Sand ...

There is sand falling out of what looks like a hole in the bottom of my boat. Sand? This cannot be a good thing.

I should have left well enough alone. The area around the keel joint had been ground out and sanded back to solid fiberglass; but the the bottom edge of that fiberglass was loose and there still appeared to be a minute trace of moisture. The mechanic in me was curious as to the origin of said moisture, so the rotary file went to tracing a track up from the loose edge. Just a couple of inches above the keel joint it plunged through into a void and thus appeared the flow of sand.

"This," I thought out loud, "cannot be a good thing."

Replacing the rotary file with a cutting disk I very carefully cut a square of very solid fiberglass aft, paralleling the keel joint. More sand flowed which was clearly a component of a block of material that filled the void between the flat top of the lead keel and the curve of the fiberglass hull; a void that was enclosed behind a skirt of fiberglass flared off the hull and overlapping the top of the keel. Mystery ... the top end of the block block felt like concrete. Could the sand really be deteriorating concrete? The chunk looked like concrete. When hit with a grinding disc it produced a small dust like cloud that smelled like concrete. There is certainly a lot of sand in concrete.

Concrete, in my Tartan?

An assembly of sailors gathered around the boat to gaze at the mystery. As they did I had already decided
two things. Number one was, as bad as this appeared at first, we were once again looking at a cosmetic repair. The keel bolts were fast, the hull unblemished and unbreached, and the keel still a solid block of lead holding up a boat. Number two was that this really was concrete, albeit cheap concete; more like the capping stuff put on the top of foundation wall (basically a mixture of limestone and sand). The assembled agreed though there was some debate as to the proper stuff to use to fill the void to facilitate the fiberglass repair. Some optioned a quick set concrete filler, others fiberglass mat. I've decided that West Marine epoxy filler will be the choice, a choice supported by an Internet friend to whom Deb sent some pictures, a friend who just happens to be an ex-aircraft mechanic and who is currently resupplying the cruising kitty by running a boat repair facility. (It is good to have friends in high places!)

So, though I added another day of work I didn't need to by opening up the void to see what the what, at least I know what the what is. Concrete ... apparently Tartan decided to fill this below-the-waterline void with something cheap and heavy. I wouldn't have thought the words "concrete" and a "Tartan" would go in the same sentence; but nothing in the marine industry surprises me anymore. My "higher end" boat builder poured a water soluble sand mix into a void below the water line. The void got breached, moisture oozed in, some of the limestone slowly melted away, and sand fell out the hole.

Fix it, fair it, clean it, paint it, throw it in the water. With just a bit of luck we will start putting color on the bottom tomorrow. Seeing Kintala with a clean, painted hull will go a long way to have me thinking we are actually pulling this off. Right now I'm just tired and sore, looking at another day of work and wondering when the "throw it in the water" day will arrive.

Hacking away at the dock lines

Warning: Cutting the dock lines chains may be more difficult than anticipated. All land-based enterprises will conspire to keep you land-based. By the time you leave you will be completely exasperated by the endless paper trail of cancellations, address changes, medical records issues, insurance issues, house sale and/or rental issues, survey issues, did I say insurance issues???

Take a yoga and/or meditation class a year before you leave to prepare yourself for this.

Un hombre cansado

Kintala came out of the water 20 days ago. It doesn't seem possible it has been that long, right up to putting my foot on the ladder and hauling my tired bones aboard at the end of the day. Then it seems like it has been twice that many. I'm not sure we have faced a crush of work like this one since moving to St. Louis. I'm told that's part of the price one pays for the privilege of making a home of a boat and living on the water.

Stripping the mast turned up two problems. The lower starboard spreader bracket is badly cracked and one of the running back stays has a broken strand. The welder is due later next week for the one, the other we will have to replace once we make the East coast. Neither seems much of an issue at the moment but I am going to be very careful with the rigging as it goes back up. I think the spreader bracket broke because a mount pin was too long, which allowed a bushing to drop free, making room for the pin to twist under a load from the spreader; a load high enough to crack the bracket. Not a big deal on Lake Carlyle; maybe a huge deal half way to far away. All the rigging is now neatly packed on a pallet and ready for the truck.

Work on the bottom paint slowed because, for reasons lost in the distant past, Kintala has a heavy coat
of VC17 on the aft half of the port hull. That stuff proved too much for our pair of little palm sanders and probably sent the older one whining into oblivion. So I am bringing a 5 inch orbital sander into the arena tomorrow. (By the way Warrior sandpaper SUCKS LEMONS. Get 3M or Gator paper with the heavy sticky backing paper ... you'll be glad you did!)

We did finish one project; that of changing the V-berth hanging locker into a shelved clothing cabinet. I'm not living out of a sea bag any longer, making Kintala feel just that much more like home. Odd how little things like that matter, but they do.


We have befriended (or been befriended by) our first cruising couple outside of the Internet. Nancy and David departed this very marina nearly 2 years ago in their Seaward 32 and now base their coastal cruising life at a marina in the Chesapeake. It just so happened that they are back in IL for some personal business and staying with the marina manager just as we started this last phase of The Retirement Project. We have shared several meals and spent evenings plying them with every kind of beginner question we can imagine. They, in return, have been everything one would think "cruising friends" can be. Indeed, so highly do they speak of their home base that Deb and I are probably going to have Kintala shipped there for splashing. It might even be that David and Nancy will be back to their boat by then and around for the big day. Amazing how things work out sometimes. Just having them around has made this whole thing seem just that little bit less insane. They have passed this way before and assure us we are not lost.

And so I am still un hombre contento ... with the hope that the work load eases when Kintala is floating once again. Then I can be un hombre que toma una siesta.

View from the clubhouse at Tradewinds Marina where we're staying.

Seems like every marina has their forlorn, forgotten hulls.

Mast unstepping pics

I was going to stick these pictures in the previous post but thought they deserved an honored place of their own. This shows you just how relieved we were that we didn't have a repeat of the stepping events of 2 years ago

There was a collective sigh of relief as the mast lay softly on the cradles.

Un hombre contento

With the exception of the surveyor, everyone who looks at Kintala's hull agrees; sand it, clean it, paint it, throw it in the water. That work is well underway and should be done by next week. (There is a lot of sanding, cleaning, and painting to do!) The mast lift was a thing of beauty and all 60+ feet of aluminum and rigging now lies content on saw horses awaiting disassembly. We did find one spreader bracket badly cracked and will try to get that welded before we go. If not, I'm sure the East coast marina can get it done when we get there. The prop will come off in a couple of hours to get overhauled. Most importantly Deb has made the move from the city to the boat and we are working side by side on her list of projects. (Remember, I threw my list away!)

I am a happy man.

At least 15 more days will pass before the truck arrives; my best guess is that finishing the bottom will take another 5. In descending order, and in various places, sanding the bottom is leaving exposed; light blue top coat, darker blue top coat, some grey something, a layer of what everyone claims is VC-17 (that is the brown layer) bondo, epoxy filler, gel coat, and fiberglass; the smoothed patchwork of color a vast improvement over what it looked like in the lift. Of course grinding away the obnoxious smile to a perfectly sound keel joint helped a lot. It is probably a bit insane to work this hard at what is mostly cosmetics. The only real repair is fairing in the keel joint. Other than that we could give the hull a once over with some scotchbright, roll on a couple of layers of magic antifouling paint, toss it in the water. The hull will be just as sound when we pull it in a year or two as it will be with all this work. But it is my boat. I can go a bit crazy making the bottom pretty if I want to.

There actually turned out to be a blister or two. Poking at them released a trace of moisture not even amounting to a drop. The pointy end struck hard maybe 2 mm deep. I’m not convinced the water wasn’t trapped between paint layers but I’ll give the surveyor the benefit of the doubt. And actually (hold tight, I’m going to try and be nice here) admit he might have had the barest hint of a point. I don’t know what the shop rates are at marinas, but if they are just half of what we paid for ye ‘ol jet; Kintala is going to leave Carlyle with a bottom job that would have cost way north of 5 grand in labor alone. I’ll admit, if I had to write a check that big for a couple of layers of bottom paint on a 42 foot boat, it would be an issue.

But the mast is down, work progresses, Deb is here, and even the weather is helping. This has been the coolest, most pleasant midwest summer any of us can remember. Just the thought of trying to do this in the blast furnace of last year could give a person the vapors.

I am a happy man.

Quiet workings

Deb is in the city for a last few days of closing out "the stuff" and helping Daughter Middle. She will be back home before the weekend. In the mean time work continues, not only on the hull and steering vane, but with planning and coordinating cranes and trucks and lifts and departures.

Tradewinds is a much quieter place during the week than is Boulder. Indeed, a whole day can go buy where I may see only one or two people ... some days none at all. The day starts, coffee gets made, breakfast is finished and the dishes done, the day's work is reviewed and begun. The gulls circle overhead; wasps buzz around checking on progress, the palm sander hums, dust is made, holes are drilled ... it is about as far from my life as a corporate pilot and American consumer living in a major city as can be imagined.

It is a temporary lull of course, a transition lifestyle of just a few weeks. By the end of the month the truck will arrive. Even if there is some work to complete once on the coast there will surely be more activity, more hustle, than there is here. We will be looking at big water, then be floating in big water, and a third way of living in as many months will start to unfold. But for now I can almost feel the old life fading away, the quiet workings in my head even more pronounced than those happening to the boat. Corporate America smacked me up-side the face but we were planning to walk away anyway. I still check the news to start my day, but the constant displays of world-wide lunacy seem distant. It is sad that so many people work so hard at doing as much harm as they can to themselves, others, and the world; but there is little that can be done about it; the goal is not to add to the chaos. They would probably hate me as much as they hate everyone else if they knew but - truth to tell - Kintala is likely so far below their RADAR as to be non-existent.

Part of the reason for moving onto a sailboat was to shift my view of the world; literally and figuritively. How big that shift might be was a curiosity; but I'm beginning to realize it will be more pronounced than I could have imagined. Wherever it is that we are going ... it will be much further away than I thought.

A cruiser's day on the hard.

After a rather touching and fun party at Boulder last night (see Deb's post) today started out as just another cruiser's day on the hard. I say that like I have any idea what a "cruiser's day on the hard" actually is; seeing as I haven't been cruising yet. But I read the blogs and hear the stories; bottom paint, repairs, upgrading equipment, replacing systems...and doing it all in an unfamiliar place. Kintla is getting the same kind of treatment though, to be truthful, Tradwinds isn't all that unfamiliar. We have some history here and Craig (manager of said Tradewinds) has done everything possible to aid our efforts to get going. (I'm kind of hoping this is a normal thing among marina managers, or at least among the ones we run across in the next few years.)

Then, leaving the clubhouse this morning I passed an ASA 101 class gathered around charts and books, prepping for their second day on the lake. The sudden rush of deja vu was intense and somehow two different times, separated by more than six years, become the same moment. My beginner self was sitting among the class, leaning over the unfamilar charts and trying to think like a sailor. Glancing up he took note of his future self deep into final preparations for departing land, maybe not a sailor yet but knowing enough sailor things to get started. And for just that moment it seemed clear that this was always going to happen, that this particular current in our life was simply too strong to avoid.

That thought changed the entire day's complexion, though soon my present self was shoulder deep in work once again. While I concentrated my efforts in the stern Deb puzzled over finding places below for the few things we still own; few compared to the collection of just a few weeks ago, that is. It still seems like a lot of stuff for 400 square feet of living space, but she was working some kind of magic and bag after bag dissapeared into Kintala without things leaking out the ports or bulging through the hatches.

Taking advantage of having another set of hands available to help fit wind vane parts too ungainly to handle alone seemed a good way to spend my day. Slow but steady progress was made and the transfer tube foward supports are cut, fitted, and temporarily bolted in place. Next will be fitting the tower and getting those supports cut, fitted, and temporarily bolted in place as well. When everything is temporarily bolted in place and it all looks right then, and only then, will everything be made permanent. And that may wait until the boat is back in the water and it can be verified that all is as it should be in refrence to the water line. We'll see, but for today we are pretty content with the progress made.

Or maybe we are just content to be at this place and doing this thing. Either way, tomorrow will be day 2 of living on a boat full time. I think I'll spend it sanding on the hull.

Norm!!!!!

Last night we had the chance to take a break from boat projects for awhile and attend a party at Boulder, across the lake. We don't go back often just because it's 32 miles each way, but this was a special party I really wanted to attend, the Jimmy Buffet tailgate party at which there was a drink recipe contest and I was fairly sure I could win with my Awesome Piña Colada dessert smoothie. We arrived late because I was late getting to the lake from the city, and when we turned the corner around the clubhouse building to the pavilion, all of the Assembled shouted out welcomes and it was the beginning of a genuine Cheers evening. It is true that you sometimes want to go where everybody knows your name.

And without further ado, here is the...drumroll...winning recipe.

Awesome Piña Colada Smoothie

Make the recipe in multiples of these quantities:

1 container of Yoplait thick and creamy lemon yogurt
1 of the empty yogurt containers filled with milk
1 of the empty yogurt containers filled with coconut rum
1-1/2 to 2 cups of frozen pineapple tidbits, the unsweetened kind

Put it all in a blender, blend on low first to break up the pineapple, then on high till smooth and creamy.

You can use this recipe substituting strawberry yogurt, frozen whole unsweetened strawberries, and vanilla vodka, or peach yogurt frozen peach slices and peach schnapps, or lime yogurt frozen pineapple and premixed margarita mix. The possibilities are only limited by the yogurt favors. Enjoy responsibly.

Last Tango in St. Louis

I'm back at the house in the city for one last time. Tomorrow is an early morning go for the second half of the contract flight started on Monday. By Saturday evening the boat will be my only "home address". Deb will be there Saturday but has to return to the city for the final act of renting out the house. She will spend a last couple of days helping Daughter Middle do some work on her house before joining me late next week. Then, finally, both of us will have turned 6 years of part-time living on our boat(s) into our full time occupation.

OK so this hole might sink the boat

It will not be "last good-byes", not yet. There are still several weeks of work to do before the boat goes on the truck. While I am actually making a little progress on the steering vane install, most of the effort for the next two weeks will focus on the hull bottom. There are a couple of items that need addressed; what look like pretty minor things to me but the marine industry types like to get goofy about. The marine industry type being, in this case, yet another surveyor. (New insurance, another survey).

Next step is to glass in this transfer tube and add the support brackets

His email referred to “global blisters indicating uncured resins”, “disbonding”, “hull flex and cracking”, “hydraulic migration”, and “the biggest smile I have ever seen”. Sounds terrible, right? But "the biggest smile I have ever seen" is simply "disbonding" bondo. Tartan used pounds of it fairing in the keel. Anyone who thinks bondo has anything to do with structure needs to go back to High School auto-body class. "Hull flex and cracking" is a minor crack in more bondo used to fill where the prop shaft support exits the hull. (Apparently telling the difference between fiberglass and bondo is a highly technical endeavor requiring something marine surveyors don't own; eyes maybe?) "Hydraulic migration" is, well, I don't know what it is. I know what it means but I have no clue what it has to do with our hull. There are no soft spots in it so I'm not sure where the "hydraulic" is supposed to be "migrating" too. I think I'm supposed to be impressed by the technical sounding words except, well, I've been an aircraft technician for four decades. We have all kinds of technical sounding words to throw around as well; hammer, bucking bar, screwdriver, duct tape, load cells, bend radius, edge distance ... are you impressed? Me neither.

As for the “global blisters indicating uncured resins”? It looks to me like surface defects and years of poorly applied bottom paint. Uncured resins? This hull is thirty years old and "uncured resins" show up in the last two years floating in fresh water? It is going to take some extra work to fix the screwed up paint jobs; two weeks maybe instead of the normal four days. There will be some research to find out about base coats and compatibility, and a fair amount of effort, but it falls far short of being "an issue".

I was a little bent out of shape at the survey at first; after all this is the second one I've had and the second one I'm having "issues" with. But now? Ah well, this is apparently what "surveyors" do in the marine industry, an industry that hasn't impressed me very much anyway. In my opinion this whole "blistering" thing has been mostly a tempest in a teapot and a way to generate some easy billing hours for boat yards. Sure there can be problems with composite materials; but you have to be seriously incompetent to lay one up so poorly that uncured resins cause hydraulic migration leading to disbonding, hull flex, cracking and (I suppose) eventual sinking. That kind of thing doesn't show up 30 years later.

I spent my entire professional career betting my life on being right about mechanical and technical things. (That's what happens when you fix airplanes and then fly them.) And I know a little bit about composite structures and fiberglass. Kintala's hull "issues" are largly cosmetic. She is not about to flex, disbond herself, or sink. And that is all I care about.

But I hope I never have to pay another dime to a marine surveyor.

Looking back at the edge

Steam coming off the lake this morning. It was 51° on
July 28th in the St. Louis area. Last year we were in the middle
of two weeks of 108°

So I'm back in the city for the night as a contract flight came up for tomorrow. I decided that the "cruiser" thing to do was take the trip since it pays well.  Nice that, since we are burning up money like we actually have some. Not quite as nice is it will take two long days out of the work schedule; tomorrow and then Friday. (It's kind of a long story involving airlines, car services, four(?) different airports; it is good money but it isn't easy money.)

Sitting in the city for the evening and away from the boat is giving me a chance to breathe easy for a few minutes. Kintala is on the hard, the crane will be along in the next few days to un-step the mast, (a procedure I am assured will be lacking in drama as well - unlike stepping it a couple of years ago) and the shipper insists he hasn't forgotten about us; price and actual ship date to be provided. I figure it will take a full day to prep for the mast coming off the boat. (Undo wiring, un-chock the mast at the deck, move the new table off the bulkhead and out of the way, stays, rigging - yep; a full day.)

The bottom paint is going to take at least one full week. Kintala sports a nice "smile" at the keel joint and has at least four different colors of paint on her - a light and dark blue, one coat of black in there somewhere, and some red. We are going to sand it, fair it, paint it, and splash it. We don't have time to take it down to a barrier coat and start over, and it isn't like we are going racing. I'm looking for a "10": if it looks good from 10 feet away, it's a paint job.

Finishing the wind vane is any one's guess but I'm hoping to have it done by this time next week. There is still more stuff to go on the boat than there is boat for the stuff. The new Mantus anchor and bottom paint should arrive at the marina this week. Somewhere we need to find room for the old anchor, and the Danforth still needs a coat of paint before it goes back in its locker. (Three anchors should be enough, right?)

Regardless of where sits the project list, when the truck gets here, we go.  (Which may not be the best decision I have ever made but we have jumped already; the landing is the only thing in question now.) 

Yet somehow, with this initial lift done, it all seems just that little bit less overwhelming.

Up ship...

In the aviation world "Up Ship" is a specific command given by airship Captains.  It tells the ground crew to toss the nearly neutrally buoyant ship skyward to start its journey.  I never piloted an airship and aviation is not my world anymore, but I couldn't help but mumble "Up Ship" under my breath as the straps went tight and Kintala cleared the waters of lake Carlyle.

Our journey is underway.

The day started normally enough.  Breakfast, coffee, chat with a few friends, prep the boat to get under way.    The boom tent was stowed, halyards moved, cobwebs swept away; we ran the spring line to get us off the dock cleanly and headed to the pump out.  There was no way to tell that this day's sail was any different from any of the hundreds of others we have done in the 6+ years of being at Carlyle.

We motored out of Boulder a little slower than normal.  This would be the last time Kintala's bow would
push these waters aside.  It was a strange feeling.  Out on the lake we flew just the head sail in the 10 knots worth of wind.  It wasn't enough and we weren't going very fast.  Then again we were in no particular hurry and the boat was moving easy.  As Boulder fell astern smiles broke out in the cockpit, replacing what was a bit of a somber mood.  The conversation shifted as well and somehow, in just those few minutes, all of our focus shifted from where we have been to where we are going.

Saturday, 9/15/2007 was day one of our first sailing class, and the first time we set foot on the docks at Tradewinds marina.  To suggest we had no clue as to what we were were doing would have been the understatement of the year.  This day Kintala slipped up to the fuel dock with little fanfare.  Deb stepped onto the dock, secured the mid ship spring line, cleated off the bow and stern without a thought and that was that.  We stripped both head and mail sails, flaked and stowed them below, and dropped the forestay so we would fit in the lift.  We motored into the pit without drama, set the straps fore and aft ...

"Up ship."

Who, me???

Two weeks ago Tim took on the task of trying to sort his tools into piles - one for those going on the boat, one for a box we were making for a friend of ours, and the rest to either sell or donate to Wings of Hope. You really have to appreciate the difficulty of this since he has two rolling Snap-on monstrosities that contain 36 years of aircraft wrenching. Shortly after he finished, he left for the boat and during his absence it was my job to clean the garage. On Wednesday he came home so as to be ready to sit for punishment in the dentist's chair Thursday, as we are trying to get all our dental work done while we still have insurance paying for at least part of it. When he left to go back to the boat he wanted to take the rest of the tools since he had finished the tool/parts crib, and upon lifting the blue plastic tub of tools he commented on the weight of it. "I might have added a few things," I said sheepishly. He merely raised an eyebrow.

This morning he told me that we just might have to purge the plier drawer, but I'm holding out.  I personally don't think a girl can have too many tools. What do you think?