HAUL OUT

heavily drank all night easter night after an extremely busy day cooking easter brunch. woke up at 7am before the hang over even kicked in. prepped and cleaned the boat and dock area (mostly just picking up beer cans and whatever else a drunk may leave lying around) made it to the shipyard at exactly 8am for my scheduled haul out. she looked like a toy in that crane.

Once we got her out, hosed off, and onto the trailer. Rex (dana point yacht maintenance) pointed out the 300-500 blisters 🙁

blisters are a symptom of a condition that is commonly known as hydrolysis of the laminate. pretty much just comes down to osmosis of water through the resin because of the product they used back in the day and how long the boat has sat in the water. they can be ignored and “not cause a problem”. rex told me “i’ve never heard of a boat sinking from blisters” but to me it was a problem that needed to be fixed. just imagining those pimples of acidic water in-between my fiberglass gave me a bad feeling. i didnt want to think about them growing larger, or cracking, or spreading. it was all negative. so i told him lets pop these things! (knowing that it would at least double the cost of my haul-out)

so we wrapped a skirt around the boat to keep in the dust and fibers from sanding, there was A LOT.

here’s me in the sanding outfit. full body tyvek suit. (tyvek is an amazing material. i have a jacket made from it and a jib sail the previous owner taylor made himself. it’s ultra light, rip proof, water proof etc.) these suits were extremely hot inside. i was sweating out that easter binge drinking-fest from the night before.

here’s what it looks like after popping blisters all afternoon. it was actually kind of fun under the skirt tent in that space suit. i felt like i was zapping aliens or something. each blister would pop and squirt in your face like a dirty zit.

here’s a view from the inside of the boat with the sunshine coming through. pretty crazy. 

soooo i sanded through the hull of the boat… one of the blisters just kept going and going and i kept getting water out, until i bore right through. i was scared at first but rex told me its a common mistake for rookies. he patched it right up for me.

here’s my lunchbreak view.

doheny as my background out of the cockpit.

so after sanding and popping all the blisters. we started to fill them all, spackling method. we used this product first.

while sanding, we noticed a drip that kept coming from the aft bottom corner of the keel. inside of which is the bilge. rex said its probably cracked and taking on minimal water. which explains why i have to pump my bilge more often than normal. so i sanded into it more and sure enough water kept pouring out. i went inside the cabin with the shopvac, cleaned the bilge out dry and spotless. then we patched up the tiny crack.

we spackled long into the night. got about 2/3 the boat done. and it was time to go to sleep. Piña, Claire, and I spend the night in our treehouse on land that night. 

this is the hardener agent that has to be kneaded into both agents before applying to the boat.

this is the second product we used after finishing and sanding down the first product.

looking a lot better. no more blisters. smooth fresh bottom.

the view from under the skirt with dust flying everywhere. 

spackled and sanded all day the second day. it was hot, humid, and my arms felt like spaghetti.

this is what it looked like after everything was done. ready to paint.

rex immediately started painting that night. i didnt want to pay for a 3rd day on land and it was meant to start raining that night and all the next day. not a big deal because he could paint under the skirt tent, but i’d rather just get this all over with and save at least a little bit of money.

heres how she looked the next morning. we left the cat on the boat, duh, and claire surprised me with a much needed hotel room for the night. its very rare for us to sleep on land, and use a regular bathroom, especially one with a jacuzzi 🙂

i only had about 15 minutes to check her out before i had to head into work. he did 2 coats of trinadad pro all around, 4 coats at the water line, and 3 coats before and aft the keel. i had him raise the waterline about an inch higher than the old one. 

thru-hulls looked great. they were nice and shiny before he painted over them.

after easter brunch, 2 days of about 15+ hours of work each day, and about 5 hours of sleep each night. i was ready to start my work week. beginning with a double… i ran to work while they put her back on the crane, rex finished up painting where the pads were. claire and rex drove her back to the slip. i came back from work to my newly done home, claire and Piña waiting.

sure it was a shit-ton of work and labor, plus expensive. but now that i have the mental insurance that the bottom was taken care of properly, ill be happy for at least 5-6 years until the next haul out.

another thing that made me feel good was just seeing splendid isolation out of the water next to similar sailboats. she was wider, bulkier, and had twice the keel. it made me feel lucky that i stumbled upon a boat like this for cruising compared to the others.