the gorilla light that the Wallaces gave Greg, he had two hands to tackle the problem in the very tight space. What a handy tool. We highly recommend the goofy looking thing. Next Greg pulled the water tank and found the leaky seam. Good old epoxy to the rescue.

The tank was as good as new after the seams were wrapped in fiberglass and then epoxied. While it was out Greg measured the space to have a larger tank made. Why is it that boat builders just don't utilize the space that's available. There's a huge void behind the stateroom drawers. I could have brought twice as many clothes!

 



 

 One of my main jobs is photographer/historian. This blog is being brought to you in no small part by the 20 lbs of batteries that the former owner had purchased at Costco. This is what was left after I threw out the expired ones.

Despite this very important and time consuming job and my responsibility as cook, I find myself with nothing to do most of the time since I don't do wiring, epoxing, plumbing or most of the other things that Greg is good at. So I have started looking for things that I can do. The winches looked like something I could handle (with a little instruction).


Ladies of the Catalina 42 association be prepared for a new training topic. The single winches were pretty easy but its still a very messy job. I serviced three without much trouble. Then I moved on to the two-speed winches. Now mind you, some men don't even want to tackle this - but I was fearless.








 If you like squishing around in Vaseline you'll love this job. Super Lube must be carefully pushed thru the rollers from the inside to provide lubrication and to keep water out of the winch parts.








If its your first time, its recommended that you take a picture of the winch and very carefully lay out the parts in the order that they came apart. Well, I got ahead of myself and forgot the picture and even though I tried to keep things in order the sense of it escaped me when it was time to put it back together. I had to ask for help (and I HATE that). I did better on the second winch.



 Next I tackled varnishing all the exterior teak. This was only fair since Greg had done all the varnishing on all of our other boats. Its looks really nice - but I wish it was stainless.

You expect problems when you buy an old boat. This we did not expect.

While Greg was cutting holes out of the boat to install the components of the water maker he discovered that the wood backing the fiberglass had been the home of a large family of termites. Apparently this isn't that unusual for boats in moist warm environments. The good news (I guess) was that two years in the hot, dry yard killed the little buggers. This problem is not being addressed. I am hoping that the fiberglass will hold it all together. Since this boat is not going far offshore I'm not going to worry much about it. If something develops I'll shoot it full of penetrating epoxy and hope for the best.

 

 Oh the joys of buying an old boat.