A Good Test For Leaks

Wow, we had a heavy rain on Saturday night.  The live-ins at the marina said it really came down.  So we were thrilled when we arrived Sunday morning to find absolutely NO WATER inside the cabin!  Mike fixed the dorade during the week and that was the last seepage we've seen.

Since Saturday was a family activity, Sunday we spent replacing grab rails and removing the last two on the cabin top.  Mike has already drilled them and they're ready for installation.

He also pulled some refrigerant lines during the week and we decided where we will put 3 of the 4 cabin fans.  They're sorely needed this summer.  Oh, and the new hatch covers we made are also helping to keep the sun out and the cabin "cooler".

Galley Deconstruction

After a couple of days of the flu, then a 5-day z-pak for bronchitis, Mike is back up and tearing the boat apart.  This time it's the galley.  The icebox didn't have enough insulation, which means taking out what's there and putting in better insulation.  Once the project got going, it took on a life of it's own.  Now we can design the galley any way we want, because most of it has been torn out:

Since it's all apart, we tried two options for locating the refrigerator and the stove.  These are the two we played with:

Of course the stove will sit up higher.  We also are tossing around the idea of putting an Engel drop-in freezer in one end of the refrigerator.  The refrigerator is kinda huge (in our minds), so we can put one end to good use.  However, we're concerned with having to take it out for any possible maintenance, so that is still under discussion.

We also managed to get in a couple of smaller projects, especially after the heavy rains we've had.  Mike noticed a few leaks:  one in a porthole, one in a prism (we'd already re-seated, but it drips in the engine room), and one in the mid portlight on the starboard side.  Oh, and believe it or not, one small drip is coming in through the mid-ship dorade.  So today we took out the leaky portlight (again) and found where the butyl tape had not adhered to the fiberglass.  We were more attentive this time and after dousing it (and the porthole we re-seated), we have no leaks from those locations.  Because the portlights were re-seated this past winter, many nuts were loose, so we tightened all of them on the portlights and feel much better about having gotten rid of the leaks.  We're not expecting any more!  ;-)

Before we left today, we also took off the 8 loop grab rail on the starboard side.  It's too expensive to have an 8-loop shipped to us, so we're putting in a 5-loop and a 2-loop.  The last loop was under the dodger windshield, so if we decide to put a hard dodger on her next year, we won't have to cut or go over the grab rail.  So this works out much better.

Nothing's changed?

Well, at least it looks like nothing has changed.  But a lot of work was done in the aft cabin (as you've seen in earlier posts).  Take up those cushions, remove the headliner, and look up on deck and you'll see all the work that was done.  But for now, the original cushions are back in place.  We can sleep on Abake now:

Now to start attacking the galley.  Stay tuned!

Aft done? Check!

Since it was so hot during the days, Mike worked evenings on Abake this past week.  He was able to finish cleaning the fiberglass deck and re-groove the planks; lay out the boards, expoxy and screw them to the fiberglass; insert the bungs and sand them smooth; tape and finish it with caulk.  So our "impromptu" project is done.

Now, why did we start this?  Oh yeah ... we wanted to put up the radar mast.  Well, here it is:

We decided not to add the cleats right now.  We're okay with both lines being on the one aft cleat, so the new cleats were stored.  Now we just have to run the radar cable, put the aft cabin back in order, and we can move "forward" on a new project!

In the meantime, it was waaaay tooooo hot this weekend.  (It hit 106 yesterday, but not for long enough to tie the record.)  So projects were done at home.  Since we made a trip to IKEA, we found a lightweight rectangular dining fly that we think will work well over our dark green bimini and shade.  We're hoping to keep the dark-colored Sunbrella from absorbing too much heat.  We bought one triangular-shaped one for the foredeck and we decided to try putting 3 of them together to stretch from the mast to the boom gallows. 

We may end up making modifications, but for the price, this experiment was too good to pass up.  And, not having spent time at sea on Abake (yet), we don't know what will work best for us.  So we'll try the inexpensive alternatives first!

They called it a "derecho"

Friday we had violent storms pass through the mid-Atlantic.  The news called them "derechos" -- from the Spanish word meaning straight line.  They started in the mid-west and then grew and wiped across the midwest through the mid-Atlantic.  Winds hit 80 at the marina and we lost power.  Luckily our house had power.  But Saturday, after finding no power at the marina, we couldn't mount our new cleats and could only do hand-labor tasks.  So, we cleaned stainless steel and put up the dinghy davits (which had been laying on the deck for 2 years). 

We wanted to put up the radar post, but didn't have the radar dome, but realized that the aft decking, under the mount for the dome, would need to be re-finished.  So, we proceeded to take up the teak decking at the aft end of the deck.  Sunday we had power, so we were able to clean the caulk off of the wood and most of it from the deck.  We still have a little cleaning left to do, then to sand the deck and re-glue the strips.

We also had a small leak in the aft cabin after the rains, but we believe that it is from the grab rails.  We will replace them.  But you can also tell that there was water that got between the fiberglass and teak decking.  It's noticeable because of the dark and dirty caulk we found after taking up the teak planks.  Luckily it doesn't look like water had gotten into the deck core.

Once this part of the decking is glued and re-caulked, the radar post (and dome) will go back up and then only the anchors will be left on the deck and there will be more room to walk around!