April 2015 - S/V Akupara

April 29, 2015

Let there be light…okay lamps!

We have been eyeballing interior lamps for Akupara for quite some time and the closer we get to finishing the V berth, the more important it becomes to have something new for Akupara.

So….I just finished placing an order for ALL of the interior lamps for Akupara and while I was at it, I ordered a new 300′ anchor rode for the primary. I figure 300′ of rode and 250′ of chain on both primary and secondary forward anchors should give us one hell of an anchoring depth.

Anyway, what is it that BOAT stands for, yup, Bring-On-Another-Thousand!!

April 26, 2015April 26, 2015

Small spaces

I am sure that before we are complete with Akupara’s refit I will experience smaller places than the anchor locker, but for now this is probably the most time I have spent in such a small space.

Fitting the new bulkhead was an exercise in patience. The last thing I wanted to do was end up cutting the pieces too short, so there was a lot of back and forth between the anchor locker and the main salon where I was cutting the ply. Shaving plywood is not exactly the easiest thing to do with a jigsaw, but it can be done.

Last part of the story, it is in.

Joints were filleted with thickened epoxy, and 5 layers of glass on all 4 corners. If this bulkhead moves again, I will give up. And I will do everything in my power to make sure that it NEVER rots again!

It is satisfying to have a job done, but the aches and pains will stick around for a while yet, I am certainly not 25 anymore.

While I was at Akupara today I also put 2 coats of Cetol, Natural teak, on the anchor locker divider. Speaking of which, I have been hoarding 3 nice industrial rubber mats that a good friend of mine gave me. They are the kind that you would see in a restaurant kitchen. They are black, about an inch thick, and are filled with holes to allow for drainage. My plan all along was to line the bottom and sides of the anchor locker with these so that air can get around and water can get underneath. Hopefully, everything I am doing will prevent another rust ball like we found when we purchased Akupara.

I wonder if the old girl is starting to feel loved again? She may have thought she was destined for the scrapyard, but with all of the cleaning, painting, scraping, sanding, grinding and a brand new bulkhead, she must know that she is on her way back to being the belle of the ball!

Next will probably be the fore-deck re-coring….this will be interesting!

April 25, 2015April 25, 2015

Marine Plywood and lots of dust

True marine plywood is bloody expensive, that’s all I have to say. BUT, when you feel the difference in the weight of marine ply and standard ply, and when you are cutting it and there are no voids, you begin to realize why it is so expensive. So I started the morning with a grinder in hand and went to town on the area where the old bulkhead was attached cleaning a patch about 5 inches on either side of where the new bulkhead will be. This will allow for a good clean surface to glass the new bulkhead in. Of course that means that I spent the rest of the day somewhat uncomfortable due to the itching but hey, no itch no gain. I also cut out a new anchor locker divider that I will glass in place. I cut half circles all along the bottom so that any water that gets in there, has a way of escaping and it should help let air circulate, thereby avoiding the giant ball of anchor chain rust hopefully. This picture was taken after the next step but you get the idea.

Nest step was to cut a cardboard template so that I could transfer it to the marine ply outside. The rest of the crew arrived with the Admiral around this time and Graeme came to lend a hand once again.

So Graeme and I finished the pattern, took it outside and no sooner did we get there the skies opened up and we had a torrential downpour which turned into hail. We grabbed the marine ply and brought it up on deck with us under the shrinkwrap where we were able to complete the rest of the cuts. The sound in there was deafening. None of us could hear each other speak so it turned into a bit of a break.

While we were busy cutting and fitting the new bulkhead, the Admiral and August and Paige were on deck removing more fittings, grinding previously filled holes, and apparently goofing off just a bit….

The way that I get the majority of the pictures is with my GoPro camera. I set it to time lapse on a 60 second interval and just let it go. Obviously someone figured out the timing.

Since I did not remove the shelves in the v berth, I am not able to replace the anchor locker bulkhead in one solid piece so it is being made out of 3 pieces. I will epoxy it together and reinforce the joint with another layer of ply once I have it fit perfectly.

The two triangular pieces have slid down in this picture as they still need to be fine tuned to fit precisely. Once I have them fit properly, there will not be a gap at the top of course.

We also took a little bit of time to cut two plugs in anticipation of filling the instrument holes in the cockpit. The kids worked on this for about an hour and never actually got them to fit. I didn’t have the heart to take over as they were trying pretty hard but after everyone left, I cut them down to fit and put them in place. Prior to filling with glass and fairing I will need to grind the edges of course but for now at least they are in.

All in all it was a busy day and we made good progress.

April 21, 2015

Things I may have forgot to mention.

There is a chance that I may have forgot to mention the odd little repair that we have completed alongside all of the rest of the work. One of those little things is that while we were playing with epoxy and filler I decided to fill the bolt holes for the rudder gudgeon. Over the years several attempts have been made to drill new holes and what was left was a bit of a mess. Happy to report that all of the crooked holes are now filled, next step will be drill and reattach the gudgeon.

Another one I forgot to talk about was voids. Voids in the deck. So far we have identified and filled 2 substantial voids. One of these was located around the mast collar. I wanted to fill in the existing hole for the mast wiring plug, yes I have no idea why there would be another hole drilled when the mast comes all the way in through the cabin top but anyway it was there and I wanted it filled. So I covered the bottom of the hole from inside Akupara and mixed up some epoxy with structural filler. I repeated this process more times than I care to mention for this particular hole but eventually it did stop taking epoxy and as far as I can tell, I have filled the hole. Another one that we encountered was when Graeme was filling holes last weekend. It was about 2 feet forward from the cockpit on the coachroof and it took a hell of a lot of epoxy as well.

The old rusty Bruce anchor is now painted a gloss black, which probably will not last all the long but at least it looks good for the time being. I keep telling the admiral that if I had my way, I would take it in and get it chromed along with the CQR but there are too many other things coming up very soon to be worried about that.

We have decided, if funds allow, that we will have the forward lifelines changed to a solid rail. Our stern rail, sometimes called a pushpit, is a solid piece all the way up to the forward end of the cockpit. I like solid rails as they provide more mental comfort than the wire ones and I do not think the extra weight is all that much.

This weekend if plans work out, I hope to have the anchor locker bulkhead and the anchor locker divider measured, cut, installed, glassed, painted and stained so that we are complete with that project. I am also hoping that the rest of the crew will have all of the previously filled holes on deck, ground down, wiped with acetone and faired with epoxy. Once the anchor locker is complete, we will finish sand all of the wood and exposed liner in the vberth, paint and stain and reinstall all of the ceiling. Hopefully by the end of April we can say that the vberth is completely finished. We will then close it off with plastic sheets and continue on with the refit, slowly working our way towards the aft cabin. Having one cabin finished will be a big mental gain!

I think spirits are still high, and the Admiral and crew are persevering, but I know how overwhelming this entire process is and any milestones we can claim as complete, will go a long way to seeing us through to the end.

April 19, 2015

Life’s too short!

Wait a second, what? Yup that’s right, life is too short, too short to spend hours upon hours grinding and hacking and getting pretty much nowhere when somewhere in this fine world is the right tool to get the job done. 15 minutes on te internet, 15 minute diversion on the way to Akupara, 1 hour of work and the rotten ole bulkhead was finally history.

I guess I should back up a bit here and fill in some of the missing details. When we bought Akupara I had a strong suspicion that the anchor locker bulkhead was rotten, given that the chain was primarily a big ball of rust and the rode was a sopping mess and Akupara had not been in the water in several years. Hmm doesn’t take a genius to figure this one out. How rotten it actually was, I wasn’t exactly sure. So my first attempt at using a grinder was not exactly successful. It’s not that it wasn’t getting the job done, but the dust that was thrown into the air resulted in everyone leaving the Captain to deal with this issue on his own. Not until several cat calls of something to do with “Breaking Bad” and all that. The Captain wasn’t impressed.

Needless to say, this did not last long. I would have had to have gotten the rest of the Breaking Bad attire in order to make it threw this one, and I had forgotten my safety glasses, so all in all it was a failed attempt.

So a quick trip to Lowe’s this morning and a new power tool was on board. And regardless of what the Admiral tells you, I did not make her sit down and watch online reviews of oscillating multi tools. Ok maybe 1.

Dewalt won the review challenge by the way.

On several of our last boats I have done things the hard way. I have made do with inadequate or improper tools and eventually was able to get whatever task was at hand finished. I must be getting old because my patience have simply run out and in this case anyway, this tool is worth its weight in gold! I have already thought of about a dozen different ways I will be able to use this in Akupara’s refit!

Back to the bulkhead. The new tool cut through the fiberglass with a lot of ease and best of all with a lot of precision. There is a learning curve to the variable speed and the stock blades that came with it are crap as I burned out 2 of them, but I will purchase new blades next time around.

Of course like any good boat project, you must twist, contort, climb inside of, pry beat, kick, pull, push, swear, sweat, give up, cry, yell, give in, try again, and then once you have completed the entire ritual, sometimes you win.

So, after all of that, Akupara is now one bulkhead short. In the process of all of this, it became clearly evident that either I am somewhat superhuman in strength, or the bulkhead was for the most part toast.

A couple of coats of paint later and all is good. Next week comes the fun part. Grinding, cutting, swearing, staining, fiberglasing etc etc as the new bulkhead goes in.

On another note, we have been discussing a lot of interior design ideas and the one thing we keep coming back to is installing dark corian counter tops. Since we had a can of old black paint kicking around, I decided to see what the whole dark countertop idea would look like so I painted the tops. Don’t worry, either way, the countertops were being replaced so not a big deal.

We kind of like the look. Of course it won’t be high gloss black, but you get the idea.

April 12, 2015

Add some paint and take some away.

Today was a bit of a slower day as I was by myself and went down to Akupara more to check on our progress from yesterday than with an actual plan. I checked all of our filled holes and out of all of them, I think there might be 5 that we will need to redo, not bad. I removed all of the duct tape from the inside and once again looked at the off yellow fugly paint job on the main cabin bulkhead. If there is one thing I hate it is taking a beautiful teak bulkhead and covering it with a fugly paint job. I just can’t comprehend why people feel the need to do this. I have been worrying since we purchased Akupara that there might be a big fiberglass patch or some horrible repair job that was covered with paint and there was only one way to find out.

And since it was cold today I thought sitting with a heat gun might be a good way to spend the afternoon and so I started.

Well like any good boat project, what you originally estimate to take only a couple of hours always needs to be multiplied by 3. In this case I did beat the rule of thirds but only just.

Still need to get a lot of paint out of the grain but happy to see that there is no big repair that was covered up by the paint. 🙂

Here’s to teak bulkheads!!

April 12, 2015April 12, 2015

Filling holes.

We managed to get a lot of much needed work completed yesterday. Once again Graeme joined us, and the 5 of us set about on our tasks and we hustled for the majority of the day. Paige being the smallest, climbed into the anchor locker and painted the entire thing while August started with the second coat in the vberth. In the pictures you can see many pieces of duct take on the ceiling. Each one of these is preventing epoxy from flowing through into the cabin and will be removed.

Andrea went to work with wood filler and sealed about 200 tiny screw, nail, and other such holes in any of the wood that will be left exposed. I asked Graeme to start by over-drilling any of the holes on deck that I had missed and I started mixing epoxy. Graeme soon ran out of holes to drill and he joined me in mixing and pouring epoxy.

Filling holes with epoxy — Graeme filling holes with epoxy

As the day progressed, Andrea ran out of wood holes to fill, so she went and applied a second coat of paint to our bruce anchor, At least that is what she told us she was going to do.

See, the admiral has the uncanny ability to strike up a conversation with anybody and in my opinion, maybe get a little distracted from what she is doing at the time. She on the other hand, always reports back that she has been performing research, or learning the ways of the locals, or making a future needed connection. She also has this way of explaining it to you with a heavy serious tone that makes it sound like she has been on some sort of secret spy mission and the outcome of that conversation will help to save the world or some such thing. Yet typically, the look on her face when you catch her, gives away the perhaps not so obvious motivation behind said spy mission. Proof in point, Take a look at the picture – facial expression – serious with a note of oh crap – busted! Sky behind – hmmm turning blue. A bit of shadow in the picture – hmmm warm sun perhaps?? 😉

Saving the world again I see?? ;-) — Saving the world again I see?? 😉

I will add that Graeme and I were on deck filling holes with epoxy and had heard every bit of conversation for the last half hour at least.

August and Paige ran out of places to paint and joined the epoxy crew on deck, and eventually Andrea did as well. So the net result of our day is that every hole on the cabin top, both aft and main, have been drilled, and filled with West System epoxy and structural filler, we have a 2nd coat of paint on all of the areas we previously painted, as well as on the bruce anchor, all immediately visible holes in the wood bulkheads have been filled, and I managed to start filling some of the holes on the interior exposed fiberglass. We are almost at the point of being watertight!!

Holes left to drill and fill with epoxy – all of the stanchions, chainplates, and about 5 deck fittings that are giving us a hard time. As well, we still need to address holes on any vertical surface, as I only had slow cure epoxy hardener which would have resulted in a huge mess. As well, we need to cut wooden plugs to fill the instrument cutouts in the cockpit beside the companionway so that we can epoxy and glass them over.

April 9, 2015

Amazing what a coat of paint will do…

Well, so much for best laid plans. I don’t think we ended up doing anything on our list of to do’s over the weekend but we did get a fair amount of work done nevertheless.

I think it is time that we just give in to the fact that in order to make ourselves feel better, and to provide a solid starting point, and to truly make Akupara ours, we need to completely finish stage 1.

Neither one of us has admitted how much the dirt and grime has been bothering us, that is until we made the first brushstroke with fresh paint! Wow what a difference! Now we are on a mission and I think we will focus on this aspect until it is completed.

So on the weekend we set to work painting all of the never seen areas of Akupara’s v berth and part of the main salon. Never seen areas as in behind the wooden ceiling in the vberth, and inside all of the hanging lockers and cabinets in the foreward head. We have not started painting the actual interior liner yet, that will come later, as well as the bilges, which are surprisingly clean.

This was not technical precision painting with delicate lines and lots of masking. This was get as much paint on as possible to give all of the dark recesses a fresh new look, and at the same time I guess it could be called the last stage of the cleaning process. 2 more coats coming this weekend, and hopefully the rest of the hidden areas in the main salon.

I am not going to post too many pictures until it is all finished and then I will do the before and after thing.

April 2, 2015

As of late…

Well, you may have noticed that we have been rather quiet for a while. Our apologies for that. We have been extremely busy in other areas of our life and the this site has suffered as a result. We have been working on Akupara whenever we can, and we have managed to make a fair bit of progress. So I will give a quick summary of where we are currently at.

90% of the electrical has been cut out. The anchor locker and vberth have been completely stripped and pressure washed, and are now ready for paint. The main cabin and the aft cabin are ready for pressure washing. We did pressure wash the complete deck as the dust and dirt were getting too much. All of the interior removable pieces are now in our basement. 90% of the deck fittings have been removed and the holes for all of the screws and bolts have been drying out in preparation for drilling them oversize and filling with epoxy. Half of all of the interior panels have had the backsides painted with 3 coats of paint to give them a fresh clean feel. We have a few more things to remove before the official rebuild starts, as in the rest of the plumbing and electrical need to come out still and the stanchions need to be removed (they are currently supporting the frame for the cover, so we need to figure out how to remove them without bringing down the top). And of course the dreaded job of sanding all of the decks still needs to be completed. This being Easter weekend and us having 3 days off will definitely help and fingers crossed, but we should make a fair bit of progress.

Possible chores for this weekend include: cutting out existing anchor locker bulkhead as it is rotten. Cutting out the foredeck to begin repairing the soft spot. Painting the v-berth and anchor locker. Painting the remainder of the interior panels. Sanding all of the interior wood.

Check back over the weekend as I will try to update our progress at the end of each day.

April 2, 2015

Bath time!

Akupara is the third boat we have owned that has had a wooden ceiling on the hullsides. I love the look of the wood and how it brings a feeling of warmth to the cabin. Akupara is also the third boat we have owned that it is obvious that none of the previous owners have ever removed the ceiling to clean behind it.

The ceiling in Akupara’s v-berth is like a lot of other boats in that it is comprised of approx. 4 inch wide strips of wood that are screwed to the side of the boat in one fashion or another. Of course there are tiny gaps between each of these slats where detritus from past years will accumulate. I realize we all like to think we are clean but in reality it is impossible to be spotless and eventually the empty space behind your lovely wood ceiling will begin to take on a life of its own. If you own a boat with nice wooden slats running down the interior of your cabin, take a Saturday morning and remove them just for fun. Typically there are only a few screws holding each slat so it isn’t a huge endeavour. You may be surprised at what you find.
https://youtu.be/Za2llAwM1oo