The Captain, Author at S/V Akupara

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

March 17, 2015March 17, 2015

New versus old

We are leaning more and more towards replacing critical components with all new systems. Originally we considered keeping the engine and having it overhauled but as we get farther and farther down this path, we are leaning farther and farther towards a new one. This same thought process is happening with everything on Akupara.

Some would argue why spend all the extra money when you can save a bunch by fixing and reusing what is already there. I agree with this thought process completely but, the last thing I want to do is to be in a nice tropical anchorage and be worrying about my 45 year old engine, or the 45 year old wiring that is behind the walls and that I can’t see.

This is going to be our last big boat and we plan on keeping it for a very long time and we would like to have as many years as possible without having to worry about old systems.

The other side of this is that yes we could keep the existing engine and have it rebuilt, but how long will it take to spend $5000? I would guess that the starting price at rebuilding is close to that, and it wouldn’t take long to be creeping up to the $10000 price range. One or two major problems after that and we have just spent the cost of a new engine, on a 45 year old engine.

This of course opens up a whole other can of worms as now we are going to have to start thinking about fuel tanks as well. If the engine comes out, we might as well replace the 3 tanks while we have the access rather than discover a problem a year down the road.

We are still trying to feel our way through this decision process, but all of the indicator lights are currently pushing us towards going all new. And hey, in the end we will have a brand new 1976 Whitby 42, how many people can say that? 😉

Now, I need to start offsetting the cost of the new engine so who needs parts for a 60hp Ford Lehman ?? I will even consider selling the engine whole for $800, if you pay the costs associated with removing it!

March 15, 2015March 15, 2015

The ugly side of painting.

Sometimes things just don’t turn out the way you planned.

This weekend was one of those things. We didn’t even make it to Akupara, somehow other things got in the way. That being said, we did manage to get 3 coats of paint on the back side of all of the panels from the interior. Why paint the backside you ask? Well, because they had never been painted and to be blunt, they were pretty gross. Our basement is getting smaller and smaller everytime we turn around. Behind all of the panels in the picture is some of our scuba gear, where in hell we are going to put all of this stuff on Akupara I have no idea. I think we need a bigger boat 😉

Two boats ago we had an Alberg 30, and for those of you who do not know, the Alberg 30 and the Whitby 42 were made at the same place, Whitby Boat Works. Having previously owned the Alberg 30, I am intimately familiar with the way these boats are assembled, and both are done the exact same way. All of the panels are screwed in and none of them are painted on the backside. Personally I like the fact that when we re-assemble Akupara, we will know beyond a shadow of a doubt that every square inch of surface area that we can not see, is clean, painted, and is somewhat protected from mould and mildew.

The paint I chose to cover the backs of the panels is a standard exterior mildew resistant paint. OMG you say, why are you not using Marine paint? Well, to be honest, considering we just used over half a gallon simply to paint the backs of the panels, we could eventually go bankrupt buying paint alone. When it comes time to paint the interior of the hull, we will spring for a higher quality paint, however nobody will ever see the areas that we painted with the cheap stuff, unless they start removing panels any way, and some paint is better than no paint! 😉

March 8, 2015March 8, 2015

Captain’s Orders

The weather in Vancouver has been great the last two weeks and yesterday it was a true spring day. We made it to Akupara shortly after nine, with a full crew plus one and by midday we were working outside in the sun and the solar panels were actually putting a bit of juice into the battery bank.

Graeme, August’s boyfriend, came along after graciously offering his help and my accepting. We have known Graeme for a couple of months now and he is a great kid! It was a very nice change having a young man aboard and I took the opportunity to use his strength to assist with a few things that I had been putting off. I made my way into the engine room and Graeme followed. We tried to trace the water maker plumbing and eventually gave up and just started cutting the hoses. After many contortions and maneuvers we successfully removed the entire system and one of the old starting batteries that was slowly self destructing. Now with me being the farthest into the engine room and Graeme basically blocking the door, there was no way that I would be able to lend a hand to the ladies without having Graeme move, climbing out of the engine room and making my way to wherever the issue was, so Graeme took up the role and did a great job. As we were removing bits and pieces we could of course hear the goings on in the rest of Akupara and the feigned attempts at removing difficult screws and what have you. After what seemed like an eternity, I asked Graeme to go see if he could help and off he went. Within 30 seconds he was back and the issue was resolved. Hmmm, I might need to keep this guy around!! 🙂

I am teasing of course, a lot of times the issues do boil down to strength, however, normally speaking the Admiral and the crew manage to successfully perform any task they take up and perhaps at times they may try a little harder than I would just to make the point. Of course it does help to prod them along with “girl” comments 😉

So anyway back to my story. August is a lot like myself and when she attacks something, she is either 100% or not at all. The last couple of weeks she has been extremely helpful and accomplished a lot of work. As we have been stripping the wiring, this is what the ladies did while Graeme and I were in the engine room.

Before we started yesterday I basically gave everyone a primer that went something to the effect of cut and remove any wire that is not grey (part of the auto pilot), or the larger white ones(GPS antenna wires) the rest are fair game including the AC wires as I specifically had not plugged in the shore power.

Occasionally there would be a call of “Dad, what about the green/blue/black/purple one that goes into/under/over this “thingy”?

Now, I have looked at every wire and every square inch of Akupara so far and I will say that I have a pretty good idea already of what is where, but when I am sitting inside the engine room beside the port fuel tank the only point of reference I have is to listen to where the voice is coming from, and based on that plot a line of position to where the individual is. From that estimated position, I then try to ascertain what said “thingy” is and thereby deduce which wire is currently confusing them. I am pretty good at it after 19 years of marriage and 16 years of having kids, so the majority of the time my answers were a precise yes or no and this system worked very well, or so it seemed. It also helps that there were only 3 different wires that I actually wanted to keep but there is no need to tell anyone that.

At the end of what I thought was a very fruitful day, I was making my rounds through Akupara prior to locking up and identified two little points of miscommunication. The port solar panel wire, which I do admit is black and red had been cleanly severed and to my amusement so had the main shore power cable from the back of the receptacle to the panel. The answer given when the question was asked was, “You said to cut all the black wires!” Damn.

I also recall the exact moment that the shore power line was cut and I also recall giving a firm yes when asked the question as it went something like this. Dad, what about the big black wire that goes through the cupboard. Based on my plotting I ascertained that August was at the starboard dressing table, which may have been a degree or two off. I also recall Graeme going to help with the big wire cutters. I also recall not clearly explaining that I wanted to keep the shore power available so that I could charge the batteries. 🙂

Oh well, it was going to come out sooner or later anyway.

Summary of yesterdays work:

Water maker removed (identified another area of rotten plywood between the engine room and the aft head)

All electrical wiring from fore and aft of engine room removed. Rudder gudgeon removed and cleaned (appears to be okay to reuse, corrosion was isolated to the nuts and bolts)

Navigation station dismantled.

Shore power cut. 😉

March 7, 2015March 7, 2015

Counting Stars

Last night we visited Denis and Rosario aboard Counting Stars for a few cocktails and dinner. What a fantastic evening, thank you so much! Counting Stars is in beautiful condition and it is hard to comprehend that Akupara will someday resemble the same, but having the opportunity to visit a Whitby in such fine condition has refreshed the drive to get Akupara completed. Just as soon as the cobwebs from last night clear a bit anyway 😉

This was actually the first time Andrea and I have been aboard a Whitby 42 while it is afloat, and we were not disappointed! Counting Stars is as solid as we expected and barely nods “Hello” to you when you come aboard, which is exactly what we had read in all of our research.

Andrea and I spotted many similarities and also a few differences between Akupara and Counting Stars, and we also saw a lot of great ideas that we will steal and incorporate into Akupara, up to and including the hard dodger, I think.

There were 2 other guests as well last night and with 6 people aboard, there was still lots of room for all of us both in the cockpit and in the main salon! This is exactly why we went with a Whitby 42, but it is always different, actually experiencing it, as opposed to just thinking about it!

We shared a lot of good stories, a lot of laughs, I think more than a few bottles of wine, and as the night grew longer, I think the length of some of the tall tails grew in unison, which ended in a few calls of “BS” from some of us! But it was all in good fun and always ended in more laughs!

We can’t wait to return the invitation and have Denis and Rosario over for dinner on Akupara, but it will be a little while yet! 😉

Weird going to a boat directly from work in nice clothes and leaving just as clean as when you arrived. After a while you begin to think that all boats require dedicated dirty work clothes just to visit! 😉

As we made our way home, we spoke about how this is what it is going to be like in the future when we are actually out cruising, and why we are working so hard now to make it happen.

Great boats, great people, great laughter, and great anchorages, and maybe a tall tale or two thrown in for good measure!

Thanks again guys, the break was truly appreciated!!

March 4, 2015March 4, 2015

Shocking…

We have been pretty busy as of late which has kept me away from updating the blog, so my apologies. The last two weekends have been spent continuing to remove the interior panels, bringing them home, and now the electrical stripping has begun. I figure we have one more trip to bring home the rest of the pieces.

So far we have managed to remove all of the 12 volt wiring, as well as the 110 volt wiring on the starboard side, from the nav station area forward. The port side is back to the main cabin bulkhead between the foreward head and the main cabin. It is amazing how long it takes to actually get this stuff out. The old electrical boxes are badly corroded and the majority of the screws are pretty rusty. The AC wiring is some of the thickest, most hard to cut stuff I have seen in a long time, but seeing as how it is 38 years old, it has to go. Which means that even with all of the interior panels out, we still need to twist and contort to odd angles and positions in order to remove it. It is fastened very well! We have also had to go a little bit deeper into the removal of panels than I was originally intending, but hey, in for a penny, in for a pound!

Over the last couple of months the battery bank has slowly gone down more and more so on Sunday I decided to try to charge it a bit using a standard automotive charger seeing as how the electrical is 1/4 gone and I have loose wires hanging everywhere, I am unable to plug in the shore power of course. The little charger managed to put a bit of life back into the batteries, we will see just how much this weekend. However it gave me enough that I was able to pump the bilge out, and just for the hell of it, turn the ignition key.

The good news is that the engine turned over – barely. So at least we know that it is not seized and that the starting system is correct. if we decide to try to keep it, we have are a little farther ahead, but it will obviously require a lot of TLC before we try to start it for real.

Our basement is slowly becoming inhabitable. It is filled with more boat parts than I care to mention and at some point we are going to need to take a boat day, and use it to organize the basement so that we can start making some progress on rejuvenating all of the bits and pieces.

I am eagerly awaiting for the day when we have enough of the interior removed and stripped away, that it makes sense to pressure wash inside to remove the years of grime and filth. Almost there I think, not counting the engine room yet.

February 22, 2015

Pages Updated!

Hi everyone,

Finally made a bit of progress on the blog, a lot of updates were made to a lot of pages, and we have added a lot of pictures to the gallery. They are in no particular order right now. Take a look around and enjoy!

February 22, 2015February 22, 2015

Water, water, everywhere…but not where it should be!

To all boat owners everywhere. If you have a deck leak, please take the time to address the situation properly to prevent unnecessary damage!

Akupara was built in 1976. That makes her 39 years old. We expect to find issues considering her age and that there have been several previous owners, which is why we are doing a complete rebuild which includes completely gutting the entire interior, electrical, plumbing, and mechanical. Had we just launched her as is, we would never have been aware of some of the more serious issues that we are slowly discovering. We knew we had a large foredeck repair coming and since then have discovered that the anchor locker bulkhead will need to be completely replaced, and yesterday as August disassembled the aft cabin, I had my first really good look at the mizzen main chainplates. The chainplates themselves have been replaced which is great, but they will need to be removed, and I will need to perform some surgery on the aft head bulkhead and aft dressing table bulkhead. It seems that whoever did the replacement, removed the old chainplates and discovered some wet plywood in the bulkheads. Rather than completely cut out the wet wood, and glass in a proper repair, they simply used a hole saw and drilled a bunch of holes enough to chisel out the immediate area of the chainplate, used some kind of a block of plastic and reattached the chainplate. I was stabbing it with a screwdriver to try to identify how big of an area will need to be fixed. Prior to that, it actually did not look that bad.

Thankfully, the actual knee that the chainplate is bolted to, which is on the other side of the bulkhead, seems to be solid and dry so the repair will be limited to replacing a portion of the bulkhead only. As well, the repair will be hidden inside the upper lockers in the aft cabin as since it is a rather tight area to get to, the repair may not turn out as visually pleasing as I would normally like. This does allow for a more robust repair though, which is good.

So, we have some more grinding and glassing to do but when we are finished, it will be as solid as it was originally. Did I mention that we will be using all marine grade plywood for repairs? Household plywood has absolutely no place on a boat.

Oh and there is also a very good look at some of the condition of the deck fitting bolts. You can actually see water dripping from one bolt. These are for one of the stanchions which we have not removed as of yet.

For those of you who have been following along, you may be wondering why we seemed to switch to dismantling the interior. We decided that we needed to gut the interior as soon as possible to allow Akupara to thoroughly dry out inside. All of the “pegboard” that lines the hull inside the lockers is simply trapping moisture, and hiding cockroaches 😉 and needs to be removed asap and given a chance to dry as well as quite a few pieces of wood.

February 22, 2015

Carlos the Cockroach

I was in the aft cabin helping August remove a few difficult screws and Paige and Andrea were in the main cabin and forward head working away when the scream finally came. It was the admiral who discovered our stowaway! I quickly made my way forward with visions of blood or some other trauma flashing through my mind. How do you hurt yourself with a screwdriver was all I could think. As I arrived on the scene I found the Admiral attempting to mount a courageous attack. There she stood in her finest combat attire, a screwdriver in one hand and the vacuum in the other. She was definitely shell shocked, and seemed unable to make the final offensive or lead her troops into battle. I hurriedly glanced at Paige to see if perhaps she was the victim, however a quick glance revealed no blood there either. I didn’t understand. What had happened? Where was the injury, who had suffered it? Very slowly the admiral pointed with the screwdriver. In almost a whisper she slowly mouthed the dreaded word. Cockroach!

Now to be honest I am not the greatest fan of creepy crawly’s either, but this is our home damnit, or will be eventually and as the Admiral, I would expect that upon finding a stowaway, she would immediately take charge and either arrest said stowaway, or make them walk the plank or something, but in this case, I assume she felt that it was time to delegate responsibility to those beneath her. Paige, was already at the top of the companionway preparing to abandon ship and refused to come below to meet Carlos. I quickly grabbed the vacuum and put an end to Carlos forever. Or at least until we have to empty the vacuum. Well, of course Carlos mounted a strong offensive and absolutely refused to go down the hose, and as soon as I shut the vacuum off, he fell out of the end of the nozzle onto the cabin sole. This inspired another round of “war cries” from the peanut gallery, brave souls they are. By this point now, The admiral, August and Paige were all gathered around the companionway and I could tell by the look in their eyes that it was each man for themselves and they would take no remorse in leaving their comrades behind, or trampling overtop of each other in order to make their escape.

Eventually the screw that we had sucked up previously, fell out of the hose as well, and both screw and castaway were consumed by the trusty shop vac.

By the way, I forgot to mention that Carlos the Cockroach appears to have been dead for several years. Carlos, prior to his passing, found the only dry spot in the entire boat, tucked way in behind a piece of the pegboard that lines the inner hull, inside the head cupboard and was slowly mummified

It was only a matter of time before we found him. All of the indications were there, and the further we dug into the bowels of Akupara, reducing and eliminating places of cover and discovering new exciting secret locations, the higher the odds were that we would discover him!

We have found approximately 30 cockroach motels and at least 10 spots where there was cockroach paste, that brown sticky poisonous bug killer had been smeared in high traffic areas. So we knew at one point in time Akupara had a serious case of stowaways.

So the good news I guess is that the previous owners took the issue seriously, but the bad news is that with all of the hiding spots, we were still a little worried about finding them. Thankfully, when we finally did find Carlos the Cockroach yesterday, his days had ended peacefully a long time before.

February 18, 2015February 18, 2015

Stain-Less steel, not Rust-less steel…

I firmly believe that there is a common misconception out there that stainless steel is a miracle material that will never stain, never rust, and never corrode.

After removing every screw, bolt, nut and washer from Akupara’s decks I can assure you that this is not true. Every single screw, bolt, nut and most washers was either rust stained, partially rusted, or completed corroded all the way through. We broke as many screws as we managed to successfully remove, when trying to get them out.

Some of them we were able to remove after they broke, but some of them still need to be removed. Almost all of the corrosion starts approximately 1/16th of an inch below the deck. So it isn’t on any visible part, and if you could remove whatever fitting it is without removing the screw, you would not be able to see anything wrong. However, back the screw out 1/16th and the issues start to appear.

When we begin reinstalling things, we hope to avoid some of these issues with the way that we will countersink the deck and add little rings of butyl tape around the bottom of each screw. When the time comes, we will document the process on the sight for everyone to see.

Take this as a warning to anyone who doesn’t re-bed their fittings on a regular basis, perhaps it is time to check all of that stuff?

No worries honey, it's stainless! — No worries honey, it’s stainless!

February 15, 2015February 18, 2015

Voyaging

We had our first fellow Whitby 42 owners onboard Akupara today! Denis and Rosario from “Counting Stars”. They are new owners as well and what a pleasure meeting and spending the afternoon with like minded people! It seems that most people who pursue and eventually purchase a boat of this pedigree have somewhat similar dreams, and no matter the specific destination, they all involve bluewater.

Their Whitby is in much better condition than ours is currently but they were extremely gracious and were able to see beyond the dirt and mold and see Akupara in her eventual glory. We eventually went out and had lunch and a beer together and swapped stories of adventures past, both offshore and onshore and our dreams of adventures still to come. Of course it wasn’t long before talk turned to “Blue” jobs and “Pink” jobs, but we had a lot of fun! 🙂

This is what it is all about. Meeting interesting people who share a common goal. It doesn’t matter where you come from or what your background is, whether you are a doctor, lawyer or an Indian Chief, all that matters is that you share a passion.

A lot of us may never realize upon seeing ours dreams fulfilled. It is a sad truth. But ultimately, is it the completion of, or the adventures to get there, and who you get to share it with, that makes for a successful passage?

And since I am being sappy, I want to share my favourite quote.

“To be truly challenging, a voyage, like a life, must rest on a firm foundation of financial unrest. Otherwise, you are doomed to a routine traverse, the kind known to yachtsmen who play with their boats at sea… “cruising” it is called. Voyaging belongs to seamen, and to the wanderers of the world who cannot, or will not, fit in. If you are contemplating a voyage and you have the means, abandon the venture until your fortunes change. Only then will you know what the sea is all about.

“I’ve always wanted to sail to the south seas, but I can’t afford it.” What these men can’t afford is not to go. They are enmeshed in the cancerous discipline of “security.” And in the worship of security we fling our lives beneath the wheels of routine – and before we know it our lives are gone.

What does a man need – really need? A few pounds of food each day, heat and shelter, six feet to lie down in – and some form of working activity that will yield a sense of accomplishment. That’s all – in the material sense, and we know it. But we are brainwashed by our economic system until we end up in a tomb beneath a pyramid of time payments, mortgages, preposterous gadgetry, playthings that divert our attention for the sheer idiocy of the charade.

The years thunder by, The dreams of youth grow dim where they lie caked in dust on the shelves of patience. Before we know it, the tomb is sealed.

Where, then, lies the answer? In choice. Which shall it be: bankruptcy of purse or bankruptcy of life? ”
― Sterling Hayden, Wanderer

February 14, 2015

Switching things up.

Sometimes you just have to stop what you are doing and switch to something else and that is exactly what we did.

We had an errand to run prior to going to Akupara this morning, we dropped off the 2 scuba tanks that were on board when we bought her to see if they were still good. 1 was toast but one passed the internal visual and appears to be salvageable so we left it to be hydro tested and have new seals installed. Of course since we went in with 2 tanks there was no way I could leave without 2 tanks so I purchased a good used one that passed visual and hydro last month. We pick up the original one next weekend.

So when we arrived at Akupara we just weren’t in the mood to fight with nuts and bolts on deck fittings so we changed things up and began dismantling the interior starting in the v-berth.

Behind the ceiling in the v-berth |(ceiling refers to the wood slats that are on the sides of the v-berth) we found 40 years of dust dirt and grime. I don’t think anyone has ever tried to clean behind it before and it is so black that the only way I can think to clean it off is to pressure wash it, so as soon as we have all the rest of the interior out, that is exactly what we will do.

We also marked out the areas on deck that we will need to re-core and we did 2 test spots with the belt sander to see exactly how hard it is going to be to sand it down. Thankfully, it seemed to go fairly well and in 15 minutes I had about 3 square feet sanded down quite nicely with 80 grit.

Tomorrow we will try to resume the removal of the deck fittings.

We have also decided to take out stock in a stainless steel screw company as we have probably discarded a full bucket of screws by now and will need to replace all of them. 😉

http://youtu.be/C0L7NeWkQlM