Working on the dream-boat!

During rainstorm, we stood inside the boat and began marking all the leak areas. Major leak was salon roof which required us to replace a major portion of the roof decking with new plywood, Fiberglas cloth, and used West Marine resin to seal it. After sanding the repair, we repainted the decking with non-slip paint.

In mid-April, my husband's birthday present was when we borrowed a battery from the marina manager and attached it to the big Mack engine (which we understand has not been used in at least five years) and the engine started right up and purred like a kitten. We shut it off after just a couple minutes as we didn't have any exterior cooling capability at this time. We hope to have the aid and advise of a diesel mechanic to go over the systems to make sure everything is ready to go.

Next we refinished the two masts and stood them up. It took several days after that to sand cabin walls and deck surfaces in preparation for sealing. Several pieces of the teak decking on the port side had to be replaced and sanded. Brass rub rail around edge of deck was removed for finishing along with any other fixtures. After the sanding was completed we caulked the cabin walls and deck (wherever needed) with black rubber caulking. It took several days for the caulking to dry enough sand smooth before we could apply deck sealer. We first applied two coats of TeaQua on the deck and cabin walls, them we applied a coat of Flood UV sealant as a top coat. This gave the wood a beautiful warm glow which was admired by all the other boatowners passing by, and wanted to know how we achieved the color.
We decided to tackle refinishing the teak railing around the fly-deck next. First we washed the railing with teak cleaner and then followed up with sanding and sealing the wood the same way we sealed the cabins. The starboard side of the railing had poor joinery which we solved by attaching a brass rub rail on top of the railing for support.
All of the windows on the boat have bad plastic track which need replacing. The marina manager helped us find sources for new stainless steel track to be purchased later when we can. Every window on the main salon cabin of the boat, except for the windshield and portholes, are double sliding windows. The galley windows appear to be single sliding and have brass window locks.
The starboard aft window of the salon had been used for a window air conditioner and two other windows in the salon were broken. We decided to make both aft windows a single pane fixed window.

Both the port and starboard sliding cabin doors were removed and refinished. The port windshield was broken and therefore replaced, and the other two windshield windows were also removed and recaulked. The badly leaking windshields had caused some damage to the helm dash and had to be torn out and replaced. We added tightening clamps to the bottoms of the windshields that opened, so that they could be closed and secured tightly. Damage from the helm leak into the galley wall required some replacement of wood.

Previous leakage around the main mast base caused some rot in the decking which was cut out and replaced with wood and epoxy. Future addition of veneer in the ceiling of the lower cabin will dress up the patched areas. The portholes in the V-Berth cabin are both missing their exterior trim rings.

Medical appointments are now taking us away from our project for a week or so after these six weeks of daily work on her. Our hands and knees need the vacation anyway.