Core is Cleared!

 June 2, 2017

Friday after work. We must be insane because we met at the house, grabbed a cooler of water and headed to the Yellow Bird to get in a couple of hours of labor. Truly I had intended to go one day after school (did I mention I am a teacher?) but the end of school year craziness has begun so I did not get a chance. Honestly, I was looking forward to it all day.

And yet, after two hours…it appears as if I barely touched the rotten core.  Shawn worked on the stripe on “my” side of the boat and he has it almost completely removed.  Slow going now. But we are steady plugging away.

Saturday

Slow, slow, slow going on the rotten core. Or maybe I am impatient! Before starting, we reconfigured the supports because we wanted to make sure that everything was as stable as possible. We added two more lines of support (one of each side) to the middle supports.

We worked steadily on the removal and are almost finished. We had some conversations about the plywood which is around the perimeter because some of it is actually still in quite good shape. We decided that if it is dry and secure we are going to leave it. Not so for the few areas on the deck where the balsa wood is actually dry and in good shape. It had to come out for the recoring. 

There were several “stubborn” areas which Shawn actually had to remove because I flat-out could not.  Shawn cut the edge of the plywood around the perimeter so that I could pry the wet part off and keep the dry part which is under the perimeter decking that we left on. I like to work barefoot (despite Shawn’s concerns…I just hate shoes) and there were several screws protruding into the flybridge. Shawn wanted to remove them, so he went below to do so. He discovered there is actually another layer between the flybridge deck and the salon ceiling. Apparently the wiring for the overhead lights in the salon runs through this layer… Odd. We are hoping we never have to replace that wiring because we are not sure HOW we would get to it.  At the end of the day, we have JUST the plywood sections to remove tomorrow. And the stripe to finish...

After arriving home, we spent a relaxing couple of hours trying different recipes for the “Yellow Bird” cocktail for which the boat is named.

Sunday

Shawn had to work (at his real job!) this morning so I went to the Yellow Bird to get started. I began the remaining deck removal and it went very quickly. The plywood is scored and there seems to be a bit of a pattern of one wide, then two or three narrow. I used my chisel to begin, then I used the crowbar to remove whole sections of the scored plywood. Easy, peasy but it does take some upper body strength! My arms, shoulders and back ached after a couple of hours. The corner sections still gave me a fit so when Shawn got there mid-day, he again used the cutter the cut the plywood between the perimeter and the deck. (I had been able to use my chisel to “cut” in other areas, but not those dang rounded corners!).

Then I had to remove the rotted wood from under the perimeter fiberglass that we left. I found the awl  worked best but to be honest I used any and everything to reach under and pry, pull, push, and otherwise manipulate the wood that was under it except for the spots where the wood's integrity was not compromised. This I simply left, so we do have some sections where we will not have to replace the wood.

Hmmm…while I was finishing on the flybridge, Shawn began examining the doors from the cockpit to the salon. They had been wildly uneven and he had put a jack under the floor to brace it, but now he decided (?????) to remove the doors. An unexpected turn of events. He actually intended to only remove the teak trim to take home for us to sand and oil, but….I am actually (okay…maybe just a little bit) happy he decided to remove them because the wood under the door frame was rotten so we (Shawn) will be replacing that before we put the doors back in. AND we will paint the doors frames 

as well since they are off!

When we got home, I received my reward for lots of work done of a boat ride in our Carolina Skiff just to feel the sun on my face and the salty sea air and water sprays as we puttered around for an hour just enjoying the beautiful day. It has been a weekend of sunny cloudless skies, no humidity and 80 degree temperatures! And I was on a boat! (in a boatyard for most of it!). I felt rejuvenated when we got back to our dock.

So Shawn sanded the teak trim and swim platform and I applied the teak oil. Our version of an assembly line.

So at the end of the day…the flybridge deck core is removed…the doors are removed…the teak is removed…can we start putting her back together yet???

Core Continued

So I am beginning to think MAYBE I have no idea of EXACTLY how much is entailed in our project. 3 days ~18 hours of hard labor and still not finished with removing the soggy, rotting core!

Despite the rain on Sunday, we continued to work on our YB. I spent my time in demolition of the rotten wood coring.  There appears to be an ultima saturation point at which it removes easily—more water laden than that and it becomes a disintegrating mess and less water laden than that point and it is difficult to remove. I used a chisel and a hammar, both together and separately depending on area. I also used a cool scraper thing that Shawn had with a sharp edge and irregular edges and a hook.

Some of the places of rotten core look as if they could be microscopic world and I fell a bit like Jonathon Swift's Gulliver in Lilliput as I bumble my way through the destruction of the fibers. 

Shawn meanwhile worked until his fingers were bleeding on the stripes on “his” side. He used 220 wet/dry sandpaper and completely removed the stripes. We will need to go back over the side with a finer grit to remove the lingering imperfections. I love the look with no stripe. She looks bigger and cleaner, so we will begin our cruising without the stripe (we can always paint a boot stripe later). And  I will sigh have to get to work on “my” side to catch up!

Shawn also removed all the electronics and rails from the removed flybridge. “We” decided we should paint the flybridge while it was off since we are painting the deck of it. So he removed all the accouterments that adorned it (horn, rails, speakers, etc.) to prepare it.

Listing what we did does not seem to do justice to the hours of work on Sunday and Monday. We truly worked hours each both days AND when you look at her, you see the difference;  but the list seems meager. Everything is labor intensive, but very satisfying to see the result.

Are we done yet???? 😆

Cut to the core!

Memorial Day Weekend.  The core is cut! Shawn for sure is doing the lion’s share of the work so far. First, he took a scrap 2*4 and marked with a grease pencil (aka china marker) the line around the flybridge. 

He took a 4 inch grinder and began cutting around the edge.  He tried a circular saw with a masonry cutting blade but that did not work well—not enough power. I am glad he had the 4 inch grinder from a previous project. In some places, as he cut, water and sodden wood particles actually sprayed out.

After cutting the perimeter, Shawn began to cut sections in manageable squares/rectangles. 

As “we” worked, I was really surprised at how much water was in the core. We could actually squeeze water from the wood core pieces as if they were sponges. Gross. And now I completely understand why the deck felt so soggy when we walked on it.  I spent more time examining the exposed wood mess than doing anything else.

We discovered something Shawn suspected when we examined the flybridge deck. There had been a previous botched repair attempt.  A boat yard (we assume) had attempted to repair the deck core by drilling holes and squirting epoxy as a filler/sealant into the core, then layering fiberglass over the deck; which made the deck wildly uneven and did not help the underlying deck problem at all.

My task was to keep the cords out of the way which I was able to do. We had a couple of close calls when I was daydreaming about cruising the ICW and forgot to move the cords, but all was well.

Shawn always deserves a nice cool adult beverage at the end of the day, but no more so than today after grinding fiberglass for hours in the hot sun! Cruising the ICW with some sun, fun and drinks sounds great today! And it cannot come fast enough!

Flybridge Removal!!!

We removed the flybridge! Shawn had prepared the flybridge for removal by screwing a board across the seats of the flybridge to stabilize the bridge wings and ease the removal.  Charlie came with the travel lift (with beam attached) and easily lifted off the flybridge and placed it in front of the Yellow Bird.  (Shawn and Charlie did stellar job of finding the “balance spot” for the beam and the flybridge).

We removed the swim platform and brackets in order to (1) brace the swim platform by placing backing plates on the inside of the hull (we found all the underwater screws were deteriorated and need to be replaced) and (2) sand and clean the teak. 

We began polishing (which is going to require LOTS of elbow grease--sadly they don’t sell that at Jett’s Marine where we purchased our supplies!).  We continued to remove stripes, a frustrating and tedious task…not my favorite part of this refurbishment!

We wet-sanded the painted stripes to prepare for repainting. Removing the tape stripes is by far the most frustrating task . Because they are taped (3 layers) and painted over the tape, it is coming off in tiny sections in many areas. I am using a razor scraper and sometimes I can get a good run of tape coming off,  For some of the tougher spots, I tried spraying an adhesive remover on the tape first, but I am not sure it is making it any easier. We thought this part would be a quick “between bigger tasks” but it is becoming a big task in and of itself.  

The prep continues....

The prep works continues…Yesterday, we removed the flybridge rails, and the mast. I like her better with no mast, so I think we will “simply” plug the hole and rerun the wires for the anchor and the steaming lights. We lifted the flybridge and chocked it with scrap 2*4 blocks so that it is ready to be removed from the deck. 

Today we removed the remainder of the letters. I have to confess I did go after work one day to do that, but was only able to remove one letter in 15 minutes, so I got grumpy and left! However with both of us working (and the sun shining on the letters) we made quick work of it. We discovered some of the stripes on the side were tape with paint over it in parts, so we began to remove that also. Our plan is to paint her while she is out of the water. I don’t think we are going to have her ready by Memorial Day!