Boat Maintenance

When we bought the boat we knew that there were projects to do on it. We made lists: necessary maintenance, other maintenance, priority upgrades, and wish list upgrades. Long lists. Lately I have been working on making the living space a little bit nicer and my sweetheart has been working on the maintenance that keeps the boat in good running order. His work is far more important, but I am going to back up and start with painting that I did last summer.

The boat was battleship grey and lipstick red when we bought it. I just couldn't live with it and decided to paint the boat. Luckily I was beyond the point of no return in the project when I figured out how much work it was.

Here's the boat in No Name Bay. Really, that is the name of the bay.

That color scheme didn't feel good.

The existing paint was bumpy and full of roller hairs, so I started sanding. The three pound random orbital sander doubled in weight every hour that I held it up against the hull. It gained weight more slowly after several weeks of practice.

Standing on scaffolding sanding under the rubrail with a random orbital sander.

That full-face respirator is my best friend when sanding and painting!

The boat slowly changed color. There are still areas that need to be sanded and painted, but that will wait till the coming summer.

Starboard side hull sanded prior to painting.

The new colors.

This time of year I am working on little interior projects like the cubby under the stairs. I peeled the vinyl shelf covering off, scrubbed, painted a coat of Kilz and then a coat of latex. Tomorrow I will put one more coat on, and them move on to prep and paint the space under the galley sink. Oh, goodie.

Meanwhile, in the engine room...Man With Wrench took the marine gear coolers off of the engines. It may have been a very long time since this had been done! They were loaded up with salt. We took them to The Old Salt (my dad) and he put them in a pot full of fresh water on the shop woodstove. After many changes of water and the last bath with a little vinegar added they cleaned up pretty nice!

Marine gear oil cooler with salt.

Cleaned marine gear oil cooler.

One of the nuts for those coolers had some corrosion and was starting to leak a little bit. See the part that is eaten away in the top nut? Little things like that are pretty serious on boats, so new ones were ordered and installed.

Today my guy was changing the pencil zincs in the engines. The engines use seawater as coolant, so they have internal zincs to prevent corrosion. The zincs are sacrificial anodes, and are changed each year.

Pencil zincs before and after.

High-tech foam rubber pencil zinc drying rack.

After a year the pencil zincs are partially wasted. This is good because they are 'working;' losing metal so that the engine does not. The nuts are given a swipe of red paint so that they are easy to see on the engine.

Racor fuel filter set in the shop for maintenance.

The Racor fuel filter set is showing corrosion on the fittings. Nothing runs without this filter set, so it is getting the TLC that it deserves. The rusted fitting on the supply fuel line broke off when my sweetheart tried to ease it off of the filter manifold. Fear is why we are doing this in the boatyard. Fear of having to deal with a broken fitting in a raging sea with no power. I am so happy that he believes in preventative maintenance.

The Old Salt was in need of another project, so the two guys will clean this all up and replace any needed parts.

Fuel filter supply manifold prior to maintenance.

For the size and complexity of the boat there is very little corrosion. What there is, though, is being taken care of before it has a chance to cause a problem. I guess this is what winters are for.

For more boaty posts click on: Boat Stuff Index

More boat projects: The Anchor Project, Update on the Anchor Project