January Projects

In my time off I have been busy stripping and sanding various pieces of woodwork from the boat. I spend a few hours a day working on it and have developed a good rhythm and process to prepare the woodwork for varnishing. I ordered some Interlux Compass and Goldspar Satin varnish and will begin to apply them this week. As you can see below, I have a box full of cabinet doors, trim, all 3 doors and a few other random pieces already done. I went back to the boat this weekend with my friend Jeff to gather more wood, as I had finished prepping all the wood I had. We have pretty much completely removed all wooden pieces from the v-berth and I can start to feel the progress.

Stripped and sanded wood, ready for varnishing:





The v-berth, mid wood removal. You can also see that I've removed all of the headliner as well:



This past weekend I also sealed up the portlights (windows) with some silicon sealant. This is a temporary measure to eliminate leaks until I start to remove and replace everything. All of the windows leak so something needed to be done until I could replace them.



So this week I have quite a bit more wood to strip and sand, but will also start the varnishing. I am excited to see some finished product after all of the hours I've put into the woodwork. A lot of the pieces will need to be re-installed on the boat before I can finish them, as they need to have bungs (wooden plugs to hide the screws) installed before finishing.

I also cleaned up and tested out the 9.5 foot Achilles dinghy that came with the boat. It isn't pretty, it's quite ugly in fact, but it floated well and has no serious leaks. Jenny and I took it out onto some local lakes around downtown Orlando and had some fun afternoons lounging around on the dinghy and relaxing on the water. I purchased two paddles from the Sailor's Loft in St. Augustine and they work great with the dink. You can row it quite well like a canoe with two people. I owned two cheap rafts as a kid that I would paddle around Doctors Lake off of the St. Johns river. They were named the Otter, and Otter II; so naturally this one gets to be deemed the Otter III.

The dink on the banks of Lake Ivanhoe:





Relaxing as the wind sails us back to shore


Good view of the city (and a very fine Jenny as well):

A set back

Things got a shake up last week as I was laid off from my job. I've survived 6 layoffs thus far, but I guess I couldn't escape this one. I should be fine in the long run, however, all of the money I have been saving to restore Windsong will need to be used for bills until I find new employment.

So as my mind processes all of the things it needs to so I can adjust to my new circumstances, I need to figure out what I can accomplish on the boat that won't eat my savings immediately. If the weather holds up I will be going up to see Windsong this weekend to do some deconstruction on the inside. I think I will focus on removing the headliner and some more wood trim. With my free time (aside from looking for a job) I will be working hard on things like restoring the woodwork. I am excited for the time to get a leg up on the work, but would rather have my steady income back.

Project: Interior Woodwork II

I posted this on the Cruiser's Forum to get some answers. I figure I'd post it here to see if any readers can offer an opinion:

In the process of restoring Windsong I have been taking home pieces of interior wood and trim to work on when I have time. All of the interior woodwork was stained with a dark reddish hue and didn't appear to have much of a finish coat of varnish or anything. The woodwork is mostly teak with a few mahogany pieces.

For an example, here is a teak cabinet door and its trim taken from the v-berth. The lighting doesn't show how dark and ugly the stain is, but you get the idea.



For each piece I clean the wood off then strip the old finish and stain with a chemical stripper. After stripping I sand the piece down to 220 grit all over and end up with some nice looking wood:



with a bigger cabinet door & trim:



My question now is what do I do next?

My current plan is to use Minwax Helmsman to finish, but am unsure about how to start. They recommend using the Minwax stains for a first coat and if I want to keep the color of the teak I assume use the "natural" stain. But there are a few areas where there are nicks and dings which will need to have wood filler applied before finishing. Will a stain be necessary for these patched ares to not stand out? Will this require me to stain all of the wood a darker color for uniformity?

Would a few thinned layers of the varnish do the same thing to seal and provide a base layer? Or would their brand of stain work best as a base coat?

My other concern is the trim. As you can see in the photos, the trim has large holes for the screws which were bunged when attached to the boat. I am nervous about applying finishing to the trim when I will need to affix bungs later on. I figure putting the bungs in and sanding them down flush would ruin whatever finish I put on the trim. So would it be a good idea to install the trim raw, bung, then finish; or finish the trim, bung, then patch whatever areas were sanded down? My concern is the finish around the bungs would look different to the surrounding areas that didn't get the sanding/refinishing.

An expensive weekend, lessons learned: Running Aground

I wanted to take my parents out to the boat for a post-Christmas sail this previous Saturday. They have seen and been on Windsong, but haven't been out for a ride yet. I had been following the weather conditions for Saturday all week and it looked to be a great day for sailing with 15 knot winds out of the North. That would allow us to beam reach all the way out of the channel so we could start sailing before we even got to the final channel marker. The only issue I really saw was that it would be a chilly day (for us Floridians) with highs in the 50's. High tide would be in the morning when we would head out, but we would have to come back at low tide. However, it would be a +1 foot low tide, which I was told would be deep enough for Windsong to make it through the river with.

I typically have gotten nervous when it comes to taking Windsong out, rightfully so I might add. I am still a rookie with this boat and particularly the area it is in. Especially after breaking down the first time I took her out, I can't help get nervous. But this time I wasn't worried about the engine or anything particular about the boat. I've tuned the engine and performed all needed maintenance on it and it worked like a charm the last outing. But something was eating away inside me the few days leading up to Saturday and I didn't understand it. Some sort of premonition told me it we shouldn't go, but I ignored it and attributed it to my normal nerves. I should have listened.

So we took the 3 hour ride from St. Augustine to Inglis with my parents and their new Boston Terrier pup, Sawx. As we arrived to the dock my nerves had subsided and was ready for a good ride. I performed all the pre-ride checks on the boat and engine and felt pretty confident that Windsong would do well. Shortly after arriving we cast of the docklines and headed up the river towards the Gulf.

Things were going swell all the way up the river, so good in fact that I must have stopped paying much attention to where I was in the channel. We were motoring at roughly 6 knots only a few hundred yards before we reached the inlet when the boat SLAMMED into the river bottom and the bow reared up high out of the water. Thank goodness that no one was standing at the time or they would have gone flying off the boat or hard into something on it. I tried reversing and steering off, but we were stuck as stuck could be. The keel was resting hard on the bottom and would not budge. I sat there shocked and stunned and could not believe what had just happened. I took a moment to collect myself and made sure everyone was ok before I could think of what to do next. I considered kedging off the anchor but I had no way of getting it out far enough to be worthwhile. So I radioed on channel 16 for some help but recieved no ansewer even after a few tries. I eventually called the Coast Guard, which has a station on the river near the boat's dock, and told them my situation. They said that the only thing they could do is refer me to a towing company either Tow BoatUS or Sea Tow. I knew instantly that this was going to be a worse incident than I thought when they asked if I was a member to either. No, I'm not.

For somewhere around $150/year you can be a member of one of these tow companies and use their services when you need. I had considered getting a membership in particular for the overnight passage South that I need to take soon, just as a piece of mind in case things went wrong. But I never figured I would really need it until I finish working on the hard and start to sail a lot. I realized that was that a huge mistake as I spoke to the tow boat captain and got a quote to be hauled off the bottom. It would be $600 just for ungrounding the boat, plus $240/hour for the tow boat to come from Cyrstal River, about an hour and a half away ( you have to pay for their round trip). So the total quote for the haul was roughly $1,300. When he told me this all I could do was close my eyes, swallow my pride and gave him the ok to come get me. Bye Bye huge hunk of savings.

I considered my options while I waited for confirmation on my credit card and everything. We could wait for a boat to come by and hopefully lift us off with their wake. Unfortunately it was a very quiet day on the river and the only boats going by were small jon-boats with barely any wake. When a decent sized boat finally passed and sent wake our way, it only served to bounce the keel up and down on the bottom, not freeing us at all. Since we ran aground near high tide, it was apparent that waiting for the tide to come back in wasn't going to help much either. Plus, high tide wasn't until 8 p.m. and we had no way of getting back to the dock at night. Navigating the river without light was just out of the question.

So after a few minutes the tow company called me back and confirmed the operation and told me they would be here in an hour and a half. Great, by then the tide would be even lower and getting towed off the bottom would be even more difficult. So we sat waiting for that period of time, during which the air only seeming to get colder by the minute. I was so pissed that I made such a bonehead move that I could do little but stare at the distance in disdain for my bad piloting. But how would I have known this ledge was here? It wasn't marked on the charts or on my new GPS as most obstructions were in the river. As some fishing jon-boats rode by and we discussed what happened they all seemed to know that it got shallow there...local knowledge kicks ass if you have it, but I didn't.

I started to fear about the worst case scenario as the tide began to fall. On the port side, closest to shore, we could see that the water was getting shallower pretty quickly as the bottom was clearly visible in the murky water. On the other hand, the water to starboard was much deeper, if only we could get to it. The tow captain mentioned that if he didn't have success trying to pull us off since the tide was too low we would have to wait for it to come back in before trying again. Thus having to wait till all light was gone and we would be stranded there for the night. We were horribly unprepared to stay the night on the boat particularly due to the cold. We had food to last us, but no blankets and barely enough jackets as it was. I know my dad and I could tough it out if we had to, but my mom and the pup were with us and I would feel horrible if she had to go through that. So I thought if worse came to worse, the tow boat could take my parents and the dog back to the dock and I would stay with the boat overnight and wait for the morning high tide. Still, not something I was looking forward to as my first overnight stay on the boat. I would have been left with little more than sail covers as blankets to not freeze the whole night away.

The tow boat showed up right on queue and rafted up next to us. They sounded the area and found the water deep enough for my draft immediately to starboard, so not all hope was lost. But the water had gotten so shallow on the port side that if any of us put our weight over there the whole boat tilted on its keel at a hard angle. So we tied up the tow ropes and they started trying to pull the bow towards the center of the channel. It didn't work too well and only turned the boat a bit towards the channel, grinding the keel on the bottom. At one point the tow rope snapped after pulling so hard.

Things didn't look to bright at this point and the tow captain kept mentioning about possibly having to wait till high tide, my heart kept dropping as the effort kept failing. Eventually we tried a new tactic by using the main halyard attached to a second tow rope (leads to the top of the mast) to try to tilt the whole boat on its side, thus lifting the keel off the bottom as the tow line on the bow would pull the boat to the channel. After much grinding on the bottom and tilting the whole boat so far that the starboard rail was buried under water, it finally got loose off the bottom and we were pulled into deeper water. It took a long time and many different tries at different angles, but we eventually were pulled free. It was incredibly nerve wracking as it seemed like it would never work.

Relief rushed through me and I could do little more than thank God it was all over and we wouldn't have to stay there any longer. I made sure to ask the captain where else in the river I needed to be wary of, and he said that where we went aground was the worst spot. He has apparently pulled many a vessel off of the same ledge, one even a week previous. Good to know I thought, I will avoid that spot like the plague for now on.

The tow captain was friendly and also owns a sailboat. He told me to not get discouraged since pretty much everyone has made that mistake. Unfortunately I made the double mistake of not being a tow member and having to loose a big gob of cash. On top of it all, my brand new hand held VHF radio was clipped to my belt and sometime during the tow when the boat was heeled over and I was holding on for dear life, it got loose and went overboard. I was concentrating on the job at hand and none of us noticed it until we were motoring back to the dock. So the day got even more expensive.

It was a very bad day for me, but I was more relieved than bitter in the end and was glad we got back safely before dark. I felt pretty bad that we took the long drive out there to only have a bad experience, but my parents were positive the whole time and gave me good encouragement. It was a rough lesson learned, but one I was bound to learn one day nonetheless.

Project: Interior Woodwork

One day when I first got Windsong I opened up the door to the v-berth and it basically fell apart at the seams. The wood was intact, but had separated at all of the joints where it is glued together. It consists of a frame, two thin veneer plywood pieces, and slats. I decided to take the door home to begin its reconstruction and restoration. The door would then be my test piece for my interior woodwork restoration process.

Windsong has a ton of wood in the cabin, mostly teak trim or veneer with teak & holly sole. The varnish and what appears to be stain on the wood has dulled and needs to be redone on most pieces. Some of the bulkheads are plywood with varnish but I would like to convert most of them to white or off-white by either painting or applying formica to the surfaces. I have begun taking wooden trim and other pieces off the boat to take home so that I can do the woodwork during the week.

As you can see here, the trim is dull and dirty, and needs re-working. I plan on taking it all off so that I can paint or re-surface the vertical surfaces with something white. The galley counter tops, nav table, and other areas with formica surfaces will also be redone.



In the v-berth on both sides and in the starboard side of the cabin there are long wooden slats decorating the sides. These will also be taken off to be refinished and so I can clean and paint the surfaces behind them, also hiding the chainplates.




You can see here the large bulkhead which I want to be white, along with most other vertical surfaces.



There are also some areas of damage that need to be attended to. The portside wood cabinets and adjacent bulkheads have suffered water damage and rot from a long term leak. Shown below is the galley and you can see the cabinets behind the stove where the problem is. The bottom and middle shelves of the cabinets need to be replaced, but the front piece of plywood and the trim are fine. The bulkhead on the right side of the picture has suffered wet rot in the area behind the cabinets and needs to be fixed or replaced somehow. That piping is for the heater and will be taken out.



Here is the rest of the length of that cabinet as it runs along the port side. The bulkhead at the end has suffered a lot of wet rot near the edge and needs to be fixed or replaced as well. You can't see it here, it is under the edge/behind the top bunk. I'll try to get better pictures of it so readers can help me with ideas on how to fix it.




Another area of concern is the anchor chain locker which has a lot of rot in it from some leaks around the bowsprit. Shown here is some of the damage, note that the cabinet door is completely torn apart.



Other damaged areas are mostly cabinet doors which can be replaced pretty easily. The sole has its share of damage, but is in fair condition overall. I do think I will be replacing parts of it, however, since I will be recondition the boat as a whole. Here is a big area of damage near the compionway steps:



As you can see I have a lot of work to do, but taking pieces home to start with has given me a first start. Working on the v-berth door has helped me develop my process for stripping the wood to be prepared for new finish. I will detail this in another post.

Finally changed the oil!

Went up to see Windsong this weekend to get some of the remaining chores done before we take her down the coast. I was solo, so didn't get to take her out for a ride unfortunately. I gave up on the electric oil change pump and purchased a manual vacuum pump to replace it. West Marine was having a sale on some other items so I also purchased a few things that I needed before we headed out: a backup handheld VHF, handheld GPS (Garmin Oregon 400c was on sale), new flares and the oil change pump.

When I got to the boat I tried my newly rebuilt manual bilge pump and discovered that it had stopped working for some reason. I just replaced the major parts on it so I had no idea why it wouldn't work anymore. It takes two people to remove it, so I'll have to wait for a friend to come to troubleshoot it. Needless to say, I was pretty upset to find it not functioning once more. Last weekend it worked perfectly after we finished installing it. But now...nothing.

I also began to remove bungs and some trim around the boat to take home and begin more wood restoration. I figured that there is a lot of wood that needs to be stripped and varnished, better start now than later.

Then it was onto the engine: oil change and stuffing box tightening.

Pumping out the oil:



The oil change was smooth and uneventful. Getting it finally done was a happy occasion though. After the oil change I focused on the stuffing box. It was still leaking slowly, not as fast as when we stopped the engine a week ago. But still leaking more than it should. The problem is that the locking nut is stuck on its threads and wont budge. I can loosen up the packing nut (causing water to flow in fast), but I cannot tighten it anymore (needs to be tightened to stop water) because the locking nut is in the way. I used PB Blaster on the locking nut but that didn't do much to help. I didn't leave it on there for a long time before I tried, so maybe it has had some time to work and will be easier next time...but I'm not confident in it. Does anyone have any ideas on how the heck to get the locking nut loose?

Here is the whole unit:



Here it is with the packing nut loose, and you can see the locking nut stuck there:




Any help on that problem would be appreciated. I'll be heading home this weekend to see family for Thanksgiving. Then the following week I will come back out to the boat and begin preparations for the journey South. December might be tight to get her out of there due to busy weekends, but January should be favorable to finally move her.

Windsong's first sail, FLAWLESS!

As you can tell by the post title, things went well this weekend

On Saturday I wen't out to Inglis to see Windsong. I had three friends in tow and a list of things to accomplish. First off was to give the engine its oil change. I had replaced a few parts on the oil change pump and got it pumping water in a test run. But once we got to the boat the pump wouldn't suck out any oil and eventually burnt out. So now instead of repairing this thing I am going with advice of some other boat owners (readers of this blog, thanks!) and get a manual pump. So the oil change didn't happen, but that didn't stop us for the day. I also replaced the hose on the Whale Gusher manual bilge pump and was able to use it successfully for the first time. I love knowing that it works now, great sense of security especially since my primary electric bilge pump is still on the fritz. After the bilge pump we had to secure a leak on a water hose on the engine, then we were done with the needed chores of the day.

I had planned on taking her out and about in the river for the day, but with the encouragement of my friends and the weather cooperating we decided to take the trip out of the channel and hoist some sail. I was nervous because I still haven't upgraded a lot of the safety things (flares, fire extiguishers, etc.) that I wanted before we went out of the river, and the engine still makes me nervous, but we were feeling whimsical and went for it anyways. First off we had to turn the boat around in its narrow channel. We were able to to this using warps and a little knowledge from the PO, and now I have the confidence to be able to do this when we need! With the boat turned around and the engine warmed up we headed up the river.

The weather was absolutely perfect. Temperatures in the low-mid 70's, winds 10-15 knots from the West and the skies were completely clear. I figured that if things went bad, we could probably sail the entire way back up the river since the winds were pushing us back in. The ride up the river was uneventful and pretty. As we eventually passed the spot we broke down previously, a sense of confidence came about me as the engine remained in good pressure and temperature ranges and seemed to be trucking along perfectly. As we neared the river entrance I was became pretty nervous again at the prospect of going into open water. After we passed the inlet I started to feel good about it again and we navigated the 2 miles or so of channel markings to the green marker #1. At that marker we would be in deep enough water to go North or South on a sweet beam reach. Once we hit #1 the excitement was palatable as I instructed the crew on how to hoist and trim the sails. We lifted them up, turned North, shut off the engine and had our first moment of peace under sail with Windsong.

I could probably spend quite some time here describing the feeling of finally sailing with my boat. It has been a rough 5 months of ownership, barely having any fun time at all on the boat. I had little confidence in anything on it, and needed a successful ride to wash some of that away. Seeing the sails full, the rigging holding tight, and the wake behind us as we made a good 5.5-6 knots (we only have the gps to tell us speed) made so many fears go away. After trimming the sails and getting everything correctly situated, we ran North on a beam reach for about 2 miles before successfully taking South for another few miles. The feeling was intense as we all cracked open celebratory beers and took in the amazing weather and feeling of the silent (no engine) ride. Windsong sailed incredibly on the beam reach, as I expected her to. I was pretty impressed to find out how balanced she was with all of the sails up, barely needing to steer at all to keep her on course. She was moving so perfectly, and the weather was so brilliant that I considered going South for the whole day and night to get to Tarpon Springs and leave her there. But the journey will have to wait as we didn't have enough beer (or food) to last the trip.

After a while going South we tacked around again and started to aim towards the shore. We needed to get back in before the tide was too low and things got too shallow. We were able to run downwind on sail alone for most of the way back in the channel, but once the channel started to twist and turn we had to fire up the engine. We motorsailed all the way in the channel and a little bit into the river before we lowered all canvas and stowed the sails. Motoring back to the dock was pleasant, and we were able to dock and turn the boat around with ease.

Overall I could not have asked for a better first sail on my boat. The anticipation leading up to this was intense. I had mentally prepared for months for the day we took it out, and in the end everything went perfectly smooth. The only issue arising from the day is when I checked the engine over before we left and I noticed that the packing nut on the shaft seal was dripping frequently again. I tried to tighten it but it proved difficult without undoing the locking nut, something that has eluded me before. So I need to go up there this weekend and try to get that locking nut loose so I can tighten the packing nut. The unit as a whole needs servicing, particularly new packing in the nut. I'm not sure I have the confidence to do that myself just yet, but maybe if it is necessary I'll figure it out. With that fixed, the oil changed, safety items purchased, and some backup electronics...I can take Windsong down the coast to be hauled out for her re-build...and I will be very very very happy.

Here are the pictures from Saturday:

The yellow line is the route we took, for those truly interested it is from Chart #11408



View from the dock:






Do I look nervous?



Other boats along the river:






Taking a break from the helm to enjoy the deck



View of the power plant from the river



lol no worries here, can't go that fast.


Bad things have happened here...



I call this little beach the Redneck Riviera. It is usually packed with Florida's finest on weekends.



At the end of the river, beginning of the journey out to sea



First moments out of the river





Becoming a happy Cap'n







Beautiful on the water...



The smog around the power plants really stands out when you are at sea




Approaching marker #1. STOKED!!!!!




Shortly after....SAILS FULL!





So balanced, barely a need to steer





Taking it all in




Motorsailing back to the dock