Hi everyone, Here's an update on the salvation of Hull #5. Yesterday it was hot, very hot, here in MD. Started the day with the obligatory trip to the hardware store to "tool up" for the day. 75' Hose; check. Spray nozzle; check. 1 gallon Simple Green; check. Chemical Stripper; check. Scrapers, kinves, blades, scrubbing pads, rags, sandpaper; check, check, check. From there, Off to "The Boat"! I have a strange feeling that everything in my life, from now until she is in the water and sailing, will BE "The Boat", my next great cause in life.
Spent the entire day scrubbing and cleaning and stripping the boat stem to stern. She's looking better, but still a long way from good. Among the many other things, her deck drains were clogged and like many others have said before, what one would think would be a ten minute task turned into about an hour and a half of unhooking, investigating, tool improvization and in the end, I felt like the chimp with the stick in hand at the termite mound, poking and proding. Unlike the chimp though, there was no meal to reward my effort, but instead I did finally have a clean deck and free-flowing scuppers. Woo-hoo!
Next, onto cleaning the hull up. Since the deck drains were clogged for (I assume) the past 6 years, and being one of the early commaders with no notches at the stern rail to let the piled up water off, the stagnant, NASTY pool of organic detris and bird droppings had severely stained the decks alongside the coamings. Amazingly, the decks seem solid here, although the winch bases were shot (not cool). The coamings themselves were in sad shape cosmetically, but in spite of the longitudinal splits, the wood itself is still good and solid; a testimony to the builders not skimping on thickness - mine are still in excess of 3/4" thick - beefy compared to my other 30 footer with about a half-inch, they look and feel wimpy compared to the Commander's.
But back to the hull, the overflow from the lakes on the sides had badly stained the topsides with a nice green fungal/mossy green and black. UggH! I put some serious arm and ass into the hand scrubbing at these places and it paid off - the topsides are passing at C-/D+. They will need refinishing of course anyway, but it does leave a much nicer impression on the eye, especially from about 20'.
Figuring that I might get the nastiest work done first and move on to more pleasant things next weekend, I next attacked the brightwork. I used a chemical stripper to get the bulk of the old varnish off, and things went pretty fairly. I have used the strippers before, and I tried to keep things as neat and orderly. I would love to post the before-and-after shots of the companionway and washboards, but I haven't yet figured out how to post them. Will work on it. I'll give another update next weekend. Thanks all for the inspiration and commaradeship.
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Originally Posted by Commander#5
