Ready for varnish!
All started wrong.
I went to boatyard with a headache and everything was falling on my head: ladder, wood bits, tools. It is good that I was alone, nobody got disturbed by heavy cursing and multiple kitchen-latin expressions.
I tried focusing on small jobs first, to gain control over my head.
I cut and shaped battery mount from thick plywood. Routed water escapes on the bottom, where it will meet stem timber.
After small adjustments it fits nicely in this part of the bilge.
Since bow timber is abruptly going up in this section I need to rest one end of this shelf at the foot of floor timber. This way I can have batteries sitting levelled. Water escapements match channels in the floor piece.
Battery which sits foremost will need 8cm spacer, to rise it high enough for width clearance between narrowing freeboard. I’ll fix it in the workshop and then the whole assembly will be coated with epoxy.
Due to persevering headache I left toilet mount designing for later and went out, to finish sanding whaledeck.
This shaped, rounded part of my boat is best sanded by hand. I would not dare to approach it with machine - too high risk of removing too much in an instant moment. I used 120 and 180-grid paper, to remove a bit more than last few years.
Strange as it sounds - sanding by hand made my headache disappear and calmed me, almost like meditation. I forgot how quick and almost joyful activity it is.
After one hour the job was done.
I removed rudder tiller to work on it in my workshop: I need to wood it and build several varnish levels as the old layers started to peel off. Maybe I should oil it with Owatrol instead? Should be easy to keep an eye on for re-oiling…
The last activity before heading home was washing the whole boat from all the dust acquired after winter. Now she is cleaner and in 1-2 weeks should be dry enough to put new layer of varnish.
Sanding front is coming closer
Last days we had storm weather with heavy wind and rain with snow. Today wind persevered but sky has cleared.
Todays objectives were to make template for battery mount and to continue sanding.
Since last visit I had a few days to think over my idea of making modules. I tossed it and chose to do traditional sole boards. Much less work, less material and less epoxy to use.
I also decided to step away from the very bow - if one battery would sit there it would be very high above the waterline. Moving them a bit back places their weight much lower and makes neat battery bank, all in one place. That also leaves reserve space if I decide to extend the bank to three units.
Space under breasthook is already accommodated by anchoring buoy and bosun’s chair.
Due to rapidly narrowing section of the bow here I will need to rise one battery a bit to fit side-by-side with the second one. Wooden shim block will do the job.
Shape of the sole board is easy, template could be made from wooden pieces.
After finishing that I moved to my “favourite” job of sanding for varnishing.
I started as planned, with Scotchbrite but the effects were too weak. Either I took the wrong grade or I was just tired. After a while I changed into 180 & 120 sandpaper and the work moved abruptly. What is left for tomorrow is just starboard whaledeck and cabin hatch.
Plan for tomorrow is to fit battery mount, finish sanding and wash the boat.
Back to the drawing board
After trimming further new battery shelf I went to boatyard to try it.
The weather is a proper, April weather in Sweden: heavy wind and wet snow. The whole 2 degrees Celsius. What a joy…
Thankfully, after arriving to Meritaten I was met by joyful view of Kaika in her new colours. I admit that she looks extremely classy!
Side by side with Meritaten the white deck I was so proud of last year looks almost vulgar compared to classic beige. I can see a colour shift on Meritaten in the near future…
It was cold as hell so I went under deck and started my trusty Tilley storm lantern, to get some warmth inside.
After a while it became habitable so I tried my trimmed shelf.
Almost fitted…
Some more trimming is needed. I tried placing both batteries on the shelf and realised how dumb idea it was. Not only they do not fit but the second battery is then too high above the bilge.
While I aim to balance the boat by shifting ballast to the bow I need to keep it as low as possible.
So then while warm (relatively) and cosy inside I skipped the idea of finishing sanding and instead focused on solving this battery-toiled placement equation. Started with vacuuming saw dust left after demolition, for a clean start.
It’s one of these visits when nothing physically is really done but plans and ideas are being produced. I call it a “mental progress”, to kill the guilt of not moving the work ahead.
There is one thing which is causing me trouble: I detest screwing things onto freeboard planks. That’s of course the easiest - take some oak pieces, screw them to planks, put a shelf on top and you are done. But then, if I change my mind and want to refurbish the space, I end up with view like below.
I simply hate it.
Not only have they driven screws to the plank but also into these steamed oak frames!
I sat there, moved things around and tried different constellations in this tiny space, to use it as effectively (and nicely) as possible. Finally my lamp run out of kerosene and temperature started to drop again.
The last idea I played with, before leaving, was to make modules. Their shapes would enable stepping them directly on keel plank - and screwing to it with proper, bronze screws - while sides would enable anchoring battery supports and toilet mounts. All without the need to drive screws into planks.
Well, just a few maybe but I’ll see if really necessarily.
Advantage of such “bilge-shaped” modules would be that they would enable utilising bilge space for dry storage and keep away any bilge water from goods inside.
Modules will be made from mahogany plywood and oak blocks. All epoxied so water tight. Toilet module walls would have handles so that person using the loo would have something to hold while boat is in movement. More work than screwing stuff to the boat directly but I think worth the effort.
Cheered up by this idea I headed home. As if reading my mind the weather cheered up also - snow was gone, evening Sun was shining and wind died almost completely.
Life is good again.
Fo'c'sle design. Spring work
Jim is working on Kaika so it’s much more fun to be in the boatyard now. Kaika’s whale deck and waterline are now light'-beige (International Beige, I think) which really stands up and looks very classy. When there will be time for me to repaint the deck I’ll definitely go with this colour.
Last few days I was sanding freeboards. This year I decided to remove a bit more of the varnish, to avoid too much build-up. Otherwise I just scratch the previous layer with ScotchBrite to give some mechanical grip for the next layer but my last year’s varnish “blobs” asked to be treated with orbital sander.
This is now done, what is left is light sanding on whale deck and in places where I could not reach with the machine. I was glad tonight that Jim was painting - that gave me an excuse to not sand!
Instead I tried fitting new shelf which will serve as battery mount on the very bow. Yesterday I made the mockup with cardboard. I routed it today in the morning on mahogany plywood (thank you again Rosättra for providing me with this quality material!).
As always, it did not fit perfectly so I took it home for some more trimming.
While chatting with Jim I was trying to find optimal place for chemical toilet. The best privacy on my small boat is behind the bulkhead but this placement seems to be awkward.
I lean more towards Jim’s suggestion to move “the mug” all the way to the bow. This way it’s not in the way and fo’c’sle can be better used also for other purposes.
Head-room is a problem in both locations, tall sailor friends will probably not like it (Albert!).
Privacy for this season will be given by custom curtain with WW2 motiv. I plan to make wooden sliding doors next winter but for now it will do with Silent Service Guy!