She's All Wrapped Up

ILENE's blue canvas winter coat does not fit as well as usual, sagging at bow,

because the bow pulpit had to be removed for repair and it forms part of the framing that normally holds the cover in place.but at least she is facing NE (through no decision I had any part in) where the strongest winter winds will come at her pointy end.

How did this damage occur?   Well, I sailed with a friend on a very windy day. Big waves in the mooring field made grabbing and attaching the mooring bridle to the boat more difficult than usual. I forgot to tell my friend to be sure to pull that bridle up through the space between the edge of the deck and below the lower rail. He pulled it up above the lower rail and down to the cleat. The next three foot wave that rolled through the mooring field lifted the bow of the boat, crunching the rail. The whole structure had to be removed from the boat to the shop, where it is now, to have the bent parts (both the former horizontal, now "V" shaped lower rail and also the aft diagonal which is also bent) cut off, new straight parts welded on and then the welds ground down and polished until you can't see the weld for the shine.

Enter Fernando, proprietor of Farol Yachts. Fernando has also been engaged to repair the aft end of the boat, where, during one night, when no one was present, something hard and big or fast crashed into ILENE's stern, broke the swim ladder, took the gel coat off the boat

and careened into the davit bar, putting a dent in the tube and bending it way out of line.

The biggest problem, other than ponying up the money to get this work done, was removing the bow pulpit. It is held onto the boat via three legs on each side that fit into receptacles on the boat. The four forward ones are attached by bolts through the inside stainless tube and the outside stainless pipe. I was able to remove these screws without help.  But the two aft most connection points were where the stainless tubes went through aluminum blocks, and they were each held in place by a stainless machine bolt. The starboard such block shows in the first photo. I sprayed this joint about ten times with a chemical that is supposed to ease corroded connections and used a vise grips pliers to grab the heads and try to wrench the bolts loose. This after hammering on it to shock it loose. Effect? The heads of the bolts broke off. Fernando drilled the bolts out with an electric drill. Still no budge. A blow torch was applied to heat the block because heat, like whacking with a hammer, can break free corroded joints.  Then we applied Fernando's car's jack to push the stainless tube up and out. No luck. Finally, Fernando asked me to figure out where the nuts that hold the four bolts that held the aluminum blocks to the hull came through inside the boat. This was behind the forward ends of the tops of the medicine cabinets in the forward head. One of the ways that Saga was quite ingenious in designing these boats is that almost everything inside is screwed together. The wood panels that seal this area off are each held in place by ten screws whose heads are concealed by removable plastic buttons. So: remove contents of cabinets, pry off the twenty buttons, unscrew the twenty screws, unscrew the eight bolts, apply the car jack, and --- voila, the bow pulpit is off!

I have also explored how to get all of the remaining paint off of ILENE's bottom so she can get three coats of grey "barrier coat" paint followed by three coats of ablative bottom paint. I can (A) hire a guy to blast it off, using small grains of baking soda, sprayed under pressure, (B) hire someone to grind it off using a random orbital sander with its discharge hose attached to a vacuum cleaner to protect the environment from the harmful dust, or (C) buy such a sander and do it myself. The first two options will probably each cost about $2K while the last will cost only about $120 for the tool, masks  and sanding disks, and four or five long hard days of my time. Then the new paint, all six coats, will probably cost another $1500 for materials.

But all of this work and expense is worth it, for the joys of sailing. Some may disagree with this but sailors know it is true.

Back to a more pleasant subject: The latest, December, issue of Cruising World magazine has a good article by Don Street, the guru of cruising in the Virgin Islands, which I am copying and sending to Bennett, who has two two-week stints down there. According to Mr. Street, the problem is that most cruises in the region are spent heading west and then east, running and then beating into the prevailing winds from the east.  By sailing more north and south, one can achieve glorious beam reaches. So he suggests heading for St Croix, forty miles to the south, and then back to Tortola.  With two weeks, one can also visit the Spanish Virgins, to the west, and then south to St. Croix. I have not been to St Croix yet.