Livet delux!
Nice end of work day.
Installed automatic bilge pump, new mooring ropes, emergency robe ladder and other small fixes which always pop-up on any boat.
In the end: beautiful sunset and calmness.
Livet delux!
Meeting at sea
While sailing today with Albert we have passed by the big, cool boat with her skipper waving enthusiastically to us.
I didn't quite hear what he was saying but was happy that "Motoko" caught his eye.
Only half day later when we were back in Norrtälje we've met Anders (the skipper) who came out to be one of the previous owners of my Safir sailboat!
Here are some photos which Anders made while we were sailing out of Norrtäljeviken.
Thanks Anders!
Mast climbing solo
Midsommar night was very calm in the harbour. Almost noone in proximity so we had calm and easy job to guard the boats. Thanks to Albert night guarding of our club's marina went quickly and I did not fall asleep.
Started at 21:00 we ended at 5:00 am after some grilling, talking and setting up HAM radio in the middle of "night" - no real night thou as it really does not become dark at this time of year here.
At 5 am I climbed solo onto my mast to fix lost HW on one of "Motoko" spridare. I used very simple yet safe setup: 3 small Prussic knots which held my ass safely 7 meters above the deck.
It was first time for me to use them but they work smoothly!
No need to invest in pricy climbing equipment!
Masting
Thanks to Mimi and Albert the boat got her mast on the same day.
Looks more complete now.
Today I've tensioned and adjusted the rigg so now she is ready to be dressed with sails. Summer season is on!
To the water!
Up she goes!
White and clean after all this work. A real eye-candy!
The bottom is not painted with any toxic antifouling. I’ve decided to give it a try and be environmentally-friendly. That means that I’ll have to dive and clean the bottom a couple of times during the season.
Hopefully this will work.
If not - I can always paint her with antifouling next year.
Outboard engine mount
I'm very satisfied with my outboard engine mount.
I thought it will be difficult to steer with engine mounted on the side but it is not.
After some angle adjusting while on the way "Motoko" sailed with straight rudder. Good!
And finally I have engine controls at my hand, not 2,5 meters behind me.
Additional benefit is the ability to rotate the engine so that it can thrust perpendicular to the boat axis. It becomes a thruster, enabling tight manoeuvres in narrow places.
After removing the engine while under sails there is no mark on the deck saying that she has outboard at all!
Her lines are hence undisturbed by admittedly ugly thing as engine is.
Under the sky!
"Motoko" finally under bare sky!
Today I've started disassemblying my boathouse, to move it to Rosättra for next winter.
My boat goes to water on coming weekend so it is high time to get rid of the house. It is relieving to finally finish this renovation job: 9 months of work.
My wife already hates this boat...
I hoped I will take the house down on one day but didn't make it. Partially because there were many guys who came to see the boat and have a chat. It felt great!
At last! Deck and freeboard painting
It was hard to believe that I will eventually get to this stage but finally: painting the deck and hull over waterline!
"Motoko" is looking much better now. It's also nice to have so many visitors from my boatclub who come to take a look at total renovation of Swedish classic (but modern) racing sailboat.
The bottom is done (5 layers of epoxy), freeboard finished today (2 layers of primer & 2 layers of polyurethane Hempel topcoat).
Now I've moved to the deck: repaired with armed epoxy, faired, polished and primed two times. Then topcoat with anti-slip shall come, 2 layers.
Should be done in couple of days!
Then it is "just" to put back all the deck hardware (pain in the back!) and here we go! Sjösättning on 29th!
Epoxy fun!
Part of the challenge with epoxying the boat - if you are not lucky to be in heated indoors - is to deal with weather.
It has to be warm enough to epoxy and humidity must be low. However - in my part of the world it is mostly summer with very few days in spring with such conditions.
Having a good boathouse helps a lot - inside mine, on a sunny day, it is roughly 5-10 degrees warmer than on the outside. Greenhouse effect.
I've managed to fit my epoxying into weather by taking some days off from work and being lucky by the currents.
So I'm half way through the epoxy job!
There are in total 5 coats of epoxy barrier, done with different colours so that if I abrade too deep to see another colour then I know how deep I have gone.
The last 2 layers are white.
New benches and cockpit floor
I have finished making cockpit flooring. It was fun and it turned out quite good so I will keep it on the boat.
Benches on both sides were in very bad condition so I needed to replace them.
I've made new ones from marine plywood, epoxied all around and with glued in walnut lists.
At first I just oiled them as I like the matt finish but after a while I've decided to varnish them. They will be exposed to harsh conditions so oiling would not be enough here.
Cockpit slowly becomes more habitable!
Final wash before painting
I've reached the milestone of being done with old paint removal!
By this point the bottom is only gelcoat/fibreglass and freeboards are sanded to the primer which sits very well - no use to remove it as I will paint with 1-component paint.
I've faired all dents and imperfections with epoxy and sanded down to level. Done!
So now washing and cleaning the boat and the house before I start applying epoxy!
From now on - and until epoxy shielding is done - only clean processes inside the boathouse!
New cockpit floor
As a side project I'm making new floor for the cockpit. Just for fun - if it turns out OK I will use it on the boat.
Hours of routing and cuting but finally this starts to look like a new floor! Staining, urethan glue and 6 layers of epoxy coating are next steps. Hopefuly it will last years on the sea.
Deck repairs
There were tiny cracks along the deck edges. When I investigated them closer it came out that they are deep and there might be a risk that they span all the way to balsa core.
That required urgent attention - after all, rotten core means a really big job of removing the deck and rebuilding it!
I’ve grind all affected laminate first to asses the damage. Then I’ve increased the width of the trenches to form V-shape, at least 5x width of the depth. That should allow epoxy and fiber glass to have a proper grip on the surrounding material.
Not a pleasant job but I’ve done it during two evenings. Then I was waiting for a proper temperature which would enable epoxy to cure - above 10 degrees C.
The good thing about working inside the boathouse is that it acts as a green house.
Even thou it was chilly outside - inside, when the sun was shining, it became reasonably warm to use epoxy.
I mixed small batches of slow curing, non-thickened epoxy and saturated the glass fabric to gradually fill the openings. One needs to be careful not to trap air in curing epoxy - that’s why I’ve chosen long curing composition. It gave me enough time to nicely wet everything, soak the glass fabric and work out all trapped bubbles to the surface.
Located heating with industrial hot-air blower assured proper curing temperature with minimal amine blush.
After curing but before sanding all the surfaces were cleaned again with acetone. That is to prevent spreading amine blush around - it will prohibit proper adhesion of next layers.
Working with epoxy and then epoxy dust is no fun.
Keep yourselves protected!
Motoko's hull renovation is progressing
It was high time to take care of things.
Years of accumulated, ablative bottom paint together with weathered freeboard and deck made her look looked ugly. She deserves better care for the beauty she is.
The plan is to remove all paint from the bottom, up to gelcoat. This way I will also inspect if there are any signs of osmosis. Once on gelcoat level I will apply epoxy shielding - I've chosen Hempel system.
Then I will move to deck - remove all old paint up to the primer (or deeper), repair cracks in some spots with fibreglass matt and epoxy and paint it with anti-slip paint.
If I manage timewise I would also paint her freeboards - but that could wait till next winter.
Right now we are in my boathouse and I'm done with removing old bottom paint.
It is toxic stuff so ground is covered with plastic so that I can collect all debris and leave it in återvinningscentral.
I tried with success the old method of dissolving paint with caustic soda (NaOH). You simply dissolve NaOH in wallpaper glue (water based) and then "paint" your boat's bottom with that. After 40 minutes remove the whole thing with water at high-pressure.
Just be warned: NaOH can burn your skin and eyes so extra caution is necessary!
I was full-dressed in protective clothes with face and head totally covered. No bare skin is allowed during this procedure - heavy-rubber gloves are a must.
After first such treatment the most of black bottom paint was removed up to the primer level (which was red as I discovered). I've repeated the process but that gave no better results - not much was removed further.
The whole procedure took me around 2 hours but I estimate that it saved me weeks of daunting job of mechanically removing toxic and glue-like paint.
Now the bottom is mostly red and the paint sits good. I could paint epoxy directly on it but I've decided to clean her all the way to gelcoat so as to be sure epoxy becomes well bonded to the boat.
I'm now in the beginning of sanding her down to gelcoat, which happens to be blue! It was probably cheaper to get this colour when she was built - and she was to be painted anyway so why not?
All the paint is gone!
For the last few weeks I was mainly working under my boat, removing the layers of old paints from her bottom.
To remove the very first layers (like 20 of them) of ablative antifouling I used an old trick of dissolving NaOH in wallpaper glue. Then I “painted” the bottom with this cream-like mixture and went away for a coffee brake.
After 40 minutes I came back, put back protective clothing (overall, thick rubber gloves, face mask) and removed the whole snoot with high pressure water.
The most messy part was then to gather all the plastic tarp lying on the ground - to collect toxic paint - and taking it for disposal. It pays to have a proper car for that, pickup in my case.
Then I could start mechanically removing the next layers of primers and what not, until I reached clean gelcoat - and in some cases directly laminate.
I was forcing myself to wear dust mask and protective clothing all the time.
Hot and sweaty, even thou outside it was well below zero.
When I looked onto the deck today I thanked myself for keeping the mask on my face at all times - a big part of this dust which is lying on the deck could have been in my lungs!
Sewer pipe
I’ve torn away all the vinyl “wallpaper“ inside the cabin. It was sagged and dirty but when I saw how it looked on the inner side - jeeez! Mould in all colours!
No surprise there was this wet, rotten scent inside the boat, especially after colder night.
All went out, including ugly, pseudo-mahogny shelves.
Interior looks like a sewer pipe now.
Good base to start a rebuild. One thing is certain - I will not glue anything to it. I want to have a possibility of easily removing the interior panels for inspection or repair. This way I can catch early signs of mould and do something about it before it will start to creep into my lungs.
The idea is to make lightweight vinyl panels which will be fastened to walls with velcro or held between walnut stripes with few screws. It should be eye pleasing and light, easy in maintenance and aesthetic. And no more sagging of carpet matt!
Xmas storm
There was a decent storm this night.
I went to the boatyard to check how my boat house survived this.
Well, it did in general but got the beating:
entire roof and side walls, which were from one part, heavy woven plastic, are gone!
So now I’m fixing it - delaying other activities. Good it does not snow today but the forecast says it will, tomorrow.
So now - chop chop! I need to fix it before that!
Renovation begins!
After thrilling sailing season I’m convinced that Motoko deserves to be brought back into decent shape. She will be my day-sailer for some time so I want her to be fresh and good looking.
I was lucky to get a winter place in NSS club which is in my city, a walking distance from where I live now. Very convenient given the scale of what I plan to do:
removing the whole bottom paint, primers and what-not up to bare gelcoat or laminate
removing blisters and covering the whole bottom with several layers of epoxy
repairing deck which developed cracks along the freeboard seams
painting deck and freeboard
making new cockpit floors and benches
Pretty much for one winter.
Interior renovation will have to wait for next winter.
Just for making it habitable now I’ve ordered new madrases in Poland.
At least we will have a way to sleep.
Cooking and other necessities will be fixed with camping equipment.
I’ve erected a proper boat house around the boat, giving me protection from the element, keeping everything dry and enabling me setting up mobile workshop.
Not to mention protecting my boat neighbours from all the dust I’m gonna produce…
Safir SWE13
Here she is!
Safir racer!
I really like her lines, based on classic, wooden Swedish olympic 5,5an.
She is right now in pretty bad shape but it’s nothing I cannot fix:
her bottom has many layers of old, ablative antifouling paint which falls off
there are few blisters on under water hull - surface osmosis in laminate
there is literally no interior - what is there smells rot, no madrases, no kitchenette - nothing. Pure racer but for me it will be family sailboat
engine is mounted on the very akter which makes it awkward to use when sailing alone
sails are old, main sail is torn a bit and worn out
But:
she is not leaking (much)
she is beautiful
she has brand new mast and standing rigging from Benns
… and she was cheap so I could afford her!
So here the story begins: my first sailboat in Sweden.
She has no name yet but when I look at her she looks like Motoko.
So she is - Motoko!