All Work?

The past couple of weeks have consisted of scrubbing, polishing, and chipping. 

The interior of the boat has scrubbed floors, clean wood work, and a shower that has gone from a nice moldy green to sparkling silver.  It took a week to scrub from top to bottom, but it’s finished and I’m proud to say looking better than it ever has.

That’s a clump of hair and the growth from only about 2.5 months of real use.  There is a wooden grate that goes over this that servers as the shower floor and then this pan has a drain attached to it.  As you can see it doesn’t always drain completely and when 4 people are using a shower hair, soap scum, and other stuff starts to build up.  Gross!

The beautiful after shot.  It was no easy task, but it is now ready to sit for awhile while we use the showers at the marina.  I felt such a sense of accomplishment after this.  : )

On deck I am now cleaning all of the chrome railings and fixtures which at first looked like a simple enough job considering the life lines and a few things here and there were all that looked like there was… in reality there is more stainless steel chrome type of attachments than I had ever thought possible.  I started down below on a “heater” that I don’t remember ever using but that is attached to the wall and one of the first things you see when you walk down.  The success of the Turtle Wax for Silver Chrome intended for car use was surprising and has now led to a lot more work ahead of me.  I am happy to report though that everything glistens in the sunlight and that it’s cleaner than it has, well ever been.

The annual rust spot check is taking place on deck too.  I’ve explained before and I’ll explain again that it’s a steel boat.  Steel boats tend to rust when doused with salt water.  We are finding it mainly where one object has been welded to the deck.  Dad cut some corners before to see what would happen, and he’s now learning.  The rust gets into where it was welded and starts to “grow” there.  The object of the game we are playing is to catch it before it spreads any further.  We find where there is corrosion, which is indicated by paint bubbles and Dad chips the paint away with a hammer and chisel. (We are going to get him a block of marble next he’s so good!) Once he’s gotten the paint off of the “infected” spot he goes over it with a grinder which is a lovely power tool that grinds the remaining paint, rust, and steel off the top of the spot to create a nice surface.  Next is Ospho which is a type of acid put directly on the exposed steel to essentially stop the growth of the rust.  It’s pretty heavy duty stuff.  Then 2 coats of a primer type paint mixture to protect the spot from the elements.  It’s 1 part paint to ¼ part activating agent that gives the painter about 30 minutes before it turns rock solid.  Much care is needed when working with boat paints… toxic has such a negative connotation, so super duper strong and durable is what I’m going to go with here.  Then a top coat to make it look pretty and we just cross our fingers that we’ve gotten all of the spots and wait until next year to repeat.

In theory this process should take about 4 days; 1 day for grinding and Ospho, one for each layer of paint.  However when you are in a marina and people are very… dust conscious… it seems to take an eternity.  When you grind steel with a power tool there is a lot of dust created and the boat that was next to us until this morning was very concerned about the dust getting on their boat.  It’s a valid concern, but nothing that can’t be fixed with a hose.   Between that and the noise it makes we can’t please everyone around us, and considering the sun sets here at around 4:30pm, the process it taking a lot longer than it should.

This is what a bad rust spot looks like.  You can see how shinny the winch is because I literally had just cleaned/polished it when I took this photo, but the rust around it is no good.  This is up at the bow of the boat where the anchor is.  That area is underwater the most out of any other spot in the boat so it makes sense that the worst spot is there.  Dad is going to have to remove the winch and really get under it with the grinder and then reattach it.

It’s amazing how the live aboards here are so different from those at other places we have stayed.  I mean I suppose my comparison isn’t completely fair considering the main marina I remember was in Green Cove Springs where it was a working boat yard so everyone worked on their boats together.  There the people that lived aboard were constantly painting, sanding, chipping, welding, etc.  They showered maybe once a week I would guess and I wouldn’t call their boats nice floating houses.  We are currently surrounded by the polar opposite.  Here people work sometimes, but it’s small projects like touchup painting or staining wood.  Their time on the boat is spent doing things with a hose.  I have never seen this many hoses out and going at once.  Scrubbing the deck and things of that nature happen multiple times on a boat and it just an addition to things like washing ropes, sails, and anchor chains… all things we have NEVER done on our boat.   One couple went up to the laundry room to make sure they were using only hot water to wash their ropes because the hose water wasn’t enough.  I passed a man who had his anchor chain out, a bucket of soapy water, and a small sponge.  Our anchor chain is 250ft long… and the point of it is to be in the mud or salt water.  The hassle of taking it off the boat and onto the dock and then washing it with a sponge, and having to put it back on the boat… it would be a lot easier and better use of time to just buy a new one if you ask me.  We took one sail down to have it repaired, but not to have it washed and shored.  There was a heated debate on the way back from the symphony about whether or not Oxy Clean was acceptable for scrubbing one’s sails.  It could just be that Dad and our family are out of the loop on boat maintenance or that the people around us are just overly excited about boat cleanliness.   To each his own.

We did join and outing into Antalya which I will touch on in a different blog, and when we got back had a huge surprise waiting on the boat.  Dad had been talking to the metal works people about getting the back end straightened out from when we had the little accident in Corfu.  He could’ve done it on his own but 1. Doesn’t have a welding machine on the boat and 2. Doesn’t have the tools or press needed to straighten out the rail itself.  After having the manager come out twice to look at it, explain both times what needed to be done, and walking up for an estimate each day for about a week, we thought they agreed to have an estimate ready on Wednesday which was the day we went into town.  What actually happened is they skipped giving us the estimate and began working on the boat without anyone here.  We got back at around 4:00pm, noticed someone was having work done, and realized it was on our boat.  The rail was off and straightened out and the guy was grinding at the fitting we had split when the outboard hit the anchor of the other boat.  Wide eyed Dad went up to the shop and talked to the guy, I’m sure wide eyed and in a slightly louder voice than usual saying he wanted an estimate first and that it shouldn’t have been started without us on the boat.  The manager gave him the estimate, which was reasonable, and assured Dad it would be done within the next day and that he was sorry.  At this point there is nothing else that can be done but make sure the job is done the absolute best it can be and allow the men to finish working.  So that’s what we did.  They came back the next day with the welder who attached the new piece they constructed to attach the railing, put it on and that was the end of that.  Aside from being a bit scary coming back and seeing someone surrounded by pieces of the boat grinding at the deck, it went rather smoothly.  There was one slice to our hose, but they fixed that and the back looks and functions how it’s supposed to.

This is not what you want to come back to after a fun filled day in town.

This is what grinding steel looks like to anyone who was curious.  Sparks fly, there is a lot of dust, and when you slip and hit something like a rubber hose it creates a wet mess.

If you just pull it closer than it should fit!  We used to have to pull to get the back to latch, but now that isn’t necessary because they welded it to where it fits just like a glove.

Tada!  It doesn’t look like we ran into anything anymore!  Overall they did a good job.