Almost ready for the Water!

Caulking continues and is hard work on the below water line area as most of the work is overhead, especially under the boat. Used white for all seams and area above the waterline, and brown for seams below the waterline. A couple more days to finish everything and she will be ready to go into the water. Planning on launching first week of November or so.


Susan continues to work on the salon area, oil staining the teak inside. She has all of the ceiling ribs stripped of the approximately seven layers of old varnish and most of them sanded down, ready for finishing.


Starboard side of the boat has all seams filled with oakum, now waiting for more seam compound to arrive to finish the seams, then it will be ready for the final painting.


The rear of the boat shows that most of the seams below the boat are filled with okum, and Susan checked EVERY screw and nail plug to ensure water tightness and then painted each and every one with primer paint. Now it looks like the boat has measles. Howard stuck the propeller on the shaft to check the distance needed for making a new rudder.


Most of the boat seams are filled with okum, currently waiting for the arrival of the inal boxes of okum to finish the port side. Another day or two and the caulking will be completed. The UPS truck drivers had been told to leave all packages at our door, but for some reason they left one of those tags this time, and Monday is a holiday of course so probably won't get it until Tuesday. Seems like everytime we get on a roll, something throws a wrench in it. Today, with the storms that came through, Howard could not even get within two blocks of the boat due to flooding closing off the roads, so the boat is probably sitting in water right now. Just hope she doen't float away!

Have Okum and Hammer - Let's Caulk!

Howard prepares to get started on the caulking of the boat seams. To do this, the seam is first primed with above or below water priming paint - you cannot use above water paint below the water line and vise versa. Then "okum" which looks like shredded up gunny feed sack material that has been spun into ropes and soaked in a natural oil and bentonite, is pounded into the seam with a wood mallet. Howard made his own mallet, as the only other place we could find one was in Great Britain. It didn't take Howard long to determine the right "thunk" sound that indicted that the okum was properly sent into the seam, using the mallet and a "hardening iron".


After the okum is set into the seams, then the seam is re-primed with primer paint. After the paint is dried, then seam compound usually made of linseed oil, whiting, and some kind of setting powder is applied and worked into the seam. In the old days, the setting powder was red or white lead.


We are currently using our horse trailer as a storage unit to hold the teak lumber, etc., to keep it all dry and handy without having to climb in and out of the boat to get each item needed.


We have gotten a lot of comments on our dragons which are on the bow, Susan took almost three weeks sanding, priming, determining the proper color scheme and painting these beauties. They are really turning peoples heads around here.