Erick's Wanderlust Blog: First day of cleaning Windsong.

Yesterday Jenny and I went to spend the day on Windsong getting as much done as we could. The plans for the day were:

Clean as much of the interior surfaces as we could,
Take home all of the "stuff" that had been cleaned out of the boat (charts, galley stuff, equipment, spares, manuals, books, etc.) to inventory,
Inspect the boat further as outlined in Inspecting the Aging Sailboat,
Begin to survey the engine and electrical system,
Inspect the running rigging and figure out replacement options
Absorb being on the boat!

We did just about all of that. We started by cleaning the insides with a mixture of detergent, bleach and TSP. The solution was meant to clean all surfaces including wood. It worked wonderfully on the white bulkheads and interior surfaces and even the wood. What I realized, however, was that the wood had so many layers of dirt and varnish on it, it would need some further cleaning and scraping to unify the color before I can varnish it again. I also began to note all of the wood rot from some of the old leaks that the seller repaired. There will be a lot of wood work done in the future, but the interior is good enough to make that a low priority project. The white surfaces were covered in an incredible amount of dirt, but the cleaning revealed a bright white underneath, except for parts of the vinyl headliner.

We packed up a few boxes of the things that come with the boat, trying to clear the junk from the seller's porch. I will be going through it all this week and begin to inventory my findings. This will be like Christmas because there is a lot of stuff!

I began to inspect the boat further looking for things I didn't know to look for before, namely cracks and issues with the gelcoat on the deck. I noticed many cracks, but nothing serious. I also inspected the engine room and electrical system further, but will focus on those more closely next weekend.

Replacing the running rigging is the first priority to get the boat in condition to take it out of there. With the running rigging replaced, I can rely on the sails and use the engine as a backup instead of the only option (or vice versa). Most of the rigging can be easily replaced by threading new lines through, attached to the old. But aproblem arose which I noticed when I was first inspecting Windsong. The main and jib halyards are wire to rope splice type. They definitely needed to be replaced, as the rope parts are very rotted. I want to replace the halyards with all rope, but there was a possibility that the sheaves at the top of the mast wouldnt accept the rope, or eat it up because they were made for wires. I inspected the rig further and ran the rope ends of the halyards through the sheaves with no resistance or odd chafing. This means I can easily replace them for now, but will make sure to replace the sheaves when I unstep the mast.

Aside from all of that we had a great day, about 10 hours overall on the boat. I am completely sore now from scrubbing overhead and lifting things (we brought a protable a/c unit that was a little too heavy). Here are the pictures:

Figuring out where to plug things in...

IMG_2377 by you.