Since the neighborhood kids would not have a chance to play on the boat over the next few weeks, they decided to lend a hand at cleaning up the topside and deck. I guess this would give them the last remaining hours on the boat that could be spared before they would have to vacate the premises.
After a while of hosing down the deck, and a bit of topside scrubbing.. it was now time to give Anthony's plan of trailer bunk replacements a shot.
Weeks earlier, I had gathered some various 2x4's and 4x4's that I had lying around in my backyard. Combined with a few extra pieces of lumber that Pops had, we figured we had enough to contruct some sort of heavy support system.
The idea was to construct some 18 inch wooden cubes to support the pneumatic floor jacks that would raise the make shift bunks. These cubes would be designed to support about a ton each. We carefully placed these cubes underneath the front and rear bulkhead on the portside of the Clipper.
From here, we would place the jacks on top of the cube stands, and raise a single 16 foot long 2x6 on the inside of the existing bunk; thus displacing the weight of the bunk on to a new makeshift bunk.
The placement of the jacks had to be fairly close to where the bulkheads were located, as we did not want to put any undue load on the fiberglass of the hull.
Inch by inch, we slowly raised each floor jack, carefully listening for any stress cracking that might occur. To our surprise, there was not even a peep from the hull.
After lifting over six inches off the outer bunk, Anthony and pops unfastened the retaining bolts for the trailer bunk and then removed the entire 14 foot section of 2x6 stretch from the trailer. We now had ample room in which to work.
We now easily run the random orbital sander and surface solvent over these sections to fully prep the portside bottom of the hull for painting.
This also gave us the opportunity clean up the removed trailer bunk. In the coming weeks, we will varnish, and carpet the bunk before replacing it.
After a couple hours of sanding the next day, the bottom looked ready to apply some solvent and clean it up.
With the boat raised I was also able to finally sand down a previous patch job I had found when previously removing paint from the hull.
Since this previous repair job was rock, solid, I simply needed to sand it smooth and refair the hull in this area. Also, we would now be able to apply an epoxy barrier coat to the hull before applying the bottom paint.
With the portside all cleaned up now, we can clean it up, repaint it, and then do the starboard side over the next weekend.
She's getting closer to being put back on the water. I can hardly wait.
