Oh my, snow and storm winds...

The blizzard kicked in last night and the forecasted winds were up 25 m/s and there was/is/will be snow blowing vertically. So last night I went check the boat and it was holding up extremely well. The covers had not moved and there were no snow build-up on the over.

The storm is forecasted to last whole of today and I'm anxious to check it after work today...

No worries, the white streaks coming from right is actually snow blowing. Nothing has gone wrong or gotten loose and so far I'm impressed of the structure. There was only a small amount of snow on top of the cover but I decided to drop it. 

That sorry sight is a nice Formula 36 sitting there with no cover. It still has the shore power cord attached even though the electrics were cut some month ago...

Stuffing boxes and other technical thoughts...

As I was doing final cleaning in the boat in anticipation for the coming blizzard and subzero temperatures I had a closer look at the stuffing boxes and was wondering if I need to do some work there.  Since this is my first shaft drive boat I'm slightly puzzled what happened here. 

It looks like I have either been too liberal in using the greaser for this box or then there is a huge gap developed suddenly since I don't remember seeing this during the season.  That stuff is prop shaft grease oozing out from the box. Should I just wipe the stuff out and use less grease in the next season or is there a need to open the nuts and have a look?

Well, it seems that it's all fine, all I have been instructed to do is to tighten the grease leaking one a bit and be more conservative while pushing grease into the stuffing box..

The other box seems fine and by the looks of it there seems to be enough reserve for future adjustments in both of these.

The greasers are located conveniently under the rear seats so it's easy to turn them nice and snug after each drive.  I try to remember to grease the boxes if we are driving form more than few hours while still on the move.

Scraping the bottom: Day four

Now was the time to switch to the other side of the boat. Not because the other one is fully done but I really want to get as much of the hull bare as possible before the winter kicks in, so today i had some help with the scraping and after awhile we got quite a large area stripped in the amount of time we put into it. Some additional patch jobs were found but so far these seem to be done the way they should be, so no complaints of those (at least for now).

The paint scheme of the boat just keeps getting weirder and weirder. In the bow we found some yellow layers of paint on top of the other colors discovered so far. I think I will use ablative anti-fouling paint in order to avoid getting paint layers to build up on top each other  The bottom will stay nicer and since we cruise at around 17 knots I think it will still stick and not wear away during the summer season.

Here you can see the many layers of paint in the bow area. Once you scrape the first (hard) coat off it is unbelievable how many layers there are on this bottom. When I slide my finger over the bare spots I can clearly feel that there is about 3 millimeters of old paint that is wrinkled and dried up. Speaking of which I gather all the remnants of the old paint and so far I have scraped off one whole bucket of that nasty stuff.

Now for the most crucial question, can I expect some improvements in speed vs. the same rpm with new silky smooth finish? I know that sailors claim improvements of around half to a whole knot but what about half planing powerboats?

Scraping the bottom: Day three

Some more progress but not enough. After four hours of scraping, grinding and sanding I was beat. So it was time to do some general maintenance like putting more dehumidifiers to the boats interior, which already was nice and dry. I also set one big dehumdifier to the boats engine compartment, I guess it wont do no harm but could actually help to keep all the connections stay dry etc... 

Images below shoe some damage I found from the boat. One of the lists must have been hit by something somewhere down the line and some of the previous owners had done a sloppy repair job by  just putting putty over it and painted over with antifouling paint. You really just don't do the repair this way, period. 

The structure of the list is such that when the boat was made they had first sprayed gelcoat to the mold, after couple layers of glass they have inserted a piece of foam to act as a form filler between the list and the actual hull structure. So, in a way it is a sandwich structure but only within the list. 

The picture does not really show the damage. I sanded the glass away and used a pick to rip out the wetted foam that has been sitting there for quite some time and ended up with a nice hollow list. I think I need to grind some more and rip out enough of the good stuff too to make sure there is no evil lurking after the repair. 

This is so far the only damage I have found form the boat. Naturally there are some bumps and cavities along the keel but those I regard as normal and will repair once I have the whole stripped bare.

Back to the paint job, the image above shows the many layers found on the boat. I really believe that there should be a test of somekind that you would need to pass before you can fix boats or do any maintenance work either. In this case some idiot has painted soft antifouling straight to the gelcoat surface and built up paint layers on top of that. 

I know that this is not the original lay-up since there are traces of orbital sander marks all over the bottom. The paper they have used has been way too coarse, I'm guessing something in the range of 40 or so. 

The paint layers have been painted in this order: 

- Soft (ablative paint) which in some areas is all dried up and in some areas still soft (the solvents form upper layers have gone trough to it) 

- Primer? I'm guessing this is primer, it is grey and peels away in thin slices. 

- Hard bottom paint (copper based)

Everything looked fine when we took the boat out but soon my eyes were drawn to some elevations or bubbles in the bottom paint. Naturally I was first thinking of the dreaded blisters but calmed down and decided to check everything once the paint was out. 

I'm glad I did since the gelcoat is smooth as baby's skin. There are no cracks or crevices or anything abnormal under there.   

Needless to say, the boat will get a real epoxyprimer barriercoat and antifouling in the right order this time...

Scraping the bottom: Day two

The second day actually went so much smoother than the first. Once you learn the technique and concentrate on small areas, kind of small victories instead of major battles. I have no pictures from the first day but rest assured, the progress was slower and the level of frustration was higher.

Pic above shows the progress forward from stern. As this is a half-planing hull there are only two lists on the bottom which makes scraping s much easier. 

There you have it, a small patch of cleaned 43 year old gelcoat. Hand sanded after the initial scraping has been done. This is what keeps you going, I'm already imaging the whole bottom scraped and sanded. Well, after that there's still some more sanding an filling etc to live for...

Winter preparations

Carpe Diem was lifted and taken to its winter berth, the total transport was about 300 meters. It took roughly about twenty minutes when Mr Karttunen (Those who have their boats at Suomenoja know him) hoisted our 6,5 tons worth of Swedish tradition on top of it's boat stands.

The stands are from here and we have one XL- stand at the stern followed by two L-size models, amidships and in the bow. I know that they are probably slight overkill but better safe than sorry. So far I'm impressed by the quality and the range of adjustments that they provide.

As you can see it was a foggy day but at least it did not rain that much..

Here you see our new house. It is 12 meters long, 3,6 wide and slightly over 4 meters high. Naturally I was building the shelter during the week when the temperature had dropped below 0 celcius and the first snow came down. So, no pictures from the building phase but rest your eyes on the finished result. Its up and seems to keep rain and even hold the winds. I'm impressed since I did not actually have any blueprints in mind while building it. The structure combines the best practices that I saw at the harbour. 

The cover and the ends came from here "SAMPO Super White". Its medium weight cover and the best part is that it allows 35 percent of light penetration so I can even do some small chores in the boat late at night using only the ambient light that's used to light the harbor. We'll see how it keeps up with wind and rain later along the way. 

This pic was shot inside the house at around nine pm. Used only mobiles lousy led flash... 

I use cargo straps with ratchets to snug things up, you may see the 2x2 beam that's nearly touching the ground, this is where the straps are secured. Naturally the ratchets are hanging from the cover, so I have nearly two meters of snow clearance. This evening I tried to shake the "house" and noticed that the cover in place and tightened with the ratchets actually support the structure pretty nicely. No movement, only a slight bent to allow for the heavy winds... Nice..