Approaching a New Season

Well, the new season is approaching. I have a launch slot for May 14. So far, though, things are not going well.

I went up to the marina last Saturday to start getting ready. There is a lot of work to be done this year. When I removed the tarps and opened the cabin, however, I found a lot of water inside. I had left a battery there and the bilge pump on, but I guess the battery lost its charge. And the built-in manual pump isn't drawing. I bought a new manual pump and a small battery-operated one and removed all the water. What a pain.

In the course of this, I found the source of the water. The starboard cockpit scupper was draining directly back into the boat because a hose had come loose. Geez, I wish I had found that last Fall. Large amounts of melting snow and ice went from the cockpit into the boat rather than out onto the ground. I can fix that and make a note to check these at the beginning and end of every season. That's not a permanent problem. I also should add all of the hoses and through-hulls to my checklists as well.

There are some big problems remaining, however. First, I wll have to do some serious cleaning, and it will be tough to get into all the nooks and crannies. I will have to use a bleach solution to try to remove odors and prevent mildew. This is going to add some hours to outfitting this year. The biggest problems, hwoever, concern what damage might have been done. The interior is definitely not designed to be immersed in water. I will have to see whether the wood is permanently warped or discolored. I'm considering taking a heater along on future trips up there and letting it help dry things out. I wish I could have done that last weekend, since things won't improve much by themselves over time. The other big problem is whether any electric or electronic gear was damage. My mental inventory seems to say that the only thing that is in real danger is the refrigerator, so I need to figure out to get in there and check it before I try turning it one. I might have to clean out those parts completely. I don't think the water got high enough to touch anything else or short out the battery that was there.

I guess I have proved the essential water-tightness of the boat, though, since nothing leaked out! Not much of a silver lining.

So, the other thing I have been doing is preparing the checklists for getting it ready in a month. The big tasks include bottom paint, sanding and varnishing (fortunately there isn't alot of external wood), cleaning, and various basic outfitting chores. More on that later.