And The Work Continues

So many things are going on all at once with the work on Renegade that I’m not sure where to start. I know had I kept up that it wouldn’t be so difficult to try and play catch up. But that’s the story of my life and I guess if I sat around doing nothing all day then I would feel bad about it. That’s not the case at all for Dirk or me right now. Even the other tenants of the marina have taken note and stop by several times a day to see the progress, make small talk or ask if we ever take a break. Also since we are very close to the restaurant we have many people walking docks, looking at boats and it seems they always have questions about what we’re doing and where were heading. I don’t mind at all because I remember Dirk and I did exactly the same thing in the past.

Ok, back to the task at hand and that is to fill you in on what has been occupying our days. We still have been scraping and sanding the decks in preparation of re caulking. I usually do the scraping and pulling out the old caulk and Dirk follows up with the sanding and caulking.  Boy I tell you that caulking is one messy business and we decided to tackle a small area together one day. Due to the drying time you must pull the tape off at a precise time. Not too soon as you will drag the mess everywhere and not too late as you start tearing your tape apart as it is drying under the caulk. All the while the wind is blowing and you have wet ribbons of painters tape blowing about threatening anything you don’t want to get it on, which is everything. You end up getting it stuck all over your hands which in turn gets all over everything you swore you didn’t touch. We found a product to remove it from our skin which works great but it has pumice in it and on the tender flesh of the arms and legs you leave nasty red patches. We have about concluded that if you end up stepping in it that there are several days needed before it wears off.

We just about bit off more than we could chew one day and pulled out lots of seams to re caulk. Before we knew it the sun was beginning to go down and we had a few lines to go. So I went below, grabbed a flashlight and we finished it up in the dark. Can't imagine what the neighbors were thinking then.

 I had taken off to pick up another load of our stuff from my sister’s home and left Dirk to tend to task without me standing over him telling him how to do it. He ended up finishing the sanding on the back deck and got one half of it coated with TeakGuard. It looks wonderful and we can’t wait to make further progress on the rest of the decks. If we could only keep the birds off the mast. We have an osprey who has basically claimed our boat as its. The only bad thing about that is he/she brings her fresh caught fish, some of which I am very impressed with, and preceeds to pull it apart to eat it flinging what it feels inedible to eat all over our decks. To boot, It ends up pooping on the deck and for the life of me I cant figure how this stuff goes through them without killing them. The fragments of fish bones with sharp edges litter the deck and are pretty uncomfortable when stepping on them.  So birds, please spread the love around and visit some of the other boats in the marina. And also, please stop using me as target practice. Its not even funny anymore, its just a given...If Im outside on the deck Im getting pooped on.

Looking down on the back deck showing before cleaning and TeakGuard and after

Continuing on, I have just about completed scraping the entire cabin top minus the side decks and once we know we will have several days of nice weather we will knock that out. Its gonna be a full day of pulling caulk, sanding the seams, and taping, and another full day to re caulk. Dirk did get the top of the bow sprit done and the teak looks as brand new as the rest of it does.

Platform on top of the bowsprit before



Same platform same day after a bit of cleaning and TeakGuard applied



I have also been scraping the areas that will be varnished such as the hand rails, dorade boxes, and decorative teak pieces.  As I had said before, the cetol that I’m scraping off is layers and layers deep. It is about 1/8 inch thick in some places and is gummy and sticky. The color of it is really ugly too and it hides the beauty of the teak underneath.

Dorade Box with layers and layers of Cetol all cloudy, cracked and ugly



The back Transom with some progress made on the right side

I also started scraping the back transom area in hopes that we can remove the old name and finally re name the boat. I have since found out that I need a nice calm day or two to do this as standing in a bucking dinghy just isn’t the easiest thing for me. I spent one afternoon hanging on so hard it took my fingers on my left hand 3 days to quit tingling and have complete feeling again. I finally gave up after being soaked from water splashing over the sides and being so tossed around I felt like I was at some bar playing on the mechanical bull. But it was fun uncovering the wood carvings that had so many layers of paint and varnish on them. I need to decide what I will do with the carvings as there are two nice long pieces at the bow of the boat I would like all the detail to stand out on. Paint the details? Stain them? Hummmm

On the rainy days we have our projects that we have been tackling on the inside. When we first looked at Renegade we noticed that under the port settee there were what appeared to be two bar stool bases that support the settee in the down position. Raise up the settee seat and it becomes an extended bar top. While digging around we found the inserts to the bar stool bases but they had no seats on them. Dirk found some scrap lumber in the marinas second chance shelf and we found extra material in another cubby. Off to the fabric store, and I bought some foam for the seat and some quilt batting for extra cush. A couple hours later we had two seats installed and ready for use. We had decided to pull the big bulky table from here to open up the space so this bar makes a great place for us to have our meals when not on the deck.

A few materials including, some old wood, extra material, foam and batting

The settee with the bulky table removed



Left side of the setee with the bar top up



Final product with the bar stools complete

Dirk’s indoor projects consisted of removal of 5 8D batteries and replacing them with 4 8D AGMs and one group 27 that will be a start battery for our 4k generator. We originally had 5 8 D’s and decided that 4 should be enough if we put the solar power on before we start to cruise. The surveyor originally noticed the batteries bulging in the survey which is never a good sign. We thought that we could live with them while on the dock attached to shore power for a while. Dirk however noticed they were getting very hot and hardly taking any charge at all. We thought it best to go ahead, bite the bullet and spring for new ones. It took several guys to load them onto a rolling cart the dock master had. He and Dirk had them pulled from under the salon floor and put them on towels so they could be drug to the front berth and hoisted out the hatch using the main halyard. At 165 lbs each there was no way anyone could lug them up the companionway. From there they were swung over the boat and lowered onto the dock. The new ones were installed the same way and after doing that chore Dirk was whipped for the day. Can’t say I blame him.

Three of the batteries under the floor, you can see just how big they are with Dirk in the photo

 

Three of them installed and ready to get back to work


Dirk also removed the old huge dinosaur of a television that we had in the salon. When they installed it they had to cut into the closet behind it as it extended through the bulkhead into the closet and took up some nice space.  Once he had it finally free we found that it wouldn’t fit through the doorway and we ended up removing the forward hatch and heaving it up that way. We ended up donating it to the marina lounge although they don’t have cable here someone is trying to fish up an antenna. At least we are rid of it and we ended up getting a nice 24 inch flat panel and putting it on a swivel in its place. So now all the entertainment factors are taken care of for now.

The new entertainment cabinet, with the X Box DVD player and stereo

A biggie item that we have been dealing with this week is the rigging. When we purchased Renegade there was no documentation of how old the rigging was and the person we bought it from had no idea either. So really there was only one thing to do and that was to assume it was original or close to it. There were several places where we saw wear and a couple burrs on the cables. We originally had thought that this is something we would have done when the boat was on the hard in the boatyard and we could have the experts handle it. When we were quoted the price Dirk decided to do some research on cost for materials and doing the job himself. It would be a big job with many trips up and down the mast but for the price we were gonna save in labor it was basically a no brainer. He elected to go with swages on top and the new Hi-Mod mechanical fittings on the bottom. He premeasured the lengths he would need, adding a bit for error. The cables came back to us pre cut to the approximate length, swaged on the top so that Dirk could insert them into the spreader bases and once run he could cut the extra off, add on the Hi-Mod fitting and tension the cable. He made several trips leaving the top of the 60 foot mast for last. There were two cables here and it took him about an hour to get them done. He and I were both happy for him to be on the ground once again. So the main mast is done and he has the mizzen mast left which if the weather plays nice can be done next week.

All the pretty new rigging coiled and laid up on deck

That small black item at the top of the mast is Dirk

 

I zoomed in and Im sure he had to force that smile

And believe it or not, our list continues on with some new toys that we purchased. Well not really toys but necessities that are, new to replace the old. Renegade came with a nice dinghy, nice in its day, but today it hangs like a wet noodle just about folded in two from the davits. She holds air about as well as those cheap beach floaties after a hard days use. So since she has sat deflated for so long all the trim pieces have come unglued and are hanging about. Dock master here said that it is one of the saddest looking dinghies he had ever seen. We concur….And to top it off the engine that sits proudly on her is older than Dirk and I. By now it’s considered an antique; just wish someone would pay an antique price for it. It’s a 1957 Montgomery Ward 12 horse engine and with just a little tinkering Dirk got it up and running. We keep trying to sell it with the condition; you must take the dinghy also. Hummmm, any takers?

She holds her age well huh?

The old and new, the good, the bad, the ugly

So seeing as we will need a reliable dinghy and engine, which is our car after all when we are cruising. We decided to purchase a 10’ 4” hard bottom AVON dinghy. And to go along with that we got a 15 horse Mercury engine. In the past we had the 9.9 and it did great getting on plane with just Dirk & I on board, but if we were loaded down with laundry, groceries, or another person, there was no way.  It’s a bit skinnier then our last one but it has a nice compartment up front that will house the dinghy anchor and chain

A purchase we made last week was a spur of the moment item that we knew we would need and the opportunity opened itself up to us so we jumped on it. There was a nautical flea market in the parking lot of the marina we are in and of course we had to go. Lucky us, no driving. George who runs Cortez Yacht Sales was selling a practically new engine lift and with us planning on a 15 horse we knew we would need something to help get that sucker on the engine mount on the back rail. Dirk got it mounted to the deck and we got to try it out yesterday. It also breaks down so that when we are sailing and wanting to use the mizzen we just pull off the upper section and the boom is free to swing.

The new engine sitting on the engine mount with the engine lift attached

There are also rumors of new canvas and stainless in the works but this post is too long as it is and I’m anxious to get this posted so that story will have to wait. Before I go though, here is the latest photo of Capt. Butters checking out the bow sprit, man that makes me nervous….but he seems very comfy there.  

Are we done yet?

Unfortunately we have only just begun, and we were getting into a rhythm before we had to stop again and handle some of life's stuff. Some of what we have been working on is the teak decks as there are several spots we had leaking. Dirk sealed the chain plates on the aft deck which stopped several of the larger leaks but we still had some of those mystery leaks that appear and like others we are having trouble tracing them down.  One of the worse ones was in our aft head cabinet and we really didn't realize how bad till we started removing the shelf and carpet. We ended up tearing the inside of the cabinet out and we are letting it dry thoroughly before rebuilding it.

When Dirk rebuilds the cabinet I will post it

 To stop the other leaks we started the teak deck caulk removal and replacement along with scraping and sanding in the cockpit as it seemed the easiest place to start. Also since this is the first time for us trying this we figured if we were gonna practice it should be in an area that had cockpit cushions covering them most of the time in case it didn't look the greatest. I spent many hours scraping the finish off the teak, in some places it was so thick that it resembled molasses and was gummy, other places it just swiped right off.

The general condition of the entire deck

Once that was done, the task of scrapping out the old caulk began. Again in some places it was so gummy and seemed wet turning my skin black and sticky making it a real mess. Other places I could just vacuum it out as it was so dried out and crumbly. Someone in the past on this boat decided that it would be easier to just take a router and rout the joints out. I wish they hadn't, what a pain as the lines are not exactly straight and they made them so deep now which allows for more water intrusion.

The only reason we are spending so much time on the decks is we would like to get a couple seasons out of them before spending the time, energy and money to pull the teak up and have it replaced with a new fiberglass deck. I have pretty much been the destruction person and Dirk is doing the final sand and caulk replacement which has been the cause of much hate and discontent to the caulk. Usually he ends up wearing as much as went down on the decks. We thought about leaving the decks bare once the caulking was done and let them gray naturally so they would be less maintenance, but after talking to a couple people we decided to give TeakGuard a try. TeakGuard is not an oil, nor a sealer but it penetrates the teak and protects it from the black mold and mildew that likes to grow on teak and it keeps it with that wet look. Below is a shot I took of before, during and after.

On the far right of the photo is what the deck looked like when we purchased Renegade with several layers of something on her decks that was peeling and chipping with every step and gummy and gooey in the areas that didn't get any wear. To the left of that is the deck with the caulking removed and sanded, ready to have the caulking replaced, wood cleaned and guarded. On the far left is one of the cockpit seats that have been completed and TeakGuard applied. From what we understand if you reapply a coat about twice a year it will stay like this. No sanding when its time to apply again. About as maintenance free as you can get and still get this look. It goes on very easy with a foam pad or foam brush and cleans up easy. I will keep you posted on how it holds up. I'm wondering if I want to do my bright work with this or if I should varnish it. Varnish will look nice and shiny but there is a lot of it and it will need to be maintained. I have also been hearing a lot lately of people using epoxy and varnish on the bright work and I am doing some research to see if that would be a good route or not. 3 coats of epoxy and 3 coats of varnish sound a lot better than 12 coats of varnish. The jury is still out on what to do but once decided I will let you know. Any thoughts? Input would be appreciated.....On another note we have been doing a bit of work down below getting our new digs up to par. We have moved to the aft berth since the last posting and since we are the types to watch TV before heading to bed we decided to mount a television at the foot of the berth and took the extra DVD player from the salon and mounted it under the shelf.

shot from the galley looking into the aft berth, as you can see the covers on the seat need to be done over, hummm its been a while since I have sewn. Time to relearn.

The television mounted on a swivel arm so we can enter the closet behind it with the DVD player mounted under the cabinet to the right.

I love our aft windows, waking up to scenes like this

and if we are really tired seeing the sunset before heading to sleep

When we first got Renegade we noticed there was a TV antenna mounted on the mizzen mast but when Dirk followed the wires he noted they had been cut and left to dangle. Hummm guess it doesn't work anymore. Since we are in a marina that doesn't provide cable that meant the only television we were watching were shows and movies that we had on DVD. After tracing a few wires around and re-connecting them Dirk found that we indeed did have a working antenna. Yippie, 40 channels to watch and nothing notable on. Oh well, we have a choice now at least and I get to watch my home make over shows I love so much when I have a moment that I'm not so tired that I fall into bed as my eyes are closing. I'm still cleaning a lot, wiping down headliners, walls and everything else while Dirk has been taking care of maintenance issues and in general getting to know the boat. What switch turns this on, what does this switch do? Whats that noise when I flip this switch? So many things to learn when you purchase a different boat. One item Dirk has marked off his list was to clean the fuel filters as they seemed to have a bit of crud in the bottom of them. Once he got it drained, and taken off to clean it was amazing how much gunk there was.

That doesn't look good

Wondering how long it had been since it had last been looked at. So after cleaning it up he got it reinstalled and moved on to the next project which will be covered a bit in the next post hopefully if I remember to cover it. One project we knew we wanted to get done when we bought the boat was to have the canvas redone on her. I don't think what is on there now is too old but the zippers are are pulling out and when you zip or unzip it the teeth fall out left and right. Besides that, it is an unattractive gray color and we want to match the cockpit cushions and the back deck cushions that are Burgundy. So were looking at having a full cockpit enclosure done with strata glass enclosure for those cold dreary days and 3 new sail covers done plus the UV lining of the Gib done all to match. We have a quote given to us that is expensive but I think about what others would charge so to put our minds at ease Dirk requested a 2nd quote from someone else. Hopefully this project will get started soon as the weather is slowly beginning to change. We did find out that we have just about a full sun cover for the boat. Sweet.....We had the main section up and it gave lots of shade to relax under and will help to keep the boat cool in the dead of summer. We also found other assorted canvas items that even we aren't sure of where they go. As I said at the beginning of the blog about taking care of life's "stuff". Well when we first started cruising several years ago we put all our "stuff" into storage units in Alabama. We wanted to make sure that we enjoyed the lifestyle and if not we had all our "stuff" to start over on land. Well as you have guessed we love this life and cant imagine moving back on land any time soon. Once one retires from the military you are given up to 5 years to make your final move that the military will do for you. Well our time is up this year so we took the opportunity to drive up and empty the units out. We sold some furniture while there and now our "stuff" is on a truck and on its way down to Florida here to deal with. I see garage sales, donations, and garbage days in our future. Its amazing what we hold on to thinking we need it all and once you live a life with minimal items you realize that all this "stuff" is just distracting and you can really do without it. Oh sure we will hold on to our sentimental objects that have a place near and dear to us but the longer we did without all that other stuff the easier it is to part with it. Hopefully soon I will have a new post talking about redoing the rigging, batteries that need attention very soon and new toys for the boat. Till then.....

Here is Capt. Butters enjoying some time on deck. I think he spotted a fishing bird on a rope here.

Renegade is in her new slip, so let the work begin

While the work on Renegade continued, Dirk and I had made plans to visit his family in Germany. One final trip to the yard in Palmetto to take a few more items off, check on the progress of work, and to make sure she would be ready for us to pick up once we returned. We were anxious to get her upon our return but we didn’t want to rush the work. After ten relaxing days in Hamburg, we returned home and had a nice Labor Day weekend with my sister and her family. On Tuesday we called the yard and found they were still working on Renegade, but the bow Sprit and bob stay were done, the thru hulls were done, and the only thing left was to put new zincs on and finish the engine alignment. When we purchased Renegade there was a practically new engine onboard but who ever installed it tried to use the old engine mounts. The end result was that during the sea trial when Dirk checked the engine out it was hopping all over the place. Now the engine is mounted correctly and there is no fear of it vibrating loose. We headed down on Friday to do the final paperwork, pay, and touch base with the yard foreman. Renegade was in a slip after the final run was made to check out the engine. Boy did she look great; they did an incredible job with everything and even left the interior cleaner than when they started. The bow sprit was painted white as were the stringers underneath and it glistened so nice.

We had brought several totes down filled with cleaning supplies, tools, and other items we knew we would need in the first couple days to begin work. We put them on the boat and left to get a hotel for the night as we wanted a good night’s sleep before Saturdays move and cleanup. Saturday morning we awoke to clear skies and very warm temperatures. My brother in law Chuck had expressed interest in helping us move Renegade to her new home at the Seafood Shack Marina, so he and my niece Amanda arrived the next morning. We were glad to have the help as this would be the first time Dirk would be at the helm. Yikes, this was a very tight boatyard to maneuver out of but with Chuck on the Stern and me on the bow being lookouts Dirk drove her out of the slip and into the Manatee River with no problems. Unfortunately Mother Nature decided that we couldn’t possibly have too good of a day so she threw some thunderstorm action in there for fun. We actually got lucky and just caught the tail end of the storm getting just a bit of a soaking as we were leaving the river and entered Tampa Bay. It wasn’t so bad and it made the temps drop so we didn’t sweat near as much. This is where the ICW picked up and we recalled from two years ago when we came through here with Tybee Time that this was a very narrow stretch. We got through with no problems and after a short trip arrived at the Marina. Lucky for us there were three people to help grab lines and get us in. Docking is always a nail biter for me, but docking a boat that you have never docked before is something new. Dirk again did a great job considering we had some wind and current working against us. That and the fact that having never docked this boat he had no clue how she would react with prop walk and such. After securing her nicely we bid brother in law and niece farewell and they headed back home as we set to work trying to clean the vee berth up enough that we could sleep in it. Don’t know if I mentioned this or not but Renegade has no air-conditioning what so ever on her. First order of business was getting one. We already had it ordered and waiting for us back at the house. But for tonight we pulled out the small window unit the previous owner had stowed in the dock box and put it in the hatch, rigged a tarp around it and set it to full blast. We finally called it quits about 11:30 that evening hit the showers and crawled into a nice clean, cool bed to sleep.


The Vee Berth where we have been sleeping while working in the rest of the boat. Dirk decided he wanted the top bunk and gave me the entire bottom, sweet....

The following day we headed back to the apartment so we could pick up the new air conditioning unit we had ordered along with whatever else we could cram in the car. Had a nice evening and headed the hour and a half back to the marina the following morning. As soon as we returned we set about the task of measuring the footprint of the unit to make sure it would fit in the desired location. We ordered the Mermaid 16,000 BTU unit with reverse cycle heat. That should be good enough to cool the main salon along with the front cabin and head. The overflow would feed into the galley and workroom. We are planning on running a smaller second unit in the aft cabin that will cool the aft head and fill in the work room and galley from that end. We selected a space under the starboard settee as it has a pull out berth here and thus is a pain to get under without taking many things apart.

The Starboard Settee with A/C complete

There was also a chart holder that had access under the navigation table in this spot that we decided to remove as we felt it was wasted space. Once we removed the chart box we found about 7 packs of Roman Noodles that had expired 10 years ago. Scary as they probably have a shelf life of at least 5 years. We also found an old TV remote that I’m sure someone spent several hours searching for before finally giving up.

The chart box that we removed and below the treasures we found lurking below

The A/C unit fit perfectly under here and the thru hull that had been installed for the water intake was just a few feet away, perfect. Everything installed nicely and the only thing we were hesitant about was drilling that hole in the side of the boat one must do in order for your discharge water to exit. It says to drill from the outside of the boat and I’m sure this is so you know where you are in regards to the water line. Although this is a great theory, unless you know where you are on the outside, you really don’t know where your hole will be on the inside. So after doing repeated measuring using the port hole as a reference we found the spot where we should be exiting the boat from the inside. As Dirk started drilling we held our breath till we saw daylight streaming into the boat rather than water pouring in. Aaaahhh, breath as it landed exactly where we wanted it. Wow, this was turning out to be a good day. Very seldom can a boater do a project without dealing with 5 other projects and 10 trips to the local hardware and West Marine Store in the process.

The shot of the unit from above before the excess air duct hose was removed

Dirk got the vents run and the intake installed. The only thing left to do is to do final mounting of the temperature control box and zip tying the vent hoses up and out of the way so we can have a bit of storage underneath them if needed. Which on this boat we aren’t having any problems finding at this point. We fired the A/C up and after a bit of trouble shooting here and there she began cooling like a champ although it did take Dirk about 20 hours to do everything from start to finish. Poor guy didn’t get finished till about 3 am. So now that the A/C was installed and we could work in the boat in semi coolness, the aft A/C was gonna have to wait. It had not been ordered but we decided we could take the window unit and put it in the aft hatch once we started to occupy that cabin. Right now I was calling that the scary room as there were several problem areas that needed attention and soon. That was our next project to tackle, the chain plates. Apparently they had been leaking for some time and when we first looked at the boat we noted wet wood in the aft head, most of it centered in the closet. So for now we will get back to work and hopefully have an update sooner than later on our progress. The internet in this marina is nonexistent, so that and the fact that my intentions to write are there but finding the time to do so is hard. Once we finish working, put a bit of food in our bodies, drag ourselves to the shower and stop for a minute we are sleeping. Hopefully I will get into the groove and make it a point to post our progress as we go along. Don’t hold your breath, I’m just hoping…….

Replacing the Bowsprit

One of the first items to be done on Renegade when we first bought her was to replace the bowsprit and repair the bob stay. These are two important components of a boat and we felt it was best tackled by people who knew what they were doing. Basically the bowsprit is a pole extending forward on the bow of the boat that provides an anchor point for the fore stays and thus needs to be strong. If not, it can spell disaster and cause your rigging and mast to come down. Ours is about 12 feet long so its not an easy job to take on.

The Bowsprit is the wooden beam with the bow pulpit (metal railings) above

On our first inspection of the boat we noticed there had been a previous repair done and a bracket installed for strength. Anytime you drill holes in wood there is always a possibility of water intrusion if not bedded properly or re-bedded when needed. This is the problem we were seeing along with the wood de-laminating. We made a trip down to the boat to check on the progress and pull more items off the boat for organizing and cleaning. It will be much easier once we get on board to start with a clean slate with lockers emptied, and can I tell you, there are a lot of lockers. Wow is it hot down here right now. Dirk & I both bought extra pair of clothes to change into once we were done and boy did we need them. Dirk was actually creating a puddle from the sweat dripping from his shorts. Once we loaded the car with what we could, we changed and headed over to the boat yard office and wood shop to check on the progress of work.

                                                                                 

Looking from above and below at the bare bow of Renegade after the pulpit & bowsprit were removed

Here you can see rot and de-lamination

Here is the old and new bowsprit side by side

 

The new stainless steel bracket we had to have made due to the old one being cracked. This is where the two fore stays attach

Once the bowsprit is complete it will be epoxied to seal it and then painted white. Along with this we are also having some work done on the bow pulpit as the underside had some rot in certain places. These areas were cut out and will be repaired, sanded and painted white also.

The underside of the pulpit

The rot removed and ready for repair

There are a couple other things being worked on such as a few through hulls being replaced and some realignment of the engine that is being looked at right now. We shall see what kind of project that turns into. Dirk and I will be heading out to visit his family in Hamburg Germany this next week and were hoping that when we return next month that she will be ready to splash and we can move her to a marina a couple miles away. Till then....