The old lady's underwear (Shalimar's Spa, part 2)

If you follow the blog you know that we are well under way with our repairs and that the swimsuits are in the closet! For a month now Shalimar has been dry in a shed, the spars (masts and booms) to starboard and a workbench to port. A few weeks ago I told Ryan that we would see parts of the old lady (a ship is called "she" in English) that we never expected to see. He said that we would see parts of the old lady that we would rather not see, hence the title of this article!

Here I will describe the various steps of our major projects for the coming months, starting from the hull through the teak deck and the masts and then varnish.

The hull is divided into two parts, one below the waterline and the other above. For the bottom part this month Noel (the head honcho of wooden boats at NorSand) showed us how to open the seams between the boards of the hull. We must first scrape along each. Those that are no longer tight enough will have let water in, turning the wood black along the seam. To open it, we first remove a layer of putty and then we look at the cotton fiber which is responsible for sealing the planks. It seals it by absorbing water and swelling up until it creates a water tight seal. Noel had lots of tools for this that Ryan was eying, we'll have to start watching for them at antique stores! This is a very physical job approximately one day per side so far. We tried to reduce costs by making some makeshift tools ourselves and it worked for awhile, but without the right tools, it puts a lot of stress on the arms and shoulder and Ryan and I agreed that Noel with the proper tools would probably be much better than us to finish the job! The third step will be to hammer home new cotton fiber inside, a more skilled phase that we will let our specialist do. Then we will cover with putty (This is a more unskilled task, so we should be able to manage), sand, put some good lead paint on the wood that is exposed and a fresh coat of paint. So, that is the hull below the waterline, now see what fate is reserved for the non-immersed part.

Noels caulking tools

The paint is a little old (over 6 years), she took some knocks, for example where our dinghy comes alongside, and cracked along the seams in a quite a few places. And patching done in Mexico had not really done much to improve it. The buildup of paint over the years was starting to take it's toll. So we decided to do a major refinish and remove all the paint to start on a good foundation. We found at least seven colors of paint on the hull(including colors that could only have been in fashion in the 70's), and who knows how many total layers of paint! It came off like a sheet of rubber under the heat gun. Once down to wood again, we apply a layer of Metalex (a wood preservative, for protection against critters who wish to settle in the woods, in green on the picture), several primer layers, some filler in the holes and then some layers of the final paint. For now the port side needs the last coat of primer, on the starboard side, we've only just started scraping. I started to remove the paint but we will probably finish one side before switching to the other as we would have to constantly change the scaffolding.

For the stern (the back) of the boat, we do not yet know what will happen, the plywood is pretty tired(delaminating) and now would be a good time to change it because we have good access under the (non-existent) cockpit. But the process is rather complicated and Noel estimated two weeks of work. We are waiting to see how the finances are after two months in the shed, you'll have more details at that time.

Sanded mast in the foreground with a few pactches

Regarding the varnish, it is a bit simpler. In some places on the cabin and rails there are bubbles, crazing, or dings from impacts. Our masts with Crystal Varnish had a newer and beefier build up and was less demanding with the frequency of its application, though it needs a few patches from impacts. A good sanding and a few coats of varnish should suffice. At present, our booms have been retouched and sanded, our main mast is sanded and patches are being re-touched. Regarding our main mast it needs larger patches because the wood was too damaged where the batten cars chafed the mast. We will have to modify some of the equipment so that it does not happen again!

For the other varnish on the boat, it was much older or had other issues, and the tropics had seriously damaged it and I was a little desperate. But we got wind of a Kiwi (New Zealander) product that is all the rage here, it is called UROXYS, and not really a varnish, but it looks like it. We are promised protection up to 5 years maintenance free! It blocks 99% of UV but still requires a tinted primer layer for wood that would tend to bleach in the sun (which is our case) as even non UV light will cause our wood to yellow. We have great hopes for this product, a test performed on a dorade box looks promising as it doesn't look plastic like, but for longevity, we'll have to wait and write another article about it in 4 years! But it will take awhile before I can remove the old varnish, sand and re-varnish (amazing how that word keeps coming up)!

And I've saved the best for last! The cockpit(rear deck). Too worn teak left little wood for the screws to hold too(letting in water) and the plywood under it was delaminated and rotting! But after removing the old deck, the longest process was to finish cleaning up after. We had to remove the broken screws and bent nails, remove all hardware to be re-installed later (steering gear, winches, cleats ), cleanup the wood frames, fill the holes with wooden pegs (about 700 and that is just for the screws!), chisel out rot and make patches for weakened beams and replace those that were too damaged (yellow iroko has been recommended for this). All this while continuing to think how we will develop the space below and above deck.

Beams plugged, many little "wooden soldiers"

Ready to receive the new deck, the holes filled, the

surface sanded and repaired, it only remains to add

the epoxy and plywood.

On the left and top are the templates, right panel

plywood already cut

For the above we have made patterns for the pieces of plywood that will form the new deck, there are 6 pieces, four of them are cut and fitted so far. Once they are ready and if our budget allows, we will glue on teak. Yes, glue! When we asked Noel how not to have a leaky deck he told us that we should not use screws that need to then have a plug but glue. You should have seen the head of Ryan when he heard Noel suggest something not traditional, that was funny! But before that we still have to determine many things such as openings for access to the lazarette (storage under the rear deck), with questions like: where and how.

The original fuel tank of the boat.

45 years old, rusty but it works!

The fuel tank once removed, a portion of

 the boat that we had not seen and

hoped never to see!

Repair of a beam, the first step,

remove the timber in poor condition

All the wood removed with a power tool (router)

Second step: remove the edges with a drawkinfe

Finish with wood chisels and plane.

It only remains to cut the patch of wood and glue.

Then plane down any extra, retaining the curve on the top

New berth!

It also remains to decide on the organization below, and build compartments and shelves before putting the roof on! And the debate is tight because space is limited. We decided to build a small cabin to port, so we lost almost half of our storage space. A portion will be offset by the fact that some previously unused space will be available after the renovation and we hope to get rid of some things. As I write this, I think we pretty well filled a shipping container that will have to be emptied before we leave, I'll put a little photo later to make you smile a little.