The 2 week blogger strikes again!

Another two week update. I really need to stay on top of the blog a bit better. In my defense I have been really sick. I know, I know, I have already used that excuse! Oh yeah, the weather has kinda sucked too.

The weekend before last, I didn't get as much done as I would have liked but here is what I did do:

First thing was to drain the bilge which was collecting water from all the rain we have had. Because I wanted to install a garboard drain I decided to measure for it and drill the pilot hole and use that as a drain for now. I carefully measured inside the bilge so that the drain will sit right at the lowest point and then transferred those measurements to the outside using the old engine water intake as a point of reference. There was a bit of guess work involved here because the intake was on an angle. I nailed it though! After drilling the pilot hole, I went back in the boat and measured from the hole to the bottom of the bilge. 1/2" exactly, just as it should be for a 1" garboard drain. This is the garboard drain I am going to install later:

And here is the pilot hole I drilled. This picture tickles me for some reason...

Once the bilge drained I got busy cleaning it. The stuff I scooped out was a "sweet" smelling mixture of oil, dirt and what I think was the remains of years of leaking sewage which accounted for the smell. I also found all kinds of other stuff that I am sure someone cursed over having dropped it down there. It all went in the trash though. After that I plugged the drain hole and filled the bilge with clean water and a mixture of detergent and oxy-clean. This I will let sit and do its magic for a week or so. No pics, sorry.

On Sunday, I removed the forward starboard saloon bulkhead. It is not a structurally bearing component, dont worry. It was glassed in where you see the paint color difference.

Here it is out of the boat

I also removed the sewage holding tank which to my dismay was full of sewage! I could not just open a valve and let it drain where the boat sits. My neighbors would have a cow if I did that but it sure would have been a lot easier. No, I had to pump it out using a drill powered pump, two pieces of old hose and a five gallon bucket. This might have been the nastiest task I have ever had to doo, pun intended. I first pumped out the liquids and poured it in the woods in two trips. I then had to disconnect the numerous hoses without the "solids" escaping. No easy feat and in the end I failed. Solids got everywhere inside the locker but I did manage to keep it to a minimum at first. I say at first because after getting the tank out of the boat I returned to go at the hoses which were clogged as it turned out. The first one I touched let loose of a wad of the foulest, grossest and ugliest nastiness, much to my surprise. Fortunately, I was somewhat prepared because I had just cleaned up the previous mess so I had plenty of towels handy. The gag factor was 10 of 10 and luckily for you readers I do not have pictures of all the gory details. I do have these though :)

The locker minus the tank but with the hoses, all sparking clean again

And the offensive tank out of the boat

This whole sewage ordeal convinced me that holding tanks are the devil and are not a good idea for a small boat. I will be installing a new fangled composting head like this one. That was it for the weekend before last.

During the week I sprayed the prop twice a day with PB Blaster in anticipation of removing it. On Thursday I put a prop puller on it and put a full load of pressure on the prop with no results. I tapped it a few times but it was not budging. Rather than ruining my nice 3 blade prop I decided to let time do its thing and left it with the puller fully loaded. I kept up the daily routine of spaying blaster on it until Saturday morning. That is when I walked out to check it and found that it had popped off during the night. Thank goodness because I had my grinder in hand and was about to cut the shaft rather than wait any longer. I wish I took a picture of it hanging there because the sight of it made me feel like a genius! I have these though, the shaft:

And the prop:

With that success I was feeling pretty manly so I started in the boat by sawing out the old engine beds and grinding the area flush with the rest of the hull. Here is the finished results:

I have found out that grinding makes a huge freakin mess and should be avoided if possible. Sadly, it is not possible to avoid it though. I did wear a tyvek suit, hood and 3M 6900 respirator so that I didnt breath or get covered in the fiberglass dust.

I next turned to removing the rest of the sewage system. Since it had set for a week, all of the remaining wet nasty stuff had dried up making the job a tad bit more enjoyable. There was still a little bit left in the bottom of the toilet but I was extremely careful and didnt spill a drop. That is until I tossed it out of the boat. When it hit the ground the shit hit the fan so to speak :) Here is the head compartment minus the pooper/hoses:

Yesterday (Sunday) I made getting the rest of the old woodwork out of the boat my priority for the day. It took all day so good thing I started early. I got it done and now I have a clean slate to work with when I start grinding off all of the old paint in the saloon and galley. Here is what the interior now looks like:

Getting rid of the head compartment and hanging locker really opens up the interior and makes the tiny saloon seem livable. Done for the weekend.

Today in the mail I received a pair of new winches that I won last week on Ebay. I virtually stole these! Brand new, in the box, Lewmar 40ST Evo's! These sell for $1100 each. I paid $550 and $565 in two separate auctions 20 seconds apart at 4am in the morning last Sunday. If the auctions had ended at a time when people are actually awake they would have sold for a whole lot more than what I got them for. Two for the price of one! The early bird got the worm! I unpacked them, inspected, repacked and forgot to take a pic. They are very very heavy and I am lazy so here are the boxes :)

I promise the next update wont take two weeks. It also will not take two hours to write up!