The Continuing Deconstruction Of My Boat

Well Im still at it. David kept pointing at the patch job and telling me all the caulking had to be taken out,so I finally got around to doing that. All proud of myself because I spent about 3 hours doing it only to find out he meant the whole boat not just the patch job. That was another job I wasn't expecting and a brutal one to say the least.I spent eleven and a half hours working on that the other day and got about half the job done. I figure Ive done about 730 feet of caulking removal so far. All I can say is OUCH!! Each board has an inch of candlewick-like stuffing between it covered over with some kind of silicone-like substance that is stuck on there for life. I had to pry it all out one inch at a time. My arms were killing me when I finally called it a night.I didnt sleep a wink as my right arm went totally numb and tingly with a burning pain from hell that kept me wide awake. Thankfully that resolved itself the next day but had me scared for awhile.

I took the next day off and rested all day. That evening I went to the Parade of Lost Souls, always a treat for the senses and then off to a friends for a good jam session. It was awesome to get out, its been way to long since Ive had anything resembling a social life.

Originaly, I had intended to replace all the rotten boards with new ones, but that was looking like the job from hell, so decided to do something I swore I wouldnt.Im putting in large plywood patches instead. I spent the last two days making patterns from white board and cutting out 3 layers of plywood to fit the two big holes.

Today I finally gathered the courage to suit up and paint them all with fiberglass resin. While it was drying, I put in the rest of the new ribs.It all sounds so simple on paper but each job has many steps and lots of prep work to get all the tools and supplies together and the space prepared for the task at hand. When I look at the boat, not much seems different but I have spent endless hours on it. I can hardly wait till it starts going back together, the more I remove from it, the less it looks like something that will ever float again.

David has offered me one of his Dickinson diesel stoves for my boat. It needs a serious good cleaning/rebuilding and I would have to rip out the existing area where the wood stove is and rebuild it to fit the stove. Then I'd have to figure where to put fuel tanks and vents ect. I guess part of my mind set with this boat is worst case senario and the world goes to shit, can I survive on it? I could be off the grid with diesel and propane but in a complete shutdown of services I would still be in trouble. A woodstove with a cooking surface and a water coil would be ideal, but hard to find in the size I need to fit my boat. I do have a propane furnace which means just one kind of fuel for hot water, cooking and heat but thats alot of propane connections on one boat, kind of scary. Whats a girl to do?


The transom removed



A view of some boards with the caulking removed and one that still needs work



The gaping hole in the transom filled with a sawdust and glue mixture






The plywood cutouts all laid out ready for flooding with fiberglass resin

How I Waste Time to Avoid Working on the Boat

Ive been playing an online game called TextTwist.You get 6 jumbled letters and try to make as many words out of them in the alotted time.My best score in one run is 14,600. Im totally addicted and play half the night.Not getting much work done but sharpening up the rusty brain skills, all good.

http://sympatico.zone.msn.com/en/texttwist/default.htm?dr=t

Go ahead , try a game, its free, but dont blame me if you dont get anything else done for awhile:)

Ive always had a facination with hobbity looking houses and ever since I went to see that funky floathome a few weeks ago, Ive been checking out other cool architecture online.

One of the sites I stumbled across is about Fairy Houses. The concept is to build a tiny house out of natural objects and place them in your garden or in the woods for fairies to inhabit. It sure got my creative juices going, wish I had the time to try and make a few. Heres one site that sells them premade but I suggest you google image fairy houses to see what other people have created.

http://www.twigwizardry.com/Fairy-Houses.php

Here's a site about handbuilt houses. This is the gallery page showing a variety of houses, if you click on Home it shows the authors house.There are some great links to other sites with similar buildings and info on sustainable architecture as well

http://www.simondale.net/house/gallery.htm

Then there is always "Some Turtles Have Nice Shells", all about truck homes and converted buses ect. Lots of inspiration here too.

http://www.housetrucks.com/maindex.html


Check this one out for sure. Called "Flying Concrete" It shows the most beautiful creative ways of using concrete sprayed over forms Ive ever seen. The possibilities are endless with this stuff.

http://www.geocities.com/flyingconcrete/new.htm


The Quiet Earth Project, is a bloggish account of one womans dream to build her own straw bale house.Some good information and links on here as well

http://www.gwaliaessences.co.uk/story.htm


So playing games and dreaming of fantasy houses have been my way of not going crazy in this time of stress and aggravation.I think its working so far :)

PS Im so sorry, I can't for the life of me figure out how to make the links automatic, so you will have to copy and paste to check them out.

Rhianna's Folly

I alternate between wanting to work on the boat and wanting to cut it up for firewood.When I first pulled her out of the water, the thought was just replace a few rotton boards, slap some fiberglass on and be on my way.What a dreamer I am!

When we finally got all the paint scraped off( a huge job I wasnt expecting to do as the book I read said you could fiberglass over it, but was later told no..if I tried that, the paint would turn to goo under the glass and ruin the seal), we found alot more rotten wood.Once that was removed,we discovered alot of the ribs were rotten as well. I am now faced with an expensive rebuild of the boat.If I am to do it right, I would have to somehow remove the concrete in the bottom of the boat, gut the interior in the process, replace all the bad ribs and replank the boat with 30 foot continous planks.NOT going to happen folks.

We have cut out rib sections to replace the rotten bits and painted them with red lead paint to protect them from rot. Even though the hull will be fiberglassed and technically waterproof, the interior of the boat still gets moisture in it from showers, cooking ect., so I'm trying to provide maximum protection for the exposed wood.Once they are installed, I will be attaching red cedar boards to them. One whole side of my boat will look like a giant wood puzzle,made up of many joined pieces. I am worried that this will severely affect the sea worthiness of the boat, even with a solid fiberglass shell. I have visions of the boards separating at the joins and bulging out through the glass.Im taking a huge chance doing it this way.

I orginally intended to remove the decking on the back deck and refinish it, but the screws were all rusted and not coming out. Some of the boards were looking worse for wear, so in the end they all got cut off with the saws-all.Another expense I wasn't counting on is the price of new boards to redo the deck.

David has been very busy with his own projects as of late and hasn't had much time to help me. This has slowed me down considerably and progress has been slow. I really needed to feel like I was accomplishing something, so yesterday I installed a new tongue and groove floor in the bedroom. Not exactly a priority project, but one that I had wanted to do and was capable of doing myself. The wood for the floor had been left on the boat by the previous owner. I had been storing it for the last year, so finally decided to pull it out and see what exactly I had. I am quite happy with the finished result, much better then the piece of plywood that was the floor.Now just have to sand it and one day stain and varnish all the floors. That will wait until the construction is pretty much done, too much dust everywhere right now to do a good job.

Every other day , I want to walk away from this project. Not because I dont think its worth it but because of the massiveness of it all. Its not just one thing that needs doing, its everything from one end to the other.The more I do,the more I find that needs doing.I feel like Im digging a hole to China.

The Good




The Bad





The Ugly ( a huge rotten hole in the back board of the transom, we stuffed it with wood shavings mixed with glue)



The back deck stripped of its wood



An interior shot showing some of the new ribs



The new bedroom floor ( whoohoo)

Labor Day and Then Some

Well time to update here, so much goes on all the time, its hard to stay on top of it all.

A few weeks ago, the Pacific Express ( the boat that caught on fire a few months ago) moved up beside the Bowie.She was eased out backward,

then the nose swung around by a small skiff, with a few guys hanging on to a stern line to keep her in line.

It was deja vu for a minute seeing it sitting sideways in the river.


A couple of days later,the bow line snapped and the whole front end swung right back around, narrowly missing crashing into Steve and Brocks boats.It stayed like that all day with just a small nylon cord holding it to the Bowie. I kept expecting it to snap from the weight and send the Express down the river. That would have been a disaster!


There was a nice empty space in the marina for about five minutes,

then David had his new barge pulled around and tucked into it.

A couple of days later he added another 200 feet of concrete docks he just purchased. We now have so many docks, there is no room for boats.Its now a dock marina, lol.


Labor Day we decided to take a break and head to the PNE ( Pacific National Exibition),a combination agricutural fair and rides and exibitions.I havent been in about 15 years, boy have the prices ever gone up. We paid 50 dollars a person to get in which was supposed to include free admissions to the rides, but when we got in there it turned out the pass was only good for certain rides. All the new rides were extra and the cost was outrageous, twenty-five dollars a person for a 60 second or so ride! Too rich for me, so we mostly just went on the various roller coasters, all of us suffering from whiplash after finishing with the old wooden one...its rickity beyond belief, never mind the free fall drop,just listening to those old boards creak and groan was terrifying enough.

For some unknown reason we decided to go on the log ride. What a mistake, I got completely soaked to the bone.I walked about 10 feet in sopping wet jeans when I realized I wasnt going to last long like that. So, more money spent shopping for some dry clothes. Another small fortune was spent sampling the fair food and playing some games trying to win a pocket bike. I think I can offially say, Im too old for the PNE. My last ride was on the rollar coaster which is celebrating its 50th anniversary, I think its time we both retire.

A few days after that, Davids tug boat got hauled out of the water and put at Shelter Island Shipyard.




The rubber was cut off the front, the rust sanded off the hull, a coat of primer expoxy put on, the old wheelhouse cut off and a bunch of welding done to the hull and deck. While he had it out, he had a diesel mechanic come by and sort out his cooling system problems and rewire everything properly.

He had quite a scare today when a fire started in the hold while welding. It was between a steel and wood floorboard that made it very difficult to access to put it out. David spent over 4 hours trying to get it to stop smoldering all the while hoping nobody noticed and called the fire department. It finally stopped smoking and there seems to be no real damage done.

A few days ago he went out to the Marina where the Lightship is now. It was quite the facinating place with an old BC ferry filled with ancient old trucks and boats inside,

a nice 70 foot wooden rumrunner I wouldnt mind a look at

and a field filled with all kinds of cool toys like this old dozer boat

and this fun looking boat with a big fan on the back.

While he was there he came across this huge old tire which after much effort was loaded onto the truck and taken back to the shipyard to be put on the front of the tug



While David was busy with all his rearranging of things, I went off to Saltspring Island for two days to take a course. I was finacially challenged so needed cheap accomadation. I found this cute cabin for 30 dollars a night. Its basically a bed with four walls and roof and a tiny deck to sit out on.


The facilities consisted of an outhouse just up the path.
/It was super cute and quiet there. I went to the local swimming pool for my showers and managed to swim 400 meters in the pool. Ive been thinking I would like to try doing a mini triathalon and had been wondering what 400 meters would feel like. It wasnt too bad at all, I was averaging 45 seconds a 25 meter lap.I rewarded myself with a good soak in the hottub.

Hows this for compact, its a mini fridge, 2 burner stove and a sink all in about 2 square feet.This was in the kitchen where I was taking my course, I of course was facinated by it.

When I got back I played hooky for a few days and went to the beach to enjoy the last few days of summer. Its been a spectacular September so far, lots of sunshine and heat.

Yesterday I suited up and spent the day painting the tugboat with a horrible epoxy mixture. it was so thick I had to goop it on and smear it around until it got too thick to work with by which time it was going on like melted stringy cheese.I dont think I needed the mask to work with it, but they were fiberglassing a boat next to us and the fumes where killing me so I put it on so I wouldnt have to smell them. Im not looking forward to doing my boat in the shop. I had no idea fiberglass smelt so bad, this will be torture.
A job well done I think. I should be able to apply for a job in a shipyard soon, Im sure picking up alot of new skills. David is going to teach me how to cut and weld when it comes time to put the new wheelhouse on. I cant wait to try that!


Today I dressed up in yet another very attractive outfit to finish grinding the paint off my boat. Too this gorgeous outfit I added orange ear defenders and googles. Im sure Pamela Anderson could find a way to look cute and feminine while doing this work, I however just look like an alien bug. Oh well, the work is getting done and thats all that counts.Every day is labour day here!

Progress Report

Well things are moving along quickly. We spent the first day scraping off barnacles and other assorted sea life. I thought it would be a tough job, but found a plastic paint scraper worked great.Everything just sloughed right off. I think they must have been dead barnacles as the boat has been in reasonably fresh water for the last year.I say resasonably because its a tidal river and im not sure how much sea water comes back this way at high tide.

The next day, David took the pressure washer to the boat and removed as much paint , dead wood and lingering seaweed as he could.



Over the next two days he worked at grinding the paint off. He got one whole side done already. I LOVE the wood. The grain is gorgeous. I so wish I could leave the boat just like that. I want to get the wood working guy back here to do an estimate on the whole job, once we get all the paint off and see what we are actually dealing with. So much of the wood on the one side needs to be replaced with something anyway, if I want the fiberglass to stick. So might as well just do the job right and have a nice wood boat.






Too bad about the crappy patch job we found under the paint, the wood is sound but ugly if I want to go the wood route






Ive decided I dont like the bland look of the rear part of the boat under the back deck where the bedroom is, so have decided to put wood paneling over it to match the paneling on the cabin.



I did a ton of sanding inside the boat. I started with the floors but after seeing how nice they were looking, wanted the rest of the boat to look as good, so also did the sink counter top and kitchen counter as well as some rough spots on the walls. I spent another full day cleaning all the dust out of the boat, sweeping , vacumming, washing down every single inch.

I got the coolest gadget yet. An electric stapler/nail gun. It works great, hardly any effort required ( no sore wrists) I want to nail down some loose parts in the kitchen and reseal all the seams in the wood on the sink counter with caulk. Ive sealed the inside of the boat with plastic everywhere to keep out the water when he pressure washed and keep out the dust and debris while working on things.I really need a workshop, I am getting a rather large collection of tools during these renos.

Ive seriously been thinking about building myself a floathome. Ive been looking on craigslist and picked up a super cute corner jacuzzi tub and matching toilet for free. All I need now is a house to put them in lol.
And they just happen to be raspberry pink which will go with all my burgendy accessories!!





A super cute floathome just came up for sale the other day, I was drooling when I saw the ad. A perfect hobbit house to go with my hobbit boat.







I love how they used wood burls for furniture.




If I don't win the lottery so I can buy this place, this is quite along the lines of what I would like to build. I'd probaly add a second story though as I want an extra room for a massage studio and a good size workshop. If nothing else Im grateful for the inspirations it has given me to see these pictures. Ive been working on a drawing of what I wanted to build but this place best descibes the look and feeling of the place I want. Ive been collecting pictures of some ideas I want to incorporate, someday I will get around to scanning them to show you.


Dream on all you dreamers, there is nothing stopping them from coming true,except your disbalief.