Archives for November 2009
Sailboat cleaning
16 November 2009 | Sailing | 5 Responses
In preparation for the many repair tasks that need to be performed on my Pearson 28-1 I have been spending my boat-work time cleaning the boat.
My primary cleanup tasks focused on washing out the entire interior of the boat so that it will be easier to keep the bilge clean when I do my keel stub repairs. After hundreds of gallons of water, lots of scrubbing and plenty of degreaser the bilge on my boat no longer harbors the layers of oily, dirty residue that it once had.
My next cleanup task was to get the bottom paint off of the hull and get her ground down to solid gelcoat or glass as needed. I got a bit distracted from bottom paint removal and have cleaned from the hull deck joint down to the waterline while letting my shoulders recover from bottom scraping. Fortunately most of the stains have come out of the gelcoat. The real trick to getting the gelcoat clean was using “sno-bol” toilet cleaner as recommended by some of my yard neighbors. Sno-Bol worked amazingly well at removing the ugly stains from the hull. Getting the layers of bottom paint off is much more of a chore and my shoulders are sure to be stronger after it is all done.
Here are some photos of the current state of my hull cleaning with some pre-cleaning references.
Boats on a foggy morning
9 November 2009 | Sailing | No Responses
A few days ago I awoke sometime before dawn. Instead of trying to go back to sleep I waited for the first signs of light and then headed out for a walk. It was a very foggy morning and so I took some photos of boats currently at Bock Marine.
A great variety of boats stop by Bock for hauling and maintenance or repair work and a walk through the yard is similar to walking through an art gallery though the art is all under some sort of construction. There are many different boats with hulls from sleek to stout, fair to foul. There are boats made of steel, aluminum, wood and of course fiberglass. Powered by a variety of sailing rigs, or engines the boats are built for pleasure, work, open water voyaging or maybe simply to give someone something to work on (my boats current purpose).
