Long -overdue update

Since I probably set this blog up wrong, I can't reply to comments so for those of you who commented in 2019 . . . sorry!  But I do receive them in my gmail account so if you want, next time you have a comment, just put your gmail address in the comment and I can write to you, or update here.

A new comment from, of all people, a Jeff Brown, has prompted this post. Hi Jeff. Good to meet you!!

I have not posted for awhile because a) I moved a bit farther north so do not get to spend as much time with Jeff as I did before, and b) I think I reported in my last post that the dreaded "insurance survey" has consigned Jeff Brown to a life in the Red Shed, as it is known, for the time being. All the work that Paul and I did on the rails and deck 2 years ago did not get the chance to be tested on the high seas. . . but on the plus side it has a spiffy new paint job that isn't getting crudded up. Cold comfort.

If you want a tour, go to the Noank Historical Society on Sylvan St, or write to them at  noankhist@sbcglobal.net 
and have them open up the Red Shed behind the Latham Chester Store and bask in Jeff's cuteness. And donate to his zillion-dollar restoration fund!!!

Oh gosh--a comment--and me not knowing how to reply . . . .

If someone knows how to reply directly to comments on Blogger, let me know because I see no way to do it.

Shawn Perry has left a new comment on your post "Bulwarks need love too":

Is Jeff in the water now? I hope you are enjoying a sail now and then.
Is that other Key West Smackee still in the area? It was in David Barbers back yard for a while. 

Well, Shawn, glad you asked.  At the moment, poor Jeff is an "exhibit" at the Red Shed, partly because I am no longer close enough to work on him, and partly because, well, insurance surveys catch up with the best of us, don't they?  We need to do a Go Fund Me page to do the necessary repairs that Paul and I just, well, deferred.  Hey, it was floating--what more does one need? But a dry exhibit is better than a floating one--all that in-the-water, out-of-the-water stuff does not a happy boat make.  So I have high hopes that we'll raise the thousands necessary to fix stem and stern, quite literally, and then it's heave-ho, back in action.

A few years ago I was treated to a glimpse of Dave Barber's smackee, under canvas and in the middle of shall we say an overhaul (Dave had removed some of the decking for a reason that escapes me now), and even though it has been out of the water for years and years, Paul says its hull is in better shape than Jeff's, because it was made with bronze fastenings. Uncle Jack did not go in for luxury items like that.  An interesting detail is that it is truer to the original plans than Jeff Brown--the combing (is that how you spell it?) is reversed in Jeff--Jack thought it was foolish to have the flat end in the stern, since that's where you need more arm room for the tiller. Dave's has the curve facing forward. It's still there, far as I know, waiting for an enterprising naif (and we are legion) to come rescue it . . . 
 
Coaming.
That's how you spell it.
I never knew . . .  

From our “When will I ever listen?” department: Don’t Go Looking For Trouble, Part II

Well, I can’t say we have been idle over the past two weeks, but it’s been so hot that you could fry a catfish on this miserable deck, so painting is taking a while.  Plus, a few days ago I was minding my own business, sanding away, and bang! I nearly fell down a hole into the bilge.  I exaggerate, but that was rot hole #1, and forgetting Bruce’s admonition when I first started this 4 years ago (“Don’t go looking for trouble”), I went and found 2 others before the day was up. 

I'd like to say it's not as bad as it looks, but I am afraid it is. Note the horrid hole at the stern--already gooed up at this point.

 So sanding stopped, out came the epoxy, then the lovely West Marine 2-part resin and red powder goo, then more sanding, then the gutter caulk (hey, why not), for the new space around the combing, 

all sanded--you can't even see the hole. One down, who knows how many more to go

    then because caulk is nice and squishy, why not just stuff it into the big ol rot holes on the inside of the railing/bulwarks which I thought we’d taken care of back in April in the boathouse.  But noooooo, this is at the stern where we did not look (fear, I suppose). Actually, I did look, and sort of hoped it would go away, but alas it did not, and this is why the phrase “new transom” sometimes passes Paul’s lips in a whisper as if he were invoking a demon.  However, there’s enough resin and red powder mix up there to keep even the most determined wave from breaking through. And I did not do so bad with the rail rot.

Meanwhile, the foredeck is not looking too shabby for the first coat, after the pounding we gave it this spring. Paint hides a host of character defects.

I am getting rather sick of this.  It is, after all, September.

 

I am eager to try “frostbiting,” though. Jeff should be swelled up by then.

Look who’s back in the yard

Well, I came home the other day to find this lovely surprise, waiting for me to now sand the deck. 

note the fancy trailer connector, which allows the thing to come apart and fit in the shed

I really don’t think that high-gloss black looks very good.  As you will recall, Paul suggested we used high gloss this year because it might hold up better. It looks great on the hull, but on the rail it shows every flaw and bump, and let me tell you, after the traumatic rail repair of  the winter of ’18, there are bumps galore. 

Here's what it looks like close up, indoors:

Oy! It's RuPaul's Smack Race. Paul says that after a week in the salt water it’ll dull right down. We’ll see. Speaking of bumps--about the deck. . . . The object this time is to just get it smooth enough to paint.  With all the rubber caulk and epoxy near the covering board, though, it’s just gonna look like crap.

But yesterday I gave it the old college try.

And dragged out Papa bear, the 8” disc sander, whose disc I had apparently never changed.

 

It doesn't look that awful from far away.  But rest assured, there are bumps.

 

WTF???

This thing requires half and hour of wrestling and ¼ bottle of nail polish remover to get the old sandpaper off, and then you have to spray this yellow adhesive goo on the head and glue the sucker down.  Who ever heard of a more ridiculous way to put sandpaper on a sander?

I swear, I get all the best tools.

I know, I know, it’s the woodworker’s friend, and there must be something good about it, but honestly, I think it’s the stupidest thing that was ever invented.

But there I was, giving it my best, and remember, friends, I hated Papa Bear with a passion because it is big and mean and wants to fly all over the place and take anything in the way (like your shin) with it.  But I was getting good at it and realized that you do not glide that sander across the deck; you press down and guide it slowly, and if you want to move to a new location you lift the whole thing up and it becomes docile as a puppy. But if you leave it touching the wood it takes off and drags you to hell.

So I’m thinking, “Well, I’ve mastered you now, sucka,” and then all of a sudden I am pelted by a stream of small yellow spongy bullets and then a larger yellow thing goes flying off to my right and I look down and the whole disc assembly has disintegrated under my hands.

Because that’s the kind of craftsman I am.

 

I think that this sander’s days are quite numbered; I cannot find a replacement for it. I can’t even find anything like it in any catalogue, except a helpful model by 3M which costs $530. Um, no thank you. So now I’m using the teensy random orbital sander and dreading the lecture I will be getting for wrecking power tools.

At this rate, Jeff will be in the water by September.

Just in time to haul him out again.

Although I can’t say I mind sailing with no other boats around.   

Less stuff to hit, if you k. what I m.

Of Q-Tips, naughty dogs, and my overwhelming desire to save a buck

For the past 3 weeks it’s been either pouring like the monsoons or absolutely sweltering, so nothing for it but to a) kayak around in the afternoon, b) ride my fabulous new bike, c) sulk, or d) feel so guilty about not working on Jeff Brown that I do none of these things, and instead take myself down to the boathouse to chip away (would  that that were a euphemism) on what’s left to be done of the, um, exterior. Okay, outboard. This has been a pip, since the boathouse grows dark in the afternoon, with Jeff’s port side almost completely obscured unless I throw open the big barn doors, thus letting everyone in the world know I’m here mangling a piece of history.  For this shed is at the “Town Dock,” an impossibly tiny bit of beach overlooking the river and the anchorage, with a nice lawn and a nautical vibe, and everyone, and I mean everyone, for miles around comes and parks it here in the summer, lounging cheek by jowl with children, dogs, umbrellas, blow-up swans and picnics, to the point where I’m sure they’ve all exchanged phone numbers and bathing suit sand by evening. I usually keep the front and back door open, for the breeze.  

Grace, as seen from the back door. She has a last name but I've forgotten it.

The other day this was rewarded by a glimpse of the aging but quite cute Grace, an oyster boat usually berthed in Norwalk but up here sometimes for the heavy lifting, since next door is the Oyster Guy, who’s recently thrown in his lot with a bigger partner and so has access to magnificent craft like this one.  Although over the winter his shop was a flurry of activity, as he and his elves built a metal oyster catamaran, an operation shrouded in more secrecy than the design that turned America’s Cup racers from sailboats into pontooned bullets with kevlar on sticks.

But I digress.

Even though the breeze out the back door was wonderful I hadda open up the big doors, which brought all manner of curious onlookers, asking questions ranging from “Does it float?” to “Who picked the colors?” (this from a five year old, who liked the green but thought the red was a little too fussy). Now, since for the moment I have to work in a building owned by the Historical Society, and since Jeff is an Historical Artifact, you can bet I had my facts at my fingertips (I was able to assure people, emphatically, that yes it does indeed float. Some of the time. With  three pumps going) and had my pleasant-but paint-spattered docent-smile on, which is painful for this old hermit.

But the other day, as I was working on the transom, which gives me fits (more on that later), the irascible and over-large Marty the shih-tzu kept wandering away from his owner and flinging himself into the boathouse for a good romp through the dropcloth. Which made his owner a) scream his name over and over, so now it will never leave me, and b) dart in the boathouse after him and throw me what my aunt used to call a “withering look,” accusing me of having the nerve to be painting a boat in of all places a boathouse.

Marty aside, I have liked these late afternoons with Jeff, with the light slanting through the southeast windows  and the waves bumping against the rocks and the fading voices of tired beachgoers packing up and going home to dinner. It does not suck to live here.

This will be the last year we can use the same boat lettering, though it has held up like a champ.It breaks my aging Scottish heart that we will have to part with $35 again. First thing I had to do was wash all the rust off it with a Q-Tip and bleach, then I got out the artist brushes and painted around the letters.  I am sure that dead marine repair professionals are spinning in their graves over this but what can I do? We all serve one master or another. There is an awful spot on the starboard side that no amount of sanding or Interlux trowel cement can cure.  I have heard whisperings that a new transom is in order. I often wonder what part of Jeff Brown is actually not held together with epoxy and bronze wire.  The hatch covers, probably. Wonderfully sturdy things.

All beautiful, except the white trim and the right side.  See how ugly? 

Those are not puckers or bubbles.  They’re pieces of . . . the boat, that just stick up. 

Which probably means that they are not sticking up; it’s the area around it that has sunk in. Nasty.

And the mast, of course, though it is a bit bendy.  Dane stopped by the other day—it was the thunder-and-lightning storm and some people were down at the dock to look at the Sound as it grew purple and wild. Hadn’t seen him since the one sail he had after he’d refinished the mast and bowsprit. He was glad they were holding up.  I should take a photo of them hanging in the boathouse. They still look lovely. I remarked to Dane that he’s the only person who ever said “I’ll help” and actually did. Except Dave the pilot, who last year refinished the boom and jib club. Paul doesn’t count. Cuz he’s the boss and does everything.

So, waiting on the white paint for the rail cap, I have been painting the rub rail (black) around the brass (black), before I can paint the red sheerstrake or the rail/bulwark below the rail cap.  If you’re going to tart up a boat you have to know in which order you can paint the colors so you don’t end up bent over twisted like a pretzel with your hair in the paint can. Actually, I am doing all of this because I absolutely do not want to face the deck.  I’m refusing to sand it until Bruce pulls it out of the boathouse. I will not kill myself in a space that’s three inches from the ceiling.

No freaking way. I’ve cracked my head, shoulders and back on those beams so many times, 

scuttling around when we repaired those rails,  I can’t count.  Also please note the traveler, 

formerly known as the whatsis, in the foreground. Still not replaced!

“Lie down and stick the sander under you,” says Paul.  In a pig’s eye. YOU lie down and stick the sander under you, see how it feels. I’d sand off my chest. I’m dedicated, but not insane.  In fact, I don’t know how boaty people do this year after year.  With me, I’ll do it because it’s my uncle’s boat.  But any other boat?  To spend this much time just to get it to the point where “job well done” means “doesn’t sink?” Fuggedaboutit.

Take that, rot!

It’s been brought to my attention that some people are actually reading this blog, including people from the area that I’ve studiously tried to not mention, in order to lend a little faux-anonymity to the postings. But I guess the (waterlogged) cat is out of the bag. I’m just going to pretend that it’s not.

April . . . was a cruel month, but not for the reasons T.S. Eliot lists. It was just too darned cold to do much, even though Jeffie was in the boathouse. However, May rolled around and as the last blog post suggests, Paul and I decided that it might be time to tackle the Big Repair of the season: the rails.  Now this, as you recall, flies in the face of my promise, this year, to really go to town on the deck, which doesn’t get much love since I’ve exhausted myself on the exterior, or outboard as you watery types would say. But rot is a harsh mistress, and apparently this repair could wait no longer. So for about a month we reefed out all the goo, muck and non-wood from the rail and covering board (see previous post), and lo, the craters of the universe appeared. We had to separate the rail from the deck completely, which was a real pleasure. We’d been told by one observer to just take the Sawzall and hack it right off, but that would have meant complete replacement of the rail cap and probably, at that point, the rail, plus as I have been told more than once, every time you take a piece off a boat, you risk shifting its shape, even if it’s by just a little bit. So for this frankly grisly operation we used no power tools, but at the end of it, to smooth things out, Mr Sawzall did come in handy.

The scuppers also look tons better--nice and smooth (sort of) without all that 40-year-old filling clogging their sides.

Then it was time for some resin, just to seal things up (but not to fill the holes by any means.)

Then we had a Day of Bolting, where holes were drilled through the rail cap through the rail (a delicate operation requiring a good eye and lotsa luck) into the members below the deck, and screwed on tight. Then more epoxy to seal the bolt holes and plugs, then enough caulk to fill a bathtub that went in between the rail and the deck. This was wonderful stuff, and we smoothed it out with mineral spirits so that the area between the rail and deck is smoother than it has been in years.  Plus, instead of hard, stiff epoxy, trowel cement, Bondo, 5200, chewing gum, or whatever else had been stuck in there over the years, there is a slight give to it, and it is very waterproof.

June brought the Filling of the Deck Cracks, which is still not done, although I have managed to paint the bottom, a practice which gives Paul fits since he believes one should start from the top and work one’s way down, but not me, no siree, I want to see that ugly mass of ruts and caverns covered up—it motivates me to carry on.  So at this point the topsides are almost sanded and ready to paint.  Better late than never. We’ll see what this month holds. It’ll be out on the mooring by Christmas, I swear!!

I actually did a not-bad sanding job this year--my goal is to not have the planks show. Ahahahahaha. Paul says it takes 3 years from the time you take the hull down to wood; this is year #4 so here's hoping.

Jeff Brown the diva gets his own dressing room this winter . . .

 . . . so those who serve him can do so in relative comfort—and much earlier!   

Jeff Brown's new winter home--it even has electricity.  We're spoiled!

So there I was today, hoof-pick (reefing hook) in hand, gouging out all the crud that I’d put between the rail and the deck, and that others before me had put there for the past 50 years, because this year we are going to do some above-the-waterline repairs.  I’d told Paul I wanted to take the deck down to wood this year, and he’d looked at me with that patient, aren’t-you-just the-cutest gaze I have come to understand means that there is more to the deck and its, er, issues, than I had realized. So when we met in Jeff’s new boathouse this week—me, Paul, and a possible helper-to-be, what was discussed was the sorry state of the rail and the need for the “covering board” to be screwed down tight to the frame, since it has come up in spots over the years. The covering board, in case you are clueless like me, is that deck plank that is closest to the rail and is the same width all up and down the length of the boat, unlike the other planks farthest from the middle, which are cut to match its curve. 

the white plank is the covering board.  And that cool little red scraper was my best friend today. Way over down on the right you can see the fabbo newly varnished bowsprit and jib club.

So the first thing to do is get all the ancient goo (some soft, some hard, some like iron) out from between both the covering board and the first “real” deck plank, and then get all the other crap out from under and wedged up beside the rail, so that everything can move enough when we fasten things down together.

Charming.

 Let me tell you, friends, I did not like what I saw when what was under the rail was revealed.

Lotsa rot.

eeeeewwwwwww.

Which will have to be addressed, but since this is the non-billion-dollar restoration, we will be using our pal Mr. Epoxy instead of Mr. New Material.

I am confident that when the time is right, the real restoration will begin.

on the outside I had to lift up the rail with the screwdriver and get the reefing hook underneath it to clear out all the gunk so you can see about 1/4" of daylight now all along the rail.  Which is why I thought I'd destroyed the boat till I was told this was what had to be done.  Jeff looks painfully decrepit at the moment, though.

But for now, it's good enough to make it so that no more water gets in where it shouldn’t.

So today I did both sides on the inside--I suppose you purists would call it the inboard--and then one side on the outside because frankly I was terrified that I was just ruining the whole shebang.  But Paul examined it later and told me I had done a bang-up job, and certainly didn’t take any more out than I should of, and as a matter of fact would probably need to pull out even more.

But this is good, since it is only January and we are attending to the deck, which in my opinion never gets enough love. 

Since it gets dark so early still I will have to wait till next weekend to do more, but now that I know I’m not completely wrecking the poor thing, I’ll be able to finish, as well as start on what I wanted to do in the first place—grab the heat gun and get rid of some more of the deck paint.  Hopefully nothing like what I found today will be lurking anywhere else but around the rail.

There really are hoof-picks involved in this operation, although I ended up using the reefing hook more.

Plus, a gentle tap with the ice pick and the screwdriver didn’t hurt.  And the business end of the file.  I seem to be far better at demo than fine finish carpentry.