 Ugg.... all winter we've been putting off lubricating the head. Over the past week, it's protesting by squealing and squeaking loudly every time we flush.
So, as I'm outside varnishing this morning, I smell this hideous odor, followed by a few rarely heard curse words. Hmmmm.... What is David up to down there???
Turns out he's decided that to lubricate the head, he has to tear it apart, so he might as well replace the joker valve and all the other parts in the rebuild kit. Here he cleans excess calcium build up out of the main housing before putting it back together. SUCCESS! The head is definitely happier... and after spending the afternoon at the pool, David seems much happier too.
In other news, the next to last coat of varnish is on and looking good! One more tomorrow morning after wetsanding with 400 grit for that mirror smooth finish.
Mark Alley spent his morning cleaning boat bottoms on D Dock, so Winterlude now has a clean bottom, no green slimey grassy stuff swaying from the waterline, no more barnacles on the propeller AND a new 1 1/4 inch zinc on the shaft.
Life couldn't be better!
Our days have a new routine ... every day we get up, drink coffee, then David sands the caprail with 220 grit sandpaper by hand. I wipe it down and then wipe it down again with tack cloth to get rid of any stray dust. And then apply another coat of varnish. We've now done 3 "sealer" coats and 3 "real" coats -- the ones that apply against the 5-10 coats that are needed to keep it looking good. The blue tape is probably seriously stuck, but the varnish is looking better and better! Last night we had a tiny crabby guy exploring the varnish -- he was about an inch long, and flew into the cockpit when I tried to shake him off the stern line to the piling. Scared me, but then he crawled all over the teak -- lucky it wasn't a few hours earlier or he might have stuck permanently! :)
We figure each coat takes about 3 hours -- a little over an hour to sand, a few minutes to wipe down & tack cloth and then a little over an hour to varnish. So now we're up to 74 hours total in the caprail project and about $400 in varnish/heat gun/sander/sand paper/badger hair brush and misc supplies. So when someone gives you a quote for what it would cost to do your varnish ... you have some frame of reference to know how much effort it would take should you decide to try it yourself!
Minimum 3 more coats to go ... that's another 9 hours! The toughest part will probably be removing the blue tape! Yikes! I've heard WD40 is good for that! Hope it doesn't eat the varnish! :)
OK, so we enjoyed our month out sailing, but now it's time to get back to work! We washed an inch of salt off the boat first -- one thing I will say is my old cadet gray sunbrella never showed all the salt spots ... the new really cool alpine green sunbrella shows salt spots halfway up the jib and even on top the dodger. How did salt water reach the top of the dodger & halfway up the jib, you ask ... stay tuned for the next Winterlude Update ... if you haven't read the 10th Anniversary Update, be sure to click on the Winterlude Update tab!!
We started back on the varnish project today ... one more coat, five more to go, but it's starting to look like I had hoped it would! Rodney stopped by and gave me some advice while I was varnishing, I'm amazed at the little tips & tricks the pros use to make it look so good! Also, loads of laundry, catching up on a month's worth of mail & bills,
And a great day! We walked the beach looking for fossil sharks teeth, kayaked all over the anchorage, discovered a "hidden" new lagoon, watched the alligator sun himself while the manatees played near ... he must not have been hungry! Freaked as literally 50 boats descended upon the Cayo Costa anchorage ... so far despite boats being near, all is well. Tomorrow we leave to go south ... wherever we wind up ... hopefully the Keys. We're dayhopping and gunkholing ... hopefully the 10,000 Islands in the Everglades and Little Shark River on the way south.... more soon!
Gone sailing! A giant sea turtle stuck his head up gawk at us as we sailed halfway across Charlotte Harbor. Dolphins were everywhere ... and a great sail, close reach in 12-ish knot breezes. Anchored at Cayo Costa, waiting for weather!
What a mess we made this morning with black caulk! I think we had more black caulk on us than on the caprail! But the first two sealer coats of varnish went on well. Hopefully the "real" coats of varnish will go on as smoothly! Making progress... another 14 hours!
 A while back, David & I decided that since we seem to have temporarily misplaced our $25 million, we can't afford to pay to have a pro redo our teak. The teak was in bad shape and getting worse, which is very sad because the teak on this boat is gorgeous - that would be the raw wood, not our caretaking!
When we started this project, we didn't imagine that either of us would actually LIKE the process, we just imagined how good it would look when it was done - and that we'd save a substantial amount of money.
Somewhere along the way, I realized that the wood is looking better and better and I'm sort of enjoying it. Tonight Rodney with his normal happy go lucky grin, greeted us from the next dock saying "see, it can be sort of addicting" ... and you know, he just might be right!
3 days and 20 some man (woman) hours later, the teak was stripped. I didn't realize anyone could get tennis elbow from holding a heat gun all day! But the teak was stripped.
And during the process, we attracted the attention of "The Varnish Artist", Rodney, who is behind us on the next dock over. He began offering suggestions to help make the process easier and better. He loaned us his work platform so we could work from the water rather than contortionizing on deck. He advised us to use Snappy Teak Nu to brighten the teak since my bleach and water solution hadn't made a dent - see post below.
He's basically been our project mentor. Which is amazing since he's the pro! But he's also in the middle of a total makeover of a 1967 38' Hatteras -- everything from re-gelcoating the cabin & hull, new awlgrip on both - while still in the water, redoing all the teak, replacing the mahogany inside with teak. I can't wait to see the end result -- it will be fabulous! Someday we hope to have Rodney redo Winterlude's awlgrip hull and maybe even topsides, but not this year because we spent the budget
Back to my teak ... we brightened it with the Snappy Teak Nu and it looked much much better -- another 10 hours -- 5 hours with two of us working = 10 hours! :) Hopefully we got all the mold & mildew.
I caught a virus bug, but David got antsy and blue taped the entire cap rail yesterday morning - another 2-3 hours. Then he started using the little mouse sander with 80 grit sandpaper ... he got about halfway down the starboard side before the almost brand new Black & Decker mouse sander attachment piece broke off. So he went back to Home Depot and asking no questions, they replaced the sander! Kudos to Home Depot!
Sanding the entire caprail with 80 and then 120 grit sandpaper took him another 11 hours, but tonight it's DONE! If I feel better in the morning, I'm going to start with the first "sealer" coat of varnish. We're using Pettit Flagship Varnish, another tip from our friend and mentor, Rodney!
44 hours and counting ... at $45 an hour for a pro ... we've saved
$2,000 and the varnish hasn't even begun ... and the strangest thing is that we may actually be enjoying it! Winterlude will look 10 years younger, like having a facelift!
We embarked on the brightening the teak aspect of the teak caprail project today. Our "Varnish Artist" friend, Rodney, told us we didn't want to use my normal bleach and water solution to clean the mildew and mold out of the teak since our teak was badly mold spotted under the cetol. He recommended Snappy Teak Nu -- a 2 part cleaner to brighten ... i.e. kill all the mold & mildew and melt away any remaining embedded cetol in the wood. The instructions clearly said to wear rubber gloves and protective clothing. So I got the long rubber gloves, but the protective clothing part turned into old clothes because it was 85 degrees and sunny. Sure enough, you can't see it clearly here, but my blue tank top is covered with PINK spots where the Snappy Teak splattered on it. The wind blowing about 20 didn't help me trying to stay out of the way of the spray.... so another tank top bites the dust! In the meantime.....
 Prior to applying Snappy Teak Part 1, the teak had to be wet.  Applying part 1 ... first I diluted part 1 by about 40% ... then used a red scrubby pad to put it on, scrubbing lightly across the grain as instructed. The teak turned BLACK! Then dripped on the rub rail below, creating black spots on it and forcing me to do it as well! All's well that ends well, but it was touch & go for a bit! And it had to be kept wet, as it kept drying out again & again in the 85 degree sun and 20 mph winds!  After standing on the teak for 2 minutes (David timed it), part 1 had to be rinsed off with water. It was a MESS! But finally all the black and reddish potent chemical washed off.  After rinsing off part1, it was time for part 2. The instructions say to put it on straight - so we used twice as much part 2 as part 1. It was put on with a polypropylene brush provided with the kit. It was fascinating watching it neutralize part 1. The black crappy looking teak turned golden and even colored. And with a bit of light scrubbing, more cetol kept coming up out of the teak. After applying part 2, we rinsed it again and again.  WOW! Blonde teak! You can see down the cap rail... first the new blonde teak, then the test patch I've already varnished with 2 coats, then the still wet already part 2'd cap rail. On the port side, you can see the blonde teak on the cap rail all the way back! Much more effective than my bleach/water for killing the mold & mildew! Next steps ... sand with 80 grit, then sand with 120 grit and FINALLY I'll get to apply the first two thinned down sealer coats of varnish. I found out they don't even count when you're counting coats ... so a 'minimum of 5 coats' means 2 thinned down sealer coats and THEN 5 more coats of varnish. In the meantime, we need to replace some of the black caulk so that may be the next major project.
It only took 3 days of contortionist manipulation of our bodies to fit the narrow side decks and bend to see beneath the rounded edges of the cap rail, but it's DONE! WooHoo! Next step ... we get to learn how to brighten our teak! But first we're taking some time off to visit with family! :)
We were lucky enough to borrow a friend's floating work platform which allowed access to strip the caprail on the underneath side without hanging head first over the rail. The project is coming along ... despite two rain delays today, we were able to strip the entire underneath all the way around the boat and start on the cockpit area of the rest of the caprail. Maybe tomorrow we'll have it stripped - then the REST of the fun will begin! Brightning it, then sanding it ... with two different grits and FINALLY I'll be able to put two primer or base coats of diluted varnish on. Meantime the stripped rubrail is starting to change to it's natural silver gray which was my objective when I stripped it a couple months ago! Too bad we have so much other teak. Once we finish the caprail, the grabrails and eyebrow will look pathetic. It seems
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