Cockpit-seat lockers

These are some older photos that never got posted under any specific topic.  In most cases there has been much progress since these were taken.

1. Here is a view into the port side locker, what used to be the fuel-tank locker.  As I have said before, this area was so soggy when I acquired the boat that I removed the bulkhead and shelf with bare hands-- really; no tools needed!  The bulkhead was formerly under the drip rail to the right.  I made a new bulkhead about 8 inches farther aft, to make the quarter berth about 6'4" or 6'5"; the foot of it is under this shelf, which, with a fiddle installed, will hold winch handles and the like.

In this photo the shelf is holding a plastic bulkhead vent fitting which I may end up not using and a length of SS angle intended for the backstay's backing plates (since substituted with aluminum).

Outboard is a little box/shelf I made to hold quart cans of paint, solvent, 2-stroke oil, and whatever.  It drains into the area farther inboard.

I really hate black 5200-- it always looks unclean and messy somehow.  But it's what I had; and this will all be painted in white Bilgekote.

The port-side battery's breather tube comes up through the box/shelf and extends up like a snorkel to within a few inches of the underside of the coaming (the PVC coupling seen on the shelf is for that).  The battery is under the main-cabin settee.

The after bulkhead replaces the one that was there holding up the fuel-tank shelf.  The 3" hole will accommodate a ventilation tube leading from the Dorade box (after of the tiller head) to the foot of the quarter berth.  This will be PVC, as it should be rigid to keep from being damaged when stuff gets dropped or thrown into this locker.

You can see the bodged-up job the PO did in increasing the size of the openings in the hatch's drip rail.  The real reason he had such leaks is because he had cut out the drip rail itself along the outboard side of the hatch to accommodate overly-big hinge bolts.  I patched this, not prettily, but adequately to lend it strength.  This will get sanded and reshaped prior to paint.


2. This is a look straight down at the starboard-side locker.  At one time the fresh-water tank was under a platform at the forward end of this space.  It was not there when I acquired the boat.  My new fresh-water tanks go under the main-cabin settees.  I fitted this shelf in here to lend stiffness to the hull the way the quarter berth does on the other side.  All major flats and verticals should be structurally bonded to the hull-- they all help.

For access under this shelf I made two lift-out panels.  I really cannot think of what I would put down there, as the top of this shelf will be full of things like life jackets, mooring line, fenders and a folding bike.  The inboard opening without a cover (left side of the pic) is for the engine-starting battery.  A standard-sized battery box fits into here with its ear handles holding it from sinking all the way through.  Of course this will get screwed in place-- and a strap fitted over the cover when the battery is installed-- as well.

The little block of mahogany is a step I made on top of the edge of the stiffening rib so that, for the many times I have climbed down this hole for access under the cockpit and aft, there is something to step and lean upon that is more substantial than the knife-edge of a piece of 3/8" plywood.  (My back is grateful for this!)

Under the cockpit at the lower edge of the photo you see the black plastic (Tempo) fuel tank, which is 11.5 or 12 gallons.  It sits on a plywood shelf, the edge of which protrudes a bit this side.  As it is located, the tank is about one inch off center but otherwise fits perfectly, with all access points at the after end for vent, sender, feed and fill.

The openings in this hatch's drip rail were enlarged too but not as clumsily as the ones on the port side; I filled and faired these as well.

3. This is a look from inside the starboard-side locker, looking forward.  You see the two lift-outs and the hole for the battery box.  All of this has received one coat of Interlux Bilgekote; it'll get another coat before it's done.

The things in the forward corner are a brass tube, which will be installed in that bulkhead, down by the hull, to admit bilge water from this compartment to where the bilge pump is, and the ends of the PVC tubes that lead to the electric and manual bilge-pump pickups.  I made this section of them in PVC because it would be nightmarish to thread any replacement hose through this route once the boat is done.  PVC can be assembled in pieces, in place, so even in the unlikely event that the PVC might fail it too can be replaced after being hacksawed out.  From this point hose, with check valves to avoid backfill, will lead towards the transom outlets.  The vertical PVC tube mounted on the plywood block is the starboard-side battery's breather which extends up to within a few inches of the underside of the deck.  The battery is located under the settee berth.

The wooden bulkhead is the back side of the teak plywood bonded to the inside of the cabin back.  It extends down below the galley counter back here and provides a surface to which to fasten wiring and other stuff.  In this plywood will be fitted the on-off switch for the engine-starting battery, so one can reach down to the galley from the main hatch and switch it on or off.  Also the wine lockers will be mounted in this bulkhead (more on that later).

The long skinny shelf along the side of the cockpit (to left in the photo) will get a varnished-mahogany fiddle to hold stuff (mainly because I have plenty of countertop-fiddle stock).  This shelf was installed to seal the under-cockpit locker from potential fuel fumes (the tank is out of view just to the left of the camera).  This whole compartment gets vented via a Rule #140 blower and a hose leading to the Dorade box.

Just forward of the drip rail (angled feature at top left in photo) in the cockpit side will be mounted the throttle and shift for the motor; so those cables will run straight towards where I was holding the camera here.  Also the Whale manual bilge pump gets mounted in the cockpit side just to the left of the camera.


* * *

JC's secret system for filling deck-core rot

I recently posted a comment responding to a core-fixing issue on the Hunter Owners Web.  I think this is valuable for most fiberglass-boat owners to consider.  Here is the whole text.

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JC:

I filled all of the 'rotted'/'questionable'-core spots on my deck with epoxy. It's so rigid you could hold a teenagers' hip-hop dance party on it.

Once I made a mistake and began filling too close after a rainstorm. I don't know what I was thinking; but when I [pumped with the syringe] I saw that the epoxy actually pushed the water up to the surface. I was very surprised-- thought I had wandered into a really fine mess. What I found was that by continuing to inject epoxy, the ugly baby-vomit-looking water/epoxy slime that migrated upwards eventually stopped-- all the water (and not very much had ever got in) was gone and now the epoxy was doing its job, saturating to the bottom of the void and filling towards the top. The result was a deck area as stiff as any of the other places I have filled.

The only drawbacks to my system of 'drilling and filling' is that epoxy weighs more than does foam or balsa. In very large repairs the weight difference could be a problem. In my 40 years of boatbuilding experience I have never found a point at which this is a problem. The sides of a small production sailboat's cabin are just not enough volume to warrant worry about any increase in weight. The average owner's toolbox would probably negate any theoretical savings.

While it is very true that 'Water migrates very far from the point of entry' [mentioned by the original poster], it is also true that epoxy does the same thing, perhaps even better than does water. Penetrating epoxy is made to do this. I have been filling voids successfully with epoxy since I first heard of the stuff in the 1970s and the only significant mess I ever encountered was when the epoxy would not seem to stop sucking in, and more and more got pumped in with the syringe, until I happened to notice an uninstalled drawer sitting in the pilot-berth area with one whole corner full of the stuff. Through the tiny voids between plywood edge-grain and the fiberglass, the epoxy had migrated 10 or 12 feet along the flange of the boat (and fortunately found something to drip into that was more or less replaceable). To this day that part of the flange on that boat is probably the strongest hull-deck joint we've ever had on one of those boats.

I would trust WEST epoxy with any wood-to-wood or wood-to-raw-fiberglass joint with my life-- and, oh, wait-- I do; because my boat has been restored, remodeled and improved based on that ethic.

 

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A friend, Pilot, then asked me:

'Can you describe the process and the materials you would use. Specifically the typical hole size drilled the distance between holes and the number of holes for a given area. I've read other articles for epoxy injection but would like a builders take on this process.

'My boat was surveyed 3 years ago and an area around the windlass was found to have an elevated moisture level. Rather than pull the windlass and start replacing plywood core and all that's involved in that, injecting may be the solution that stems the moisture migration and solidifies the deck.

'My own personal thoughts on wet core and soft decks is, it's a distraction, and after 37 years of sailing on many different boats some that I've owned I have never seen a catastrophic failure based on moisture or soft decks.'

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So I told him (writing a veritable book into the process!):

If you know there is water present you can drill a hole-- only through the fiberglass layer(s)-- from one side or the other and then apply a vacuum hose to suck it out. This works surprisingly well-- it's the first step I recommend in fixing rotted outboard-skiff transoms. They all rot (motorboaters don't seem to care for their boats like we do ours); and this is the best way to save them. (I am doing my motor bracket's backing board the same way.) You then drill a few smaller holes, sized to fit the syringe, maybe about 3/16" or 1/4", into the top of the transom and pump in the stuff.

I used to thin the epoxy with acetone (not what Gougeon Brothers recommend; though when I told of them of this they said 'Who are we to argue with the Cherubinis about treating wood?" ) But you really do not need to thin it; as it's only doing its job by penetrating the way it does.

You might go cautiously at first, with just a little (3-5 pumps' worth?)-- it will migrate down. When it comes out the hole you drilled for the water, at the bottom, you know it's done what it should (and you know the transom was toast). Next batch, tape over the hole and after it's kicked off, go for broke and really pump it in.

For a deck, you do basically the same thing. You might drill a hole into the underside for your vacuum hose. Tape it securely to make an 'airtight' seal-- I have done this adequately enough with duct tape-- and run it till the vacuum cleaner's motor labors. For Diana I knew the deck to be already dried-out (but for a mistake involving a recent rain, as I said). Be sure to plug up or tape over any openings in the underside-- for the epoxy will definitely find them. You might station a partner below to watch for drips! --and be very wary of when you are pumping in tons of epoxy and apparently making no progress! Spots to watch are along the flange/toerail seam and anywhere silcone (or something worse) was used to bed down through-bolted deck hardware.

Topside, you drill a few holes to begin (you can always drill more if you think you have to). The best tactic is to choose a spot, maybe a few square feet and outboard (low) on the deck, drill pilot holes-- into the core only (mark the bitt with tape if you're worried, to be sure)-- near the highest border of the spot, and fill till you see the epoxy is no longer soaking down in your pilot holes. Don't make the mistake I've made too many times and go silly drilling too many holes-- when the epoxy makes it down to the lower holes you get a dribbling mess all over.

I generally make the holes about 4 inches apart; but it depends on the size of the area you are working with and how serious the rot is inside the core. In theory even rotted core is still 'there'; and epoxy will bond very well with wood or foam dust. As I said before, it is heavier than core material; but as I said too it's never been a terrible concern in the proportions we're talking about. For odd isolated areas it is a very solid, reliable, permanent fix. And if you do not get it all, the parts you do get remain strong and make a good base or boundary for you to fill other places.

If you choose to drill only in places where there is nonskid, you have only to fair over the holes and repaint the nonskid patches. For my deck, which was pretty bad, I resigned myself to repainting the whole deck (with Perfection) and I was redesigning the pattern of the nonskid patches anyway. The little indentations left when the epoxy is done flowing in can be faired with Marine-Tex or epoxy with silica gel, either of which will be rugged enough to not fall out in future and will be able to take paint (after the usual proper prep). Gelcoat, being polyester-based, will not stick well to epoxy (though the reverse is true). So in using epoxy you've pretty much given over the hope of refairing the affected area in polyester- (or vinylester-) based products.

This system should also be used any time you have to mount or re-mount hardware to a cored deck. Drill a pilot hole-- only through the fiberglass to the core-- for each mounting screw and fill it. Do the same in the area under the bit of hardware, like a winch and especially anything in compression or tension, like a padeye or halyard-lead block. When it's cured, drill through the solid-epoxy core you've just filled and bed down the part with 5200-- which will keep out water, hold like crazy especially in shear or tension, and provide needed flexibility. In many cases you will need only fair-sized fender washers with the under-deck locknuts because the epoxy block you just made can serve as an adequate backing plate, especially for anything in shear, like cleats and halyard stoppers.

I had doubts about the integrity of my hull after I rebedded the keel and so drilled a few exploratory holes into the bottom strata, between the keel bolts, to probe them with epoxy. This was supposed to be only solid fiberglass; and it was. No hole took more than a fraction of the syringe's worth. It was-- and is-- solid.

For Diana I had made a new, short little bulkhead at the back end of the cabin sole on which I stood the ladder/cooler shelf structure. I used 'high-quality' 3/4" MDO for it. Within too short a time this board was rotten from water behind it (from the cockpit-seat locker leaks), even though it had been well saturated (so I thought) before I installed it. (I blame it on using Dave's MAS and not my own WEST epoxy. MAS just does not penetrate as well; period.) Removing the bulkhead was out of the question; and it could not stay like it was. I drilled pilot holes down into the top edge of the plywood, straight into the depths of the laminations, just like I would have done for a plywood motorboat transom, and poured in the epoxy. It took three or four tries and made an awful mess (the stuff ran straight through the spoiled core and gushed out the bottom edge, finding gaps in the 5200 and dribbling into the bilge, where it glued down a stray PVC fitting that I still haven't ground completely away) but I sorted it and now it's solid.

I think this is a good solution for your [Pilot's] windlass mounting bolts. Given enough epoxy in the surrounding core, it will take the very severe shock and shear loads very well. Once epoxy has found something to latch onto-- the rough inner surface of the fiberglass deck, the rotten core, the remnants of any plywood-- it will stay in place and provide a very sturdy inner stratum through which you can drill even big bolt holes. And it takes 5200 very well, adds stiffness, and displaces all gaps that might otherwise find condensation or stray moisture. The one thing it does not do well is flex-- but for a windlass mount you had better not have much flex (let the nylon rode take the shock loads!) and a rigid deck is always stronger and thus more secure underfoot than one that moves and flexes to the point of fatiguing the glass fibers within and weirds you out when you step on something you'd prefer to feel solid.

Epoxy and wood = perfect together.  :)

Surprise, surprise

Here on poor Diana the V-berth area has been the last part of the interior to get any attention at all.  One of the first things I did was to install the holding tank under the after end of the bunk; but since then it's been partially dismantled and not much has been done here.  (Stay tuned for a forthcoming post on this compartment when the through-hulls go in.)  The V-berth area has been used as a lumber bay for too long.  The other day I cleared it all out and stashed the usable lumber (mahogany, spruce and white pine) in the house's attic.  By the time I had swept and vacuumed out the V-berth area I felt like I had got a huge load off my conscience.  Suddenly there is actual space in this boat!

And the boat must have lost 200 lbs as well!

Here is a (lousy) photo of the V-berth right after I swept and vacuumed (for the first time in I won't say how long!).  The 5-gallon pail full of wood bits (mostly Honduras mahogany) is the only remainder of the once daunting heap that formerly occupied this space.













While laying out the forepeak lockers (more on this later too) I observed that the 3/8"-plywood bunktop felt distressingly flimsy.  Just kneeling on it was enough to bend it far too much out of level for my liking.  I have already done all the other bunktops, removing the old cleats for the lift-out panels, installing new ones saturated and bonded with epoxy and peppering each one with plenty of #8 screws.  Each time the bunktop has become stronger and stiffer.  If these bunktops are 'glassed to the hull-- and they are-- they should be structural members in their own right-- and so they are, now.

Hunter used plain white-pine 1x2s for lift-out cleats, the same as you buy at Lowe's or Home Depot.  Some of them had edges that had been smoothly routered to about a 1/4" radius, in order to protect your knuckles when you are rummaging about in the compartment.  But even if they were glued to the plywood with wood glue (and some of them, like the V-berth ones, were not) they were merely painted with Pettit Fiberglass Undercoater and otherwise left alone.  In the middle compartment under the V-berth, three of the cleats were sound enough that they did not require replacement (at least, not today).  The cleat along the aft edge was both too loose and too short to lend much stiffness of the bunktop.  So I removed it and fashioned another one out of a piece of 1x3, essentially the full width of the bunk at that point (about 34").  Properly fastened (with screws and then cured epoxy) it will stiffen the whole structure.

Inside this compartment was a straggling bit of old electrical wiring, leading through the bilge to the rode locker for the port and starboard running lights in the hull.  All right; first, I never run wiring through the bilge.  All my new wiring is run under the hull-to-deck flange.  There it's accessible and out of the muck.  Second, this wiring is red and black, and also 16-gauge, neither of which is code for boats any more; so I have run all new red-and-yellow 14-gauge and so this wire is redundant.  And, third, I am not reusing the port and starboard running lights in the hull.  They are too small and too low to be of much use except when motoring through a calm harbor at night.  Diana will get a one-light red-and-green unit, with an LED bulb, mounted on the pulpit.

I tugged and tugged on the wire and realized I could not pull it out.  Sure enough, the wire disappeared through the middle compartment's forward bulkhead, passed through the dead-air space and emerged at the bottom of the rode locker.  Obviously the entire interior structure was assembled outside the boat-- and all the wiring stapled to where it should be-- and then installed in the hull in as close to a completed state as possible.  This is how Hunter built five of these boats each week.

Now I despise all dead-air spaces on boats.  If it's inaccessible to humans, rest assured it won't be to humidity, bugs and bilge water.  Who knows what might be going on inside there?  And an application of Murphy's Law ensures that if you have a problem leak, or hidden rot, or a bug infestation, it's going to be in the one compartment into which you cannot readily get.  I had already resolved to open this compartment, at first by installing an 8" clean-out plate and then, in interests of simplicity and economy, just cutting a lift-out hatch into it and adding fiddles.  Also it would give me the chance to inspect it and to apply some epoxy to what I was sure was bare plywood in there.

Following this philosophy I have already cut access holes into the feet of the settee berths which extend through the main bulkhead.  Formerly these spaces were inaccessible and yet open for leading wiring and attracting humidity and bugs.  Now the one to port is convenient for installing and maintaining the Whale footpump for the head sink.  Both these new-found compartments are done now-- but one lacks a lift-out panel as I just do not have any scrap 3/8" plywood, since I don't like to use it for much of anything.  I do have some specific need for a sheet of it soon (more on that later) and will remake a lot of the old lift-outs till it's all gone.

I laid out an opening of about 9 inches square and rocked the jigsaw in to avoid drilling 3/8" starter holes and to save the cutout to use as the lift-out panel.  A can of Krylon supplied the corners' radius.  The piece of plywood came out perfectly-- and then, for the first time in 37-1/2 years, a human being gazed in at the compartment beyond.  And-- what a surprise.

This photo shows the space after I sanded some of the fatigued paint and got ready to install the new cleats.  At the forward end is the new hatch, about 9 inches square.  It might serve as a secondary rode locker if my idea of the plastic trash cans doesn't happen.  This is one storage space Diana now has that most H25 owners don't even know about!  The bare wood at an angle in the center compartment is the new white-pine cleat that just happens to be lying in the space (had to check if it was not too wide for it).
Having seen the top photo you will notice I started peeling off the old hull liner.  This chore is not particularly hazardous but really makes a mess.  I have invented a vacuum attachment that has a 6" putty trowel and a tube for a handle that plugs into the vacuum hose, expressly for doing chipping work (what we at CBC called 'pachippulating') like this.  I'll try it out here (rest of hull liner is already off).  Really the hull liner up here is not in such bad shape and you can see it's had good adhesion.  But it's dry and a little crispy and Lord knows how clean it is.  I am replacing it with the 'Irish tweed' stuff from Defender.

What I found in this cubbyhole was remarkable.  I had been particularly distressed because the accumulated junk, that had been condemned to remain in the middle compartment till I cleared out the lumber, included a two-foot length of rope that was sopping wet.  From where did the water come?  The rest of the compartment appeared dry.  The bits of scrap wood in there with the rope were damp but nowhere near as wet as the rope.  The hawsepipe on the deck is taped over against weather.  All I can account for is that the holes from the stem fitting that was removed (see them in the top photo) are still open, though on a negative angle, and rain and snow must have been blowing in there all autumn and winter and running down through the rode locker and the dead-air space to the second compartment (though I never noticed water in the holding-tank one beyond, to which all of the forward ones drain).

But, no worries.  The dark-green glass of the inside of the hull, at the very end of the bilge, appears sound, strong and-- most surprisingly-- dry.  Even more surprising, so does the plywood.  It is not damp or dark or even smelly.  For some unfathomable reason the untreated wood, which should have been a totally gooky mess in a compartment that admits drainage water but no air, has remained bone-dry and free of rot and mildew for over three and a half decades.

This 'first look' at the newly excavated space shows perfectly healthy dark-green fiberglass resin, a tight layup, no evidence of water intrusion or delamination and, best of all, no damp or rotting plywood-- even though the plywood surfaces were all unfinished (and I mean RAW plywood-- no paint, resin or-- had Providence intervened-- epoxy (which maybe no one but my dad had heard of in 1974).

The little black circles on the bunktop are my marks for the screw holes.  There seem like so many! --but keep in mind four pieces of wood have to be installed here.

The grey stuff along the one side looks like oozed-out deck putty.  I do not think (nor hope) it's a mud-dauber nest!  But really there could have been anyone living in here; and there is no one.

The stick lying at the forward end is an old cleat being reused as the new forward cleat, yet to be installed in this photo.  I always make cleats as long or wide as possible to add stiffness across the crosswise grain of the merely-3/8"-thick plywood.  Properly adhered, a new cleat does wonders.

I reused another removed cleat for the after one of this hole.  Being 1x2 stock (1-1/2" wide) it goes smack up against the forward face of the after bulkhead of this compartment (at the bottom of the photo).  I planned it like this when I laid out the opening.  This way the after edge of that cleat is adhered with epoxy to the face of the bulkhead itself.  In many cases the tops of such bulkheads are where moisture intrudes to generate rot, since the bottom edges, along the hull, are typically better treated when the boat is assembled.  I really do not relish the thought of replacing an under-bunk bulkhead, especially when it's so easy to avoid ever having to do it.

The bits of plywood to the sides are a piece of scrap that I found in the 5-gallon pail of blocks and cut to fit (notice the one under the flash came from the end of the other).  I don't care about their shape-- you only see the parallel edges in the access opening and these bits of plywood have been, as of this writing, thoroughly saturated in epoxy and well-adhered to the underside of the plywood, which I also saturated before installing the fiddles.  As soon as I drill a 3/4" finger hole in the cut-out panel it will be painted in epoxy too and replaced as the new lift-out panel.

I will post photos of how these silly cleats and all have gone together after the epoxy dries.  This whole space, including the underside of the plywood, will be painted in epoxy later and then in white Interlux Bilgekote as soon as it's warm enough to ventilate the space and enable paint to dry.  The bunktop will get done in Durawhite (or whatever the new water-based mildew-resistant paint Pettit is offering now that replaces it).
 
I have not yet decided if it's worth it to extend PVC drain tubes from each of the forward compartments into the after one (where the holding tank and through-hulls are) in order to isolate them from each other.  Any of these might make a very good stash hole for bottled water, blankets, sweaters, boots, and various gear; and as with the one under the cockpit it would be really nice to keep a mishap in one (or water from the hawse pipe) from wetting them all.  Plugs in the ends of the drain tubes would keep them dry till you needed to evacuate them.

An argument-ender and a joyous surprise

Here is another funny bit which I hope will support some of the points I have so often attempted to make about the lack of absolutism when it comes to maintaining quality in a boatbuilding enterprise.

Many times a prudent selection of materials or methods can facilitate significant savings to both the builder and customer without sacrificing utility or durability in the product itself.  Intelligent boatbuilders and designers know where 'good enough' is good enough; and I submit that no engineer in a non-boating field, and certainly no wannabe, should stand on ceremony as to ideal technical specifications when the boatbuilder and designer far outrank them in terms of knowledge base, expertise and focused training and experience.

And so, to the positive example.  How many have claimed that marine plywood is the sole material in use on production sailboats?  I have rebuilt the whole interior of Diana without using a single bit of it; in fact my material of choice is lauan cabinetry plywood, well saturated in WEST epoxy and properly finished in paint or sealer and varnish.  None of this is inadequate when properly done .

Having just cut open the forward end of the vee berth to give access to the forwardmost compartment under the bunktop (in another post here), I took the cut-out piece to the bench to sand its edges in order to use it for the lift-out panel.    Turning over the 9-inch square of plywood I made a startling discovery.

(And how on earth did I happen to choose the exact right place to cut out so that I could have this message appear on the back of the panel?)

If you cannot read it in this photo, here is what it says:

'Roseburg' [name of plywood mill]

'Resin Tite' [trade name]

'Hot pressed' [lamination process]

'Exterior glue'

Hah! --the bunktop in this 1974 Hunter 25 is AB-grade exterior fir plywood-- not marine plywood.  This raw-- unpainted, untreated, unfinished-- piece of plywood has survived 37-1/2 years, much of them seeing little maintenance or attention, in a cheap production sailboat used almost exclusively in a saltwater environment on the New Jersey shore.  This very piece came from a closed-in, dead-air compartment with no ventilation which no one has laid eyes or hands on in all that time.  And it shows NO signs of rot, water saturation, mildew, dampness, discoloration or anything.  It's as healthy as would be a piece of plywood stored in your attic.  Simply amazing.

Just so you know.  :)

Naughty, naughty, Hunter Marine!

These two photos clearly indicate the level of quality control at Hunter in the early 1970s.  The one at right is of the lift-out panel for the center compartment under the vee berth.  The one at the bottom is of the after one (under which is the holding tank).  Looking closely you will see my notes in Sharpie pen about how to adapt these for use as templates when I cut out new panels.  Each is easily 1/4" too small for its space.  This matters when the fiddle below it is only 3/4" wide.  A little bending from weight centered upon the 3/8"-plywood panel could easily bow it enough to break it, especially since it is 37 years old.

Also, these panels are much too large to do without reinforcements underneath.  When I make the new ones I will apply white-pine sticks, 3/4" square, to the undersides using epoxy.  Like ultralight-airplane wing ribs, the size won't matter as much as the fact that they're there and adequately secured so as to be structural.

By the way, when I designed interiors at Cherubini I always specified 3/4" plywood for bunktops, especially doubles.  Even so these still require some honeycombing of bulkheads underneath to lend stiffness and strength.  I would consider reducing this thickness and weight to 1/2"  so long as the bulkheads below were well secured, well treated in epoxy and numerous enough to lend the required rigidity.  I would never use 3/8" for a bunktop under any circumstances-- unless those circumstances were that the 3/8" was already installed on my antique boat!

I simply cannot wait to paint this area; but there are lockers and stuff to install here.  This was the space in which I stored raw lumber during the rest of the project and it's only become clear again recently.

WISH LIST 2012

There are always things I need for this project.  Being a classic boat, one of my dad's designs, and of a certain vintage, Diana sort of demands the 'proper' stuff, of the correct style and vintage, most of which will be passe nowadays-- which is just find with me.  As much as I like them, for example, I would not put Lewmar 'Ocean' blocks on this boat, nor square-bezel Raymarine gauges, and so forth.  It has to stay in the proper aesthetic.


Following is my list of hard-to-find items, for which I am willing to swap or make other arrangements to acquire.  If you have any of these, or know of them available, do be so good as to e-mail me (don't post here; it's not so timely) and I'll respond promptly.

- Schaefer halyard stopper 71,92-X.  Carried by Rig-Rite; but they are about the most expensive people out there especially when used gear will do. Common on all Hunter boats through about 1980.
http://www.rigrite.com/Hardware/Rope_Clutches/Sch_Stoppers1.html

- Schaefer halyard stopper, 70,91-X, for the side of the spar (port).  As above--
http://www.rigrite.com/Hardware/Rope_Clutches/Sch_Stoppers_Spin.html

- Forespar Mini-Galley, 150000 gimballed cooker.

- Lewmar #7 or #8 winches, chrome only, pair.


I will update this with more later.


I have oodles of stuff to sell or trade, perhaps to sweeten a deal.  ALL of this will go on eBay within a week or two (with pics).  Among other things I have, at present:

- Alum. boom, about 10-11 ft long.  Same section as Hunter 25's.

- Alum. boom, about 5 ft long.  Mizzen from (rare) Essex 26 ketch.

- Various PVC fittings, bought but not used.  Mostly 1-1/2" or 3/4".  Whole box load.  Lengths of scrap pipe too-- if you come by you may take them.

- Bosworth Gusher pump, NOT through-deck mount so I didn't use it.  Needs rebuilding (new diaphragm) but I will do that if you'd like.

- Elec. bilge pump, Attwood.  NOT spark-proof (for open boat only).

- Stern light staff, like for motorboat, for standard Perko deck socket (old, looks new).

- Alum pipe, 2" pipe size, 3 lengths @about 5 ft each.  This is heavy-wall (Sched. 40) structural pipe; might make nice rack for something, onboard or ashore.

- Forespar 6061 alum spinnaker-pole tubing, 3" tubing size, 16 ft long, ordered for customer who stiffed me for it.  Never used, never cut; currently holding up my winter tarp.  Was $409 in West Marine catalogue.  Have it listed on Craig's List for $250 ONO and will deliver within 100 miles for $100 (2 hours of my time, less cost to you than via truck).  Make offer-- or find for me some of the stuff I do need!

- Beautiful old-school (about 1965) Wilcox-Crittenden cast-bronze dash-mount throttle, for 1/4-20 (not 1/4-28; so needs adapter for modern cables), believed to have been bought for Cherubini Sea Scamp in 1960s but was never installed.  This is an heirloom.


Tons of other stuff-- if you have needs, e-mail me!  :) Whatever I do not have I can of course get for you at some discount.

Lost Star Yacht Club’s restoration-project quiz

An informative and entertaining self-examination


Anyone involved in restoring his own boat for any length of time will readily recognize the answer for each that best represents reality here!
(Note: as though you can’t guess, ALL of these are based on real-life experiences.)



The best-laid plans

Apparently, the previous owner of your boat was

1. A dedicated yachtie who kept it in pristine order
2. An older guy who let it go during the last few years he had it
3. A complete idiot

Carefully-drawn plans or instructions for your intended projects

1. Serve a valuable purpose in organizing, scheduling and budgeting the work
2. Give a general idea which usually gets changed once you start the work
3. Are likely to be left in the bathroom at home and thus disregarded in place of ‘just winging’ it when you’re already at the boat to work

Schedules and budgets are

1. Valuable guides to keeping a sense of sanity and proportion
2. Seldom absolute
3. Completely pointless

The last time you had a completely new idea about what to improve on the boat was

1. The last time you sailed it
2. Right before you began an organized plan of restoration
3. Five minutes ago

Parts catalogues will

1. Be worth browsing to what’s available and what can be ordered
2. Be important sources of ‘how-to’ information
3. Get comprehensively marked-up with underlining, highlighting, circling, arrows and diagrams as well as notes and gift hints to family members who will really never see or heed them

Tools of the trade

The average yacht restorer’s tools and supplies are stored in

1. A shiny metal rollaway tool chest with locking doors
2. A handmade mahogany-and-plywood toolbox
3. A mismatched collection of eleven (or is it twelve?) lidless containers and damp cardboard boxes, organized, if at all, in such a way that Rube Goldberg, Charles Manson and PeeWee Herman would consider it crazy

Your stepladder is

1. A new orange fiberglass one from Home Depot
2. An old aluminum one that has seen many years of dependable service
3. A really crappy wooden one that was surreptitiously ‘borrowed’ from some other guy in the boatyard

The tool vital to starting the next job will mostly likely be found in the

1. Tool box
2. Last place the tool was used
3. Bilge

Your electric extension cord is

1. A brand-new blue one, 100 feet long, 12-gauge, with a heavy-duty plastic recoiling reel and a molded-in 4-outlet box with circuit breaker
2. The two lengths of orange cord relied-upon for the hedge clippers at home
3. Possibly more duct and electrical tape than actual electrical insultation

A flashlight’s most common function is to

1. Illuminate poorly-accessible areas
2. Attack would-be burglars or wasps’ nests
3. Store dead batteries until you decide to throw them away

The usual condition of the average cordless drill/screwdriver’s batteries is

1. Both at full charge as soon as possible
2. The one in the unit dead, the other one charged and waiting in the charger
3. The one in the unit dead, the other one, which died last night, nowhere to be found

Wood plugs are frequently sealed in the screw holes using

1. Weldwood wood glue and an overnight drying process
2. WEST epoxy and an acid brush
3. The varnish, when you noticed the missing plug(s) right after you started to brush it on

Your boat-work shoes are

1. High-quality leather moccasin-type deck shoes
2. Sturdy, sensible work boots
3. A pair of ripped, stained and punctured CVOs with the soles completely blown-out or held together with duct tape; and your wife wonders why on earth they are still in the house

Rubber gloves and dust masks are

1. Essential, for safety and hygiene
2. Frequently necessary for really ugly jobs
3. Unheard-of

The procedures

You tend to have help in this project

1. Most of the time
2. About half the time
3. Pretty much never, unless you count the times when somebody from the yard comes by with a beer and talks while watching you work

‘Cutting corners’ in quality is

1. To be avoided
2. Sometimes necessary
3. Totally acceptable, so long as the task gets done

When you encounter a necessary task involving an area of expertise in which you have no experience, you will

1. Seek help from an expert
2. Read up on the procedure and treat it as a learning experience
3. Get out the tools and epoxy and start doing it

During a restoration, the bilge usually contains

1. Dirt and liquids, till they are cleaned or pumped out
2. Hoses and wiring that would be unsightly if run elsewhere
3. Wet pencils, locknuts and expensive electrical connectors you thought you mislaid and have had to buy again

When working on the boat, trash is

1. Stuffed into a 5-gallon paint bucket which is emptied at the dumpster each evening
2. Brushed into a corner of the cabin sole or cockpit
3. Pitched out the companionway hatch at the spur of the moment; and may God have mercy on the poor people who may have stopped below to look over the boat

Some of the fiberglass lay-ups in your boat may contain

1. Small air bubbles
2. Dust or wood chips
3. Sandwich lettuce, Dr Pepper and your blood

When installing fittings on spars, you will use

1. One thread tap, carefully maintained with oil
2. Maybe two or three taps
3. So many taps that you must make the 20 minutes’ trip from the boatyard to the auto-parts place several times a weekend

When you are kneeling or balancing on hull timbers to install new cabin-sole panels, the electric drill that gets in your way will most likely end up with the point of the new spade bitt in

1. The bilge
2. Some finished woodwork
3. Your leg

The usual procedure for electrolytically isolating stainless-steel fittings from aluminum spars involves

1. Applying nonconductive thread-locker liquid to the threads
2. Smearing both sides with white lithium grease
3. Sticking a piece of white electrical tape under the part before screwing it down

When cutting plywood outside, the rain will begin

1. The moment the pieces are cut
2. In the middle of the job
3. As soon as you have run the extension cord, clamped down the part, and switched on the jigsaw

The most valuable application of white Krylon is for

1. Gas grilles, bicycles and outdoor furniture
2. Models made of metal parts
3. Anywhere you neglected with Durawhite, Bilgekote, or Awlgrip when it’s time to put the boat in the water

When cutting Plexiglas, the typical experience will involve

1. A slow, clean cut with the jigsaw
2. Easily peeling off the protective paper backing
3. Having the blade get stuck in the middle of the cut when the material melts itself back together and then using hacksaws, grinders or lots of sanding to ultimately finish the part

When cutting G-10, you should use

1. A brand-new, fine-toothed jigsaw blade
2. An old blade that is almost ready to be thrown away anyway
3. Someone else’s blade (and saw)

With the spars out of the boat, the usual procedure for reeving new halyards involves

1. Carefully ‘sewing’ and whipping the braided messenger line to the new halyard
2. Tying the messenger line to a paperclip ‘buried’ into the new halyard
3. Hastily wrapping the messenger line to the new halyard with about half a roll’s worth of electrical tape

The 5200 is usually applied

1. In assemblies that must hold out seawater and are not likely to be dismantled in the regular course of maintenance
2. For anything and everything that goes together
3. All over the cabin sole, your knees, the clipboard, most of the tools and half of the sub sandwich you had intended to finish

The usual disposition of an unfinished tube of 5200 is to

1. Cap it so it stays airtight and store it in a cool dry place
2. Stick a machine screw down the nozzle and wrap tape over the end
3. Leave it where you last used it and expect to throw it away next week after the remaining half has cured in the tube

When painting decks or soles, the usual experience involves

1. Careful planning so that you can work from a ‘wet edge’ in painting from one end to the other
2. The occasional oversight requiring that you lean over wet paint to reach neglected dry spots
3. A completely disorganized nightmare involving spills, runs, blots and numerous opportunities to wear your work home

When the tarp that covers the boat needs to be changed, the wind will pick up

1. As soon as the new tarp is tied down
2. As soon as you arrive at the boatyard to do it
3. As soon as you get the old tarp stuffed into the dumpster and begin spreading the new one over the cabintop

Your primary motivation for doing painstaking work is one of

1. Interest in the value of your investment
2. Concern for the durability of the boat for the future
3. Pride, to demonstrate your superior ideas and craftsmanship

After-work bathing typically entails

1. A long refreshing shower
2. A rush to finish and get on to other tasks
3. Dishwashing liquid, Fast Orange and Scotch-Brite to remove all the paint, 5200, epoxy and resin from your raw skin

Beat the odds

The likelihood of damaging or dislocating a seacock is inversely proportionate to

1. The cost of the seacock
2. The importance of the supply line attached to the fitting
3. The need to replace it

The likelihood of drilling a hole through a spar or bulkhead and breaking into a length of electrical or plumbing conduit is inversely proportionate to

1. The cost of the conduit
2. The importance of the hole you’re drilling
3. The amount of time left before the Travel-Lift comes

The likelihood of tossing a screwdriver up into the boat and damaging something is directly proportionate to

1. The cost of the screwdriver you toss
2. The proximity of the object it hits
3. The amount of work you put into what it hits

An example of an unexpected negative correlation may exist between

1. The quality of the varnish job and the cost of the foam brushes
2. The cost of a VHF radio and the time it takes to receive it from the supplier
3. The time and effort you take to install the paper-towel holder and the importance of the paper-towel holder to the overall project

The costs

The way to really recognize a yacht owner who is performing his own work is by

1. His smile of sublime satisfaction at the launching banquet
2. His nearly-empty wallet at the end of the weekend
3. The 5200 under his fingernails at church

One of the most humiliating things about taking so long to restore your boat is

1. Your friends’ nagging impatience to go sailing
2. Paying 12-month dry-storage contracts
3. Discovering that the state-of-the-art CD stereo system and FireWire computer network you installed 4 years ago have become obsolete before you got to use them

One way to be sure you’ve spent too much money on parts is by

1. The smiles on the faces of the staff at West Marine
2. Your wife’s interrogation about the Visa bill
3. The way the UPS guy, who is not a yachtie, is on a first-name basis with your dog and knows all about the product lines carried by Defender.com

The Bible verse that may best approximate the current status of your restoration project is

1. Hebrews 11:7 (‘By faith Noah, divinely warned, built this ark to save his family’)
2. Ezekiel 15:3 (‘Is wood from this tree fit to make anything useful?’)
3. Luke 14:30 (‘This man began to build, and could not finish’)

Life lessons learned

One thing you’ve found out about yourself that you never expected is that

1. You’ve learned many new things and gained a priceless experience
2. You have physical strength and stamina you didn’t know you had
3. Falling sweat actually splashes

By now you are convinced that marine-toilet plumbing should be

1. Replaced every three years
2. Replaced by every new owner
3. Made of heliarc-welded and polished 3-inch schedule-40 type-316 stainless-steel pipe and never changed at all

One maintenance cycle you did not expect to need to know is that

1. Bottom paint, no matter how old, should be reapplied within two weeks of launching
2. Spars should be removed and inspected every three years
3. The screw threads on jackstands should be oiled annually

When your restoration project is complete, you will know your boat

1. Better than most yacht owners know their own boats
2. Enough to trust it in nearly any conditions
3. More intimately than you know your wife

Your restoration project has taken

1. More or less the amount of time you expected it would
2. A season longer than you expected
3. Several years longer than you expected

The one most likely to perform future major maintenance and repair on your boat is

1. A trusted yacht-service facility
2. The next owner
3. You

When the boat is finished