My wife and I liked the room on board and the layout. It is fairly well built. The most important thing to me is that it has scratches and dents! The plan is to head south when we retire. I know we will bang it up at various marinas. To go it in a shiny gold plater just to have a rusty dock nail scrape along the side would bring me to tears. This boat is a great lake vessel, never seen salt. The guy who I bought it off did some horrible work. We are finding, as a rule that everything he did needs tearing out. He purchased a new MarineAire 18,000 BTU air conditioner, which is great....but... he bought a garden pump from Harbor freight and garden hose to plumb it up. What a mess. I ripped it all out. I ditched the crappy pump and ordered a magnetic 550 gallon per hour pump from MarineAire. I purchased a large Groco bronze strainer and the correct heavy duty, approved hose to do the plumbing. I had one tri- fitting that had to be 3/4 NPT, 5/8 barb, 3/4 barb. When I hobbled something together, it looked ridiculous. I decided to purchase a block of 316 stainless and carve out a one piece fitting on a 4 jaw chuck. It came out nice. As of today I am just waiting for the hose to show up. I still need to run new wiring to a separate 120 volt plug (something else he screwed up) I want to concentrate on the 'bones' as much as possible and hold off on things like up to date instruments. I would like to do that prior to retiring, thus giving me a warranty while underway. The only other strainer in the boat is a plastic bowl built by SC Marine. Never heard of them. This is the strainer for the Yanmar and we decided to bite the bullet and change it too. I purchased a 600 dollar monster. 1 1/2 inch fittings to match the intake hose. The supplier said it was overkill but I argued that the intake is 1 1/2 on the cheesy factory unit, I figure there is a reason for that, such as making sure any garbage that gets sucked in makes it to the basket.
Bronze strainer porn!!!
Holding the combo pump and strainer from harbor freight, note the grey garden hose.
ALSO, please note our lovely flooring, it is bamboo from home depot. YES, that is going too. All in good time. One good thing about the crappy work done by the idiot who owned it, it is easy to reverse and I got the boat for a grrrreat price!!
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The next big SNAFO involved a thru hull. The knot meter has a two inch transducer. I would guess that a lift strap caught it, the flange cracked and we had water in the bilge. We motored the boat back to the yard and pulled it.
That's not good!
The one on the left is missing that 'flangy thing" Scary stuff!
I would like to thank everyone who showed interest in my O'Day 30. She sold very quickly. It appears the boat will stay on Lake St.Clair. here the happy owners sail her away.
The big news is, I bought a new boat, a Catalina 42. It is a 1991 Mark 1. As with all my boats, it needs work. I will cover that work here. I spent the last week waxing and polishing. The prior owner was an idiot. Everything he did was done cheaply, outside of that it is a good solid boat. I plan to go right thru it and up date as required.
Away we go!
2 gallons of bottom paint. one week of cleaning compounding and waxing.
Well, the O'day is up for sale. I still have a few little jobs to do. I put signs on the boat on Sunday, I have shown it three times, got another guy tomorrow. Fingers crossed.
I took this picture back in 2011 at the boatyard in St.Claire shores Michigan. I took the bottom down to the gel-coat and rolled on a 2 part epoxy coating, three coats.
Putting her back together. I dug thru the garage and pulled everything out. Still some things I can't find! The roof mounted fittings for adjusting the main are re-drilled and back in place with lots of bedding compound. The real nightmare was the grab rails. They were never trustworthy. They had a tiny 3/16 bolt that continually sunk into the teak and let them get lose. On this boat they are very important but a weak design. I now have my system of machined pucks, 1/4 -20 threaded rod and exposed SS nuts inside the boat. No cheesy teak plugs. I hope to have it done and up for sale sometime this weekend but there will still be a few things to do. It's a boat.
Another day at the boat yard. I got the bottom done, the hull waxed and Liz put the final two coats on the ceiling. Looks good! Now I am down to the nuts and bolts stuff, rigging and putting the interior back in her. Everything is wrapped in plastic in the garage. Should make good progress this week.
I spent about 8 hours on the O'day today. I scrubbed up the bottom, ready to receive new bottom paint. I scrubbed the hull and started waxing. Inside I thickened epoxy and used a scrub brush to copy the original faux finish on the ceiling. My art work is a little different than the original but not bad. you wipe the epoxy around in paint tray with the little scrub brush and tap it on the ceiling. It leaves stalagmites but they break of like icicles once hardened. I got a coat of paint over it. Looks OK. 2 more coats tomorrow. Up in the bow I am replacing the old fabric which was pretty tired with a light grey fabric. I bought a big can of contact cement ...but ran out before I finished. Picked up another can on the way home.
The ceiling is coming along. The wife is doing the painting tomorrow. Finally some decent weather.
Needs a few more coats.
Now it is time to talk about something that I consider the weakest part of sailboat design. I speak of course of the hated mast boot. In my opinion, the current options are delivered by the agents of Satan!!! I just spent a ridiculous amount of time fixing damage directly related to this issue. O'Day or the dealer is partial responsible for this. They cut the hole for the mast and left it unfinished. Water leaked down the useless boot over the years and was sponged up by exposed balsa core.
What surprises me is that everyone I talk to with a sailboat bitches about it. The mast is not static, you bend it back for tightening the jib, that and wind pressure flexes it at the deck level and your lousy boot eventually leaks. I was offered a 70 dollar boot by the yard but it required the mast to be pulled. Defender makes a few that wrap around, but they are round and this mast is rectangular in cross section. I follow a few blogs written by live aboard's and I asked what they do. The answer I received surprised me.
I was ready to pour two tubes of caulking into the abyss, but they advised me differently. A toilet bowl wax ring....you heard me. It makes sense. I pushed neoprene into the gap between the chocks and then pulled the thick wax ring apart. you push it down into the gap and fill it up. The beauty is that it stays flexible and can be easily cleaned off, next time the stick gets pulled. Following that I cut a a rubber wrap from a new inner tube. This is glued and clamped. The last step is that crappy mast tape. The difference this time is that it is just icing on the cake. It always leaks, never stretches as advertised. It no longer matters. I will update tomorrow after we have another day of...errr fun.
I am ready to paint....It is May.....It is too cold. I might get a shot on Wednesday, but even then it will be a mere 60 degrees. I hoped to be done by the weekend but mother nature might delay me. I have to check the bottom paint to see the minimum temp, I suspect it is fine though. As for wax, not so much.
I am refinishing the rails. I have the whole assembly apart and in my garage. The new finish is still tacky. It is just too cold. I tossed the long 3/16 screws, I bought 1/4 inch SS threaded rod and machined up 3/4 pucks for the outside. Acorn nuts inside. I never trusted it, this will make it bulletproof. Here is a crappy sketch....
