La Nieve Cruel de los Años

It was a long road! After spending so much time and energy looking for our next boat, and after the rollercoaster of emotions that came with the process of buying this one, we were super anxious to see it again - for the first time as ours. On the second Friday after closing, we made the 5-hour drive to an AirBnB in Manitowoc, excited for our first weekend of projects. 

Saturday morning didn't kick off exactly as planned, as neither of us were feeling incredibly well. Still, we were eager to get to the boat, and got a decently early start (by our non-morning-person standards), arriving at the storage facility in the mid-morning. 

After so much anticipation, it felt a little strange to arrive. But just like that, there she was, our "new" boat. We had already developed a long list of projects - for the first few years - and a fairly good idea of where we needed to start. Yet, now that we were there, it felt somewhat overwhelming... Like, OK, we're here... What now?! 

We took a little time to look around the boat (finally unsupervised and at our own leisure), as we waited for our "can do" gumption to kick in. Eventually, we realized we just had to start somewhere. Becca took to cleaning out storage compartments and drawers, which were incredibly full of stuff. It was not a small project and took her most of a day, leaving us with big discard and Goodwill donation piles (including a couple of TVs and the director's chair that was at the lower helm.)

In the process, she found a few little treasures. Via some old marina paperwork found in a drawer, we discovered that this boat was originally named "Deanna" and then "Double Bubble"  - maybe not names we'd have picked - but it's fun to imagine the former lives lived aboard this boat and wonder about the people who picked the names decades ago.

The best find may have been this meticulously presented Tylenol kit, with a metal case, which expired in 1981. It made me think that - like this boat - they just don't make things like they used to:

Ironically, as Becca cleaned things out, we made another mess as we moved things in... It wasn't long before the aft deck was cluttered with tools, cleaning products, and other items. 

I decided to start removing deck hardware that, like most fittings on the boat, showed signs of water intrusion. We figure that we have to get this boat water tight first, before working too hard on interior improvements. I was also itching to see what level of rot and/or moisture I may find in the deck's balsa wood core. 

I started with the two Bomar hatches and, after scoring the sealang with a scraping tool, was able to fairly easily pull them off with the help of some wood blocking and a clamp. 

My initial idea was to buy new hatches, but these cast aluminum hatches feel so solid and heavy duty that I started looking at refurbishing options. (Once again: they just don't make them like this anymore!) We have now sent them to Atkins and Hoyle for a full refurbishing, including a new acrylic lens, new seals, and a powder coating job on the frames. 

Next, I took on one of the scariest looking things. From the first time we saw this boat, my eyes had been immediately drawn to this vent. It just didn't look good, mounted on a piece of rotting mahogany and multiple layers of degraded and peeling sealant. Although the decks passed survey, I knew there had to be some moisture and possibly some rot around this. I find it very satisfying to remove this old stuff, it feels like quick and easy upgrades by subtraction. Thankfully, while I did find some rot, the problem was localized right around the opening. The picture of me is from the head below as I inspected the coring, right before scraping and vacuuming out about an inch of rotted balsa around the perimeter of the hole. We'll see what we do here, but step one is to let the area dry out for a month or two. 

While we did our own thing for a lot of the weekend, we had to work together several times. One particular challenge required our joint intellectual and physical efforts: Figuring out how to remove and lower the offensively heavy old ice maker off this boat. The ice maker didn't work (plus, we don't need an ice maker.) The cabinet where it was seems optimal for a shoe rack, right at the bottom of the steps as you walk into the salon... But I get ahead of myself... The ice maker was big and heavy, and the boat deck was 12' off the ground. As she usually does, Becca came up with a clever solution: We wrapped it in a blanket (to avoid damaging the side of the boat), then used heavy duty dock lines to wrap it like a present, and I slowly lowered it from the top as Becca guided it all the way down to the old mattress that we were also discarding. It worked great!

One more joint effort deserves mentioning... This was probably the most important thing we needed to do this weekend: removing the remaining water from the bilge areas. It didn't sound like a fun job so, unfortunately, we left it for Sunday afternoon, right before our drive back. Of course, It then turned out to be quite the ordeal. There was way more water than we expected (and the bilge pump situation is currently not great, more of that in a future post.) In any case, we had to carry many ShopVac-fulls of water from the bilge up to the decks, then down to the swim platform, so that we could pour them out. Thankfully, we were able to power up one of the bilge pumps, which probably saved us another 10 trips, at least. As Becca notes below, we sure know how to have fun. 

We did many other little things too. While at this time we had not yet named the boat, we were ready to "clear the canvas" for its upcoming name. Some might suggest we're gonna bug Poseidon in the process, but we reason that he doesn't have jurisdiction in the Great Lakes. We also removed the layer cake of registration stickers, the bottom layer of which showed a 2004 expiration. 

Of course, we also goofed around quite a bit, looking at every possible area in the cabins and imagining what we may do with it. There is a LOT of mildewy and dated wallpaper that will need to come down, to be replaced with vinyl, formica, wood, paint, or new wallpaper. Maybe even some Becca-designed new wallpaper (if you haven't seen her Spoonflower account, you should check it out!)... So, there we are below, taking a little break, dreaming of the day when this bed has a nice mattress and a beautiful wood headboard, and we're spending a weekend at anchor somewhere on the big lake.