Round Three

After a week of attempting to wait patiently, Saturday finally came and we would now get the chance to try out our fiberglass patching methodology.  I had seen a couple of videos posted on YouTube about performing fiberglass repair, and since a few of them were actual West Systems traing videos, I figured we would give it a try.

We started with some simple materials; sheets of clear plastic, wax paper, 3M blue masking tape, and a sharpie.

First, I carefully spread the clear plastic sheet out over the hole inside the keel trunk followed the contour of the curve.  I then taped off a couple of edges of the plastic sheet.

This allowed me to trace the outline of the hole on to the plastic, thus getting an idea of what the shape of the patch I was going to cut.  I also traced the outline of the sanded edge of the hole that beveled towards the hole itself.

The photo above is an example of what I am describing.  The outside line that I am cutting along is the beveled edge of the fiberglass, while the inside line drawn on the plastic is the actual hole itself.  So what we do is use the pattern to cut a single piece of fiberglass.

After cutting this piece of fiberglass, we cut a smaller piece of fiberglass using the line on the inside of the plastic sheet.  The idea here is to cut subsequently smaller ovular shapes of fiberglass that will stack one on top of another, forming a cone or pyramid-like shape.

Here you can see I verified that the smaller piece of fiberglass I cut actually fit the hole.  This obviously means that the larger piece will fit nicely over the hole, forming a nice blanket.  

The photo above shows Pops cutting a third and fourth layer of fiberglass that will be even smaller than the other two sheets placed on the wax paper.  We cut a total of 4 layers for the patch that went on the outside of the hull up in the keel trunk.

Once the ovular pieces were cut, we mixed the Epoxy Resin with the Slow Hardener.  The photo above shows me reading all the warning labels and instructions on the chemical containers.  According to their documentation, I needed to mix 5 parts resin for every 1 part hardener.  Luckily we bought the pumps that go on top of the cans, so measuring was pretty easy.  We mixed in the small silver paint can shown in the photo, and stirred up the resulting compound for a couple of minutes.

Here Pops gives a little taste test to verify the mix is indeed 5 to 1.  Seriously though, don't try that at home kids.

Once the mix had been stirred for a couple of minutes, we laid each fiberglass patch sheet on the wax paper.  Starting with the largest piece, we carefully wet down each fiberglass patch with a brush and stacked the next smaller piece on top.

As you can see from the photo above, it helps tremendously to wear the proper gloves.  This will allow you to work freely without the resin sticking to your hands, and it will also keep your fingers away from chemicals that are not very nice to your skin.

Once all of the pieces had been brushed down and stacked on top each other, we took a smaller piece of wax paper in which to use to apply the patch and flipped the entire patch over so that the largest piece was facing away from the wax paper.  This will allow that largest piece to face towards the hull itself when applying the patch.  This may seem counter-intuitive, but according to the West Systems training videos that is the proper method in which to apply the patch.

We then applied a gratuitous amount of epoxy mix around the keel trunk hole.

Once the surrounding fiberglass had been adequately soaked in epoxy mix, we took the piece of wax paper with the patch on it and pressed in over the hole.

After lining the patch up over the hole we used the cylindrical edge of a medium sized screwdriver to run upright along the wax paper, working out any air bubbles.  From here, we will have to let the epoxy cure overnight and come back tomorrow to peal off the wax paper and view the results of our work.  More to come....

More Side Work..

I had an hour or so to spare today, so I decided to take the grab rails and tiller handle that Pops had sanded down and do some finish up work with them.  Some .300 grit sandpaper and the West Marine Premium Gold teak oil would do the trick.  I have to say, all this wood looked about five million times better once a little oil was applied.

Even though there are some light cracks along the edges, I think some more sanding and another coat should do just fine.  I guess we will wait and see once the Spar Varnish is applied as to what the end result will yield.  For now, the first coat of oil will set in overnight as the rails and tiller dry in the storage room.  I will check up on them tomorrow morning.

Side Work..

Since we are awaiting moisture evaporation within the cabin and will be doing so for the next couple of days, I decided to take the opportunity to perform some side work.  I had previously collapsed the mast, removed the jib and main sails from the boat, and taken them over to Pop's house to be cleaned at some point.  I was a bit taken back when I rolled up to find them laying out in the driveway following a fairly extensive scrub down with 1% bleach mixture and warm water.

These sails looked very revived, and I was surprised to see even the main might be salvageable.  In fact, after the wash I noticed that the old cracking and peeling sail letters now detracted from the rest of the sail.  I decided it was time to correct this issue.

After a visit to the local fabric store to obtain a seam ripper, I went to work removing the stitching from both sides.  This was easy but tedious work, and took the better part of a couple of hours to completely remove the stitches.

As you can see, the only remaining parts from most of the sail letters were tiny cracked pieces of what appeared to be plastic.  After removing stitches from each number or letter,  a vacuum cleaner with its hose attachment was required to clean up the mess of black fragments strewn about all over the sail.

Afterwards, I took the sail outside to get a better view of what it will look like with the sail all spread out.

There are still some dark spots in the dacron that will need to be washed and cleaned up.  Hopefully we can get them all consistent in color with the rest of the sail.  If not, then I might be shopping for some stick-on letters.  I guess we will wait and see. 

As always, more to come..

Round Two

Today we got started with the initial dirty work for repairing the keel trunk.  I think we all knew that it was going to be a long and hot day of some sweaty work involved.  Pops and I showed up around the same time to take Anthony to get some work juice in the form of coffee, then I showed Pops the damage from the underside.

Luckily, he had brought along some attachments for a drill, including a rotating wire brush and a couple of grinding bits in various sizes.

It took no time at all to knock away the wet and rotted fiberglass along the inside of the keel trunk.  First we started with the wire brush bit.  Once the hole was exposed, Pops set to work with the grinding bit to clear away any broken fiberglass and create a smooth surface.  

I have to give Pops some credit here, as he was very meticulous in making the surface and surrounding edges as smooth and even in contour as possible.  I guess he was really enjoying the work.

Once the inside of the keel trunk looked fairly smooth, a 5" sanding pad attachment for the drill was applied to the outside of the keel trunk to smooth out the edges and form a base from which we could start the repair.

As you can see from the photo above, It appears from the outside of the hull that this repair job was going to be very straight forward and simple to do.

Meanwhile inside the cabin, Anthony set to work cutting into the cabin floor to expose the keel trunk and bilge from the inside.  This would give us an idea of exactly how much water was still in the bilge, and how much rot there might be on the inside.

He cut a long and narrow square hole under the port side bench closest to the bulkhead.  Here you could see there was some rotting fiberglass from a previous patch job that was done very sloppily.  I guess the Insurance Adjuster might actually know what he was talking about.

This portion of the trunk was hollow, and the fiberglass and epoxy left from the previous patch job appeared very thin.  We could see the line along the keel trunk where the previous repair was made and decided that would be a good place to start when refilling the glass, working our way forward to the V-berth.  It looks like this hull repair might not be as simple as we would like it to be, but it is still fairly straightforward to perform.

Anthony worked his way forward into the V-berth using his newly purchased Dremmel Multi-Max with the wood cutting bit.  At first he only cut a small portion from the floor, right next to the head.

Here you could see straight through the floor, and subsequently straight through the hole in the keel trunk.  This was great!  We could be able to easily access the hole from the backside in order to form the fiberglass correctly during the repair.  As Anthony removed more flooring to give space, he started to notice the amount of wood rot under the berth.

After a bit of discussion, we decided it was just a better idea to pull up the wood and replace it with treated wood painted with some marine-grade paint.  Apparently all I had to do was give the word and Anthony started going crazy, cutting up the plywood platform.

After pulling up all of the platform, we found that the original foam from 1973 still existed in between the frame.  Depending on the rot and damage to the frame, we will most likely pull all of it out, along with the foam.

Though none of this will be expensive to replace, I would still like to save as much as possible as I am keeping to my budget and would like to stretch every last dollar to the max.

At the end of the day, we looked back into the cabin and noted the path of destruction.  Here is a photo of the cabin before we started working:

Here is a photo of the cabin after the work today:

Of course none of this is a big deal and all of it will clean up easily, it is still a bit intimidating to slowly disassemble the boat you enjoy so much. But, we have most of the flooring up, and the outside of the hull cleaned out.  From here we just need to wait for the moisture to dry out on the inside so we can sand down and start laying in the fiberglass.  More to come...

Round One...

A couple of weeks ago, Pops (my dad) asked me to remove the tiller handle and take it over to his house so that he could sand it down a little and see if it was worth saving.  The previous owner had allowed the teak to go grey and let the wood grain rise.  There also appeared to be a couple of dents and nicks along the sides that we were not sure if they would come out.

After getting the boat back over to Anthony's house (my friend mentioned in the previous posts), he was kind enough to take off for lunch one afternoon and remove the tiller for me to stop by and pick up.  Along with the jib sails, I took the tiller over to Pop's house.  Once in his hands, he proceeded to sit down in the backyard and go to town with some .320 grit.  It didn't take long to tart showing the beauty of the grain underneath.  After some debate about whether or not it was actually worth saving, I took the handle home to start after it with some .100 grit and eventually working back down to the finer .320 grit.

The result is pretty good, though you can see that the pits and nicks are not going to come out with some simple sanding.  I took the handle and placed my foot in the middle and grabbed on to each end in an attempt to test its strength.  Even if it is fairly ugly, there is still some life left in the old wood.  I think I am pretty much resolved to the fact that either:

(A) I am going to use this tiller handle as a spare/back-up
(B) I am going to just have to live with a banged up tiller handle

I am not really sure which yet, so I decided to run down to West Marine and pick up some teak oil to see what a little doctoring might do to make my decision for me.  While at West Marine, I went ahead and got my first round of supplies needed to patch up that hole around the keel trunk.

Left: West System 206 Slow Hardener
Middle: West System 105 Epoxy Resin
Right: West Marine Premium Gold Teak Oil
Front: 8' Sheet of Fiberglass

Come tomorrow, I will most likely get started on cutting out the hole in the keel trunk, and taking a look from the inside along the false bilge to survey how much glass is going to be needed.  My assumption is that an 8' sheet should be more than enough for the job.  We shall see...

At a glance

So we have the Hale'iwa parked outside of my friend's house.  He seemed eager to offer up his driveway as well as lend a hand in performing any repair work and upgrades.  How could I pass up an offer like that?  I guess after we have completed the work I teach him how to sail on his own.

In the meantime, we appear to have enough room to get started.  The driveway looks to be about 36 feet long (11 meters) and should provide ample room in which to prop up the boat.

There are also trees on each side of the driveway, which will help shade us from the unforgiving temperatures the South Texas summer sun.  The only issue I did note with the driveway was the angle at which the boat sits.  Because there is no aft lean, water can become trapped in the cockpit.  This was evident after a torrential downpour from the previous day, which left a good 4" (10 cm) of water close to the bottom of the companion way.  Thank goodness the water did not go high enough to spill over into the cabin.  I will have to remedy this lean soon by propping the trailer's wheel jack on to a brick, or replacing it all together.

After removing the mast totally from the boat, I was able to take a close look inside the cabin to survey the damage reported by the insurance adjuster to the claims representative.  I was not able to find any "pre-existing damage" around the keel wench or trunk, but I will have to get in under the head area to take a closer look at the fiberglass.

I pulled up the carpet and inspected all of the crevices, looking for any indication of rot that might have occurred over the previous couple of months.  There was none to be found, just a dirty cabin that needs some scrubbing.

Also, while removing the mast from the boat I noticed that a couple of the turn buckles are bent.

I will have to price some out and see what kind of deal I can get.  Maybe if the price is right I will replace them all.  That would be nice!

I had noticed that the standing rigging was quite loose the last time I was out at the lake.  I had posted a couple of questions on the Clipper Marine forum about this issue and got quite a few helpful responses.  I definitely need to check the bulkhead and mast support post within the cabin.  I will also be looking at the length of the stays as compared to the length listed in the owner's manual.  The last thing I am looking at would be the chain plates on the boat itself.

These really shouldnt be an issue, as the holes arent worn, and even with the turnbuckles tightened all the way, the forestay, backstay and the port side upper did not have any tension to them.

At any rate, I hope to start working on her next weekend.  More to come....

How this all started...

In March of 2010, my wife and I started looking at boats that we could not only sail on the local south Texas lakes, but every once in a while take down to the gulf coast.  After looking around at various trailor sailers such as the Catalina, Starwind, and Columbia.. we settled on a 1973 Clipper Marine 26 MK-I.  We knew it was an older boat that would require plenty of repair, but were willing to sacrifice time for money in our first purchase.

The boat was reasonably clean and in as good of shape as any other 30+ year old boat I had seen.  For the price, we couldnt resist.  So in April of 2010, we bought the boat and christened her:  the Hale'iwa.

She was on the water by June, and after a failed launch attempt, and a replacement of the outboard with a new Nissan 4-cycle 6 hp motor.. she provided many weekends of summer fun with the family. 

One afternoon while motoring into the marina, her keel hit and slapped back against the keel trunk.  I raised the keel, and circled back around in the marina to put her onto the trailer.  With the trailer too far down in the water and coming in too hot, my wife attempted to stop the boat from hitting the back of our truck.

The resulting impact placed her index finger between the nose of the bow and the back of our truck, and split open the soft underside of her finger.

She was a real trooper through the ride up to the hospital to get her stitches.  Lesson learned: Make damn sure the keel is up in the marina if I don't want to be signing divorce papers.

It wasnt but a few weeks later when we were back out on the water, enjoying the Hale'iwa yet again. 

Though this time around, we noticed she was taking on a bit of water.  After 4 or 5 hours of sailing, I appeared to have about an inch of water on the cabin floor.

Looks like it was time to finally use my insurance and file claim.  I pulled the Hale'iwa out for the Marina Service Department to take a look, called the insurance company, and waited.

Well, the bad news all came at once.  The Marina wanted around $2,200 to repair the damaged fiberglass around the keel trunk, and the claims adjuster said the boat had previous damage, so the claim would be denied.  Considering they did not send out an initial surveyor before the boat ever touched the water,  I could nto fathom the justification of their findings.  Lesson learned:  Make sure an insurance surveyor checks out your boat before it ever touches water.

After spending a bit of time asking questions about repair work on the Clipper Marine forums, I have decided to  take a shot at performing the repair work myself.  Since I am confident that I will not be spending anywhere near $2,200 for repairing just the keel trunk, I figure I might as well see what I can fix up on her within  the limited budget that I do have.

With help from one of my friends, we went out to the boat yard and collapsed the mast to transport the boat back to his house.  While taking down the mast, he took the opportunity to take a couple of pictures of the damage from the outside of the hull.

At first glance, the damage from the outside looks fairly small and relatively simple to repair.  When I get the chance, I will take a look at the trunk from inside the cabin.  More to come...