Replacing Upper Deck Wood

This is a project which Magic Brock has been avoiding for a couple of years, knowing it was inevitable, but dreading it just the same. There’s some bad wood on the main beam of the upper aft deck and the whole thing had to come out. So one day, I heard the Skilsaw. (This was prior to haulout; I’m just way behind on blogging, because…well, we’ve been working way too hard to have time to write) It was all due to those tiny drains that had been in the decks previously; they would clog with debris and then water would sit. Which is a very bad thing and will always come to rot.

Destruction is always the scary part; Magic Brock likens it to the can of worms. How bad will it be? Is it much, much worse that you think? This situation turned out to be pretty much par with what we were expecting.

Which still isn’t a lot of fun. And once again, I was armed daily with the ShopVac trying to keep up with the incredible amount of sawdust and debris generated by this type of project. Brock really works hard when he has something like this going (especially as the calendar dates for haulout and first two week charter were looming), so it’s a consuming process. Things like laundry, eating, and sleeping become secondary to the Do It Now principle.

Marine bedding compound. I had never worked with such a large quantity of it before. It’s like a can of  toilet bowl wax ring, only goopier. Fun in a kindergarten finger paint way, but wayyyy stickier.

Eventually though, she started to come back together and look like our familiar boat.

The new plan for getting the water off the boat can be seen here. I designed (and Brock implemented) a channel that is wide and long enough to make the water clear the lower decks. It can be easily swept and there is nowhere for the water to accumulate. Brock put a fiberglass layer in that area so that the water won’t lurk in the seams. The idea is that we won’t ever have to do this particular project again!

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