Three more stanchion bases complete.

The weekend of September 26th found us back at the boat for more rebedding.  I had hoped that by the end of Sunday we would be finished with everything but the stern pulpit and cleats, but alas, it was not to be.

Everything we’ve read said to use duct tape on the underside of the holes that are being repotted with epoxy.  The duct tape is supposed to keep the epoxy from running straight through.  However, I think it works better if the holes aren’t right next to the hull-deck joint bolts with a healthy dose of sealant smeared around the area.  We didn’t want to remove too much of the existing sealant, so we did the best we could on Saturday.  Jeff kept pressing on the duct tape, and I kept refilling the holes.  It seemed like a losing battle, and when we returned on Sunday we discovered we were right.  We had several holes for the bow pulpit and the “gate” stanchions that were only partially filled.  Oh well.  At least there was a bit of a plug that we could work with.

After we filled the holes yet again, we were able to cut three more backing blocks out of the G10 and rebedded three additional stanchion bases.  One of the things I like about this job is it’s giving us a chance to clean up each base.  The prior owner used Cetol instead of real varnish on the woodwork, and whoever did the job was a bit sloppy, splashing it on the stanchion bases.  A typical stanchion base looked like this:

After working at it with a putty knife and a paste of Barkeeper’s Friend, the base looked like this:

Much better!  I have no idea why the base is pitted – it almost looks like someone was beating it with a hammer, and it’s the only one that looks like this – but it still works so we’ll be spending our money on other things besides a replacement base.  The shinier, cleaned-up stanchion base is probably only something that we’ll notice, but it makes me happy to look at it.

The week leading up to the weekend of October 3rd had us keeping an eye on Hurricane Joaquin, which fortunately did not end up impacting Connecticut.  However, it did pour rain during the week, and the weekend brought cold temperatures and winds gusting into the 40’s.  Jeff was feeling the need for a break from boat work, so we decided we would only drive down on Saturday, and we wouldn’t do any work.  We simply wanted to check the boat and make sure she was holding up o.k. from the weather.

Upon entering we noticed there is still a slight odor (maybe a 1 – 1.5 on the odorometer), and although it quickly dissipated upon the boat being open, it looks like we still have some scrubbing to do.  It seems to be coming from the head, which isn’t particularly surprising.  It appears that more Clorox Clean-up is in my future!

We also had some rain puddles which was a bit of a bummer.  We were hoping that the stanchion bases we had already rebedded would help, and it did in a few areas, but water is obviously still getting in.  The most likely suspects are the chainplates, which we were planning on pulling and replacing during the offseason anyway.  It looks like the hatch in the main cabin is also leaking a bit, and maybe a port.  God forbid it’s the hull-to-deck joint.  All we can do is keep chipping away at it.  Eventually she’ll be leak-free and odorless!

Upon seeing the puddles we decided that even though we hadn’t planned on working, I would do some down-and-dirty quick rebedding in the area of the chainplates in the hopes that it would help keep Pegu Club drier during future rainstorms.  I’ll do the job properly once we replace the chainplates with new ones.  While I was crawling along the deck, Jeff was in the cabin tightening up some bolts on the hull-to-deck joint.  There are literally hundreds of them, so he just took care of the ones in the main cabin cubbies.  He’ll get to all of them by the end of the month.  Ninety minutes later we were back in the car and heading to Stonington to get some Bomster scallops, and the rest of the weekend was spent relaxing.  This included a lovely drive through the Litchfield Hills on Sunday with a stop at Kent Falls State Park.

Coming up is a three-day weekend for both of us.  As long as the weather holds, we intend to make some big progress.  The bow pulpit and gate stanchions will be finished, and with luck we’ll also pull the stern pulpit and the four cleats, pot the holes, and rebed them.  We really want to get this part done because the following weekend we need to concentrate on winterizing the engine and the water system.  Temperatures are dropping and we don’t want to cut it too close.  Given that we’ve never done anything like this before, it should be interesting – and time consuming!