15 July 2008

The Grind

A great but totally unenjoyable job done recently was to grind the interior of the hull, in preparation of adding bulkheads etc. Three of us worked solidly for about 3 hours, then I finished off over the weekend with about another 12 hours grinding. The dust was incredible, inches thick in the bilge and requiring hours of cleaning up. In preparation for grinding we removed the fiberglass layer over the top of the keel. This revealed a stinking black layer of ooze, made up up of who knows what.

Once the keel started to dry it started look look (and smell) a lot better.








As part of the grinding exercise I cut the backing off the chainplates, leaving a facing that we will tie into the boats structure a lot more effectively. As I did that I was horrified - but not particularly surprised - to find the wood filling in 3 out of 6 chainplates to be past salvaging. One was eaten by termites, the other 2 were wet and rotten. This one shows the termite residue, unfortunately not great detail.

This one shows a screwdriver hanging out of the bottom of the wood, after being pushed in very easily.

Up forward we have added a laminated plywood beam to carry the new Maxwell windlass, with a cross member to support the staysail stay. These are shown still covered with peel ply, which allows us to carry on glassing, painting etc, without sanding, once the peel ply has been removed.

The engine room bilge has had the fiberglass removed to let the underlying cement dry out. I think we need to come up with some ideas about a sump in this area.