A Family that Removes Waste Tanks Together...

We had our first guests at the boat! Woooo!!! OK, actually let's clarify... they were more reinforcements than guests: willing crew members that came to provide some motivation and muscle! Still, since no friends or family had seen our new boat yet, it was fun to have Becca's parents (Jim and Lori) join us last weekend. We got to give them a tour of the boat, show them our progress, discuss all the possibilities, and get their first impressions of our baby. It was all about the work though, and we arrived on Friday afternoon (instead of late at night), which gave us an extra day to do work compared to our previous visits. It turns out that with a crew of 4 and more time, you can get a lot more done! So, I'll share the progress from last weekend in two posts, this one focusing on important but maybe less glorious projects, and another one focusing on fun visible stuff, like teak restoration. 

This is by far the readiest we've ever been for one of our Manitowoc outings, and it was mostly thanks to Becca, who pre-planned and prepped all the meals for the weekend, so that we could 1. remain in our little COVID bubble and 2. spend as much time as possible on projects. We packed Jim and Lori's SUV to the brim and came up with a very ambitious list of project that we could tackle - with checkboxes as a strong motivator, because, who doesn't enjoy checking things off a list?

Remember how Becca removed the bathroom mirror all by herself? Well, the other two large mirrors that needed removal had no chance against this all-hands-on-deck crew... They made quick work of it, smiling even and injury free. While I can't take any credit for that project (I was busy working on removing the last window from the boat), I dare say that they made it look quite easy, even though the mirrors were heavily bonded to the wall with glue that had to be chiseled off afterwards. 

Jim took on quite the laborious and back breaking task of removing the carpet from the aft cabin. While we don't have much photographic documentation of this, the effort needs to be recognized here. "There are 17 staples in 4 inches here!" we heard him exclaim at one point. The nice thing about having no windows on the boat, is we could all hear each other talk - and... emote - as we each tackled our own tasks all over the boat.

The tacks on the floor came up easier than the ones on the wall where there was a carpet base board, those broke when pulled. Eventually Becca and Lori supported Jim with some of the staple removal, but we still have some left to attend to on a future visit. Some of the tack strips were screwed on with stripped screws, the removal of which required alternate approaches. Tollycraft did NOT mess around with carpet installation... good thing we've decided to leave the main salon carpet for the time being.  

We've enjoyed finding little easter eggs and evidence of this boat's previous lives, and as we messed around in the aft cabin with the carpet and the waste tank removal, we found this little sketch on the bed platform. I find it very relatable, as I had been scratching my head a bit about the division of compartments in the bilge, which ones are connected (or not) in terms drainage, and the bilge pump setup on the boat. Someone has already been exactly where we are now!

OK... on to one of the biggies! Removing the waste tank and associated plumbing: the kind of project that I tend to think about for weeks before it happens, imagining all the complications and difficulties that I may encounter when the time comes. That, and removing the 2nd head, which seemed easy in comparison but was actually annoying in practice. The hoses at the head were tough to pry loose, especially in the awkward position that I had to work in, leaning forward on my elbows. When the discharge hose finally came loose, it threw splatters of brown goo, most of which landed on the wall. But also I suddenly had this slightly cold tinge on my head... 

I must have made a noise since I heard Becca ask "are you OK, do you need anything?" to which I responded, "I think I might have poop on my head, so...!" Now, to me, that's a clear cry for help. But apparently it wasn't understood that way. (Becca claims she thought I could have been exaggerating.) So I stayed in my uncomfortable working position, on all fours and my hands in nasty gloves, awaiting assistance at any second... when hope started fading, I asked "so are you coming?!" ... "Oh... you need help?" ... "YES, I said I have POOP on my head!" ... Then Jim says, "Is it brown? If it's brown, it's probably not mud." Incredibly, I survived and we arrived at a happy ending: Becca brought the sanitizer and wiped my bald, poo-splattered noggin clean. 

But I digress. Back to that holding tank. It was attached to a network of disgusting hoses, all making for a complicated discharge system, with innumerable connections for potential leaks. Many connections were taped over, so the leaks were probably very real. It took careful planning to figure out how to best remove the whole thing while minimizing the amount of things that needed to be disconnected, and while making the least possible mess. Below, I am scoping out the area and hatching a plan. Once that plan was made, we had to cut the opening on the bed platform a bit wider so that the tank would actually come out. 

And here is most of it coming out... multiple Y-valves, macerator, and maze of hoses. I heard some gurgling when disconnecting some of them, so I taped the ends shut to minimize and control the discharge speed of any leaks when handling. What a glorious moment! Despite a little leakage, it could have been way worse. 

Another biggie we tackled was to diagnose and start a repair at the bilge area divider between the engine room and the aft cabin. This was originally flagged in the survey as a delaminated bulkhead and area of concern because when tapped with a phenolic hammer from the engine room side, it sounded hollow. But upon closer inspection, it was just a single layer of plywood tabbed to the hull just on one side, and hence not a structural element. The access to this area was tight, but I was able to work in there with a Dremel Multi-Max. I cut the rotted portion of the wood off and even made a nice straight line cut, peeling it off the fiberglass tabbing. You can see the illuminated hole I was working in below. The image on the left shows the remaining fiberglass tabbing and a hole where the rotted plywood was, where you are now seeing the backside of the engine room insulation. Fun times! We will rebuild this divider later this Spring, after we decide if new sanitary hoses or the new transducer cable will run through it. Might as well plan ahead for those if that ends up being the case!

There were quite a few other little jobs underway too, including scraping more goo off of window frames, polishing the drive shafts and installing anodes (the boat didn't have any!), and cleaning and epoxying somewhere around 40 to 50 holes left behind by carpet snaps and other old deck hardware (the fewer holes, the better!).

Here are Jim and I pouring a well-earned peanut butter stout before dinner, at the really cute Airbnb we stayed at. Later this week, we'll share one more blog from this project weekend, with some of the more immediately-gratifying jobs we did, such as starting to revitalize some of the teak in the cabin... And, we'll share Lori and Jim's impressions on the boat, after spending a weekend getting to know it pretty well.