2/26/10... Hmmmm Day 2

We didn't really do anything too productive today. Every little bit helps though. We wired up the radio but only temporarily. We took the remainder of the wood out to bring it back to the home front to refinish it. We measured for all the cushions and had a "discussion" as to what all would be covered with what. Good for us, we agree on it all :) We cleaned up a little and I am pretty sure that was it :)

2/24/10... Bursting my Bubble

I started to polyurethane some of the wood pieces tonight. I don't know why the poly is bubbling so bad. My coats are thin. The product is good. We stripped the wood down totally so, the surface prep was good too. It is cold and raining out side but, it feels ok in here. That must be it. Even with the few bubbles left to sand out, the poly really made the wood look incredible. Following what appears to be standard on the boat yard, we used a gloss on the outside wood and a semi on the inside pieces.

2/21/10... Bump in the Night? Willy?

Today was my first day for solo work without the man around. I am tired of the drive back and forth all the time... Sooooo... I figured we should stay the night on the boat. Why not??? It's just like camping kind of. The only thing that bothered me was the remaining mildew and other general nastiness the boat still had... This would be the third (I think) time she has been bleached and wiped... It gets better each time but, number one Charlie only lets me use so much bleach before he starts to get bothered by the fumes and number two we are never there long enough to actually get to the bottom of an entire area. Today was going to be my day to scour the front of the cabin so, we could sleep in it.

I was pleased that all of the mildew was able to be cleaned completely from the front of the cabin. I was also pleased that the eye sore stains had 95% lifted and left clean in it's place. On a Willy note, the man needed some silicone anonymous help. I know that a tube of silicone is important on a sailboat for so many reasons buttttt, Willy had coated his entire boat with it... inside, outside, over paint, over windows, secured hatches closed... yes, and most important use, place 1/4" silicone over any area where you see mildew. Over time, you will be amazed at the smell that can be created when you scrape the moldy silicone off.... ummmm yummm. :(

Sleeping on the boat for the first time??? Hmmmm... Very happy for the space heater Charlie brought along. We even had to open the hatch during the night to cool off a bit. BUT... no matter how many comforters, sleeping bags, quilts, pillows, and jackets you lay down in an effort to soften a bed of molded acrylic or fiberglass or whatever it is... it is NEVER soft. We tossed and turned through the majority of the night and did sleep through more than we thought we would. The wind was pretty brutal. You could hear every rig hitting up against something for the entire night... Some of the noises even echo. (Almost sounds like someone walking around on the deck.) It must have sounded like that to Charlie too because he asked in the middle of the night if Willy was alive or dead... I blurted he was alive because the thought of his ghost haunting the boat at that point was unbearable to me. I confessed the next morning I didn't know about Willy. Maybe I should look into it :)

2/19/10... We Wood Love To!

Well... it has been pretty much decided that we will use whatever we can still left on the boat. Not only is it a money break but, it helps her keep a little character she has been building over the years. We met up at Charlie's workshop to work on the wood and see what she could still pull off with a little help. We were surprised (we shouldn't be at this point) at how nice the wood came out. We had to go anywhere from 1/8" to 1/4" down on each piece of wood to get past the dirt, stains, and muck but, they cleaned up incredibly well. Charlie showed me how to polish some of the metal accessories with the Dremel. Let me just say now, this was quite possibly one of the coolest things I have done so far on the project. I have decided I now need a Dremel of my own. It makes you want to walk around town and see what you can make new again :) We stained a few pieces too... but, the poly will have to come another time :)

2/18/10...Bleach Bum

We were on a mission today and had more lined up than it was possible to complete... Today had huge potential to become a hmmm day but once we started, the drastic results motivated us to keep pushing and see what we could do with her with just a little elbow grease.

When we came the other day (for pressure washing), Charlie asked me to pull all of the contents from one compartment out (looking aft starboard side). While trying to reclaim some of these items, I had to actually crawl in this small dark space. It was covered in dirt, dead bugs, mildew, water, etc. I got caught up in some ropes that I had tossed out which landed across my feet... I guess in all of my squirming to get all the way up in there, I loosely bound my feet together... The even funnier (now funny... then screaming) part of this moment is the boys were pressure washing from the outside... with everything being opened on the boat, I was also getting a shower throughout my adventure... I pretty much decided at that point this compartment would be the first thing that would be gutted and cleaned.

With the aid of the shop vac, a bottle of Clorox Clean Up, a bag of shop rags, elbow grease, and alot of shuddering at all of the things I was placing my hands (and body) in, the compartment was cleaned. This was the first time we actually saw the potential condition of the interior of the cabin. The surface was clean, shiny, and free of scratches, dings, or anything... It looked incredible. We were both so encouraged with the out come and started to go through the rest of the boat in little "testing" sites to see how that area would come out.

We also took a few pieces of wood from miscellaneous places on the boat. The plan is to take them back home sand, stain, and poly them... It was also pretty much decided today that I would have full control of the inside and Charlie would take all of the responsibility for the out. We rolled up the rest of the ropes/cords and stuck them in compartments so, they wouldn't be strung out all over the place tripping everyone who stepped on the boat... We took off the sad hatch that was falling apart a little more everyday. We went up to Lowe's and got a pretty piece of birch to cut out the new one. We used the old piece as the template but, it still didn't fit exact. It was close enough to take it back to the house, round out the edges a bit, and try again.

2/16/10... Hope for a Better Tomorrow

Today was a huge day for us... Charlie and a friend pressure washed the outside and I started the initial detox of the cabin including the window scraping. I am not sure if it is "common" in the "Boating" world to actually glue paper to the windows but, it was a challenge to get it off. Her whole look changed today and gave us a renewed hope for what she is becoming. We still have no regrets and look forward to each new step with her. We can't wait to get her into the water though... and she still needs a name. I sure wish I had taken the water inside the cabin pics before... They would surely look different compared to this point. I can't believe how much better she looks already :)

On a Willy note, we discovered today that he was a painter... oil/canvas type painter. He had a homemade color wheel with blended colors of different saturation. I would think that if he was good enough to have his own wheel like that taped to the inside of the cabinet, he must have been a good painter :)

2/14/10... Hmmmm Day

What is a hmmmm day? It is a day when you wake up saying I am going to do this and this and this and this... etc... BUT, then you get there, look at it, pick up a few pieces of trash, gather up a few ropes/cords, take a few pictures, get totally overwhelmed, then go home. I imagine we will have lots more of these days. I keep repeating - this is fun... it is a hobby... do what you want to when you want to do it... We are exhausted. We have been commuting about 5-6 hours a day plus, Charlie had an emergency trip Fort Pierce and we have both made a few trips to Orlando...

2/13/10... Our Smelly Pool

First things first... we have to make it a boat again instead of a swimming pool/jacuzzi... I can't believe I don't have any pictures of the boat with all of the water inside of it. For some reason the boat looked worse today than it did before. We were able to get all the way inside and the mildew was much much more than I originally thought... I will spare you the smell description... You can probably imagine that part. With a little help from the shop vac, the water was out.

The boat history has started to come together though. It appears our girl was inhabited by "Willy", an older gentleman with a few screws knocked loose with age. Willy had lived on this boat forever. I am not sure how forever was meant but I can account for the last 9-12 years. Willy's boat was in a slip for 3-4 years until he woke with water in the cabin one day. At that point, they pulled the boat up into the yard, fixed the loose hose, and left him onshore per his request. He stayed onshore for 3-4 years until his kids decided he wasn't safe remaining there by himself at that point in his life... It could have had something to do with the aliens. :) If you ask me, it was only fitting for Willy to have such a close connection with aliens being he was so close to the Cape for so long. Anyways, Willy had two ladders set to get up onto the Coronado... One in the front for everyone (including himself) and one in the back which was specifically for the aliens... No one else was allowed to use it.

First Glance... 2/11 & 2/12

We got the phone call on Thursday about a 25' Coronado for next to nothing... Too good to be true? Probably... Especially because the sail boat in the picture (left) looked pretty good. So with both of us sick as anything, we set out the following morning for the three hour drive. The universe may have been trying to throw some signs our way with the rain/wind/lightening/hail/etc. we had to drive through... But, we hadn't been on a road trip in a while and both were looking forward to the little bit of escape that was coming.

Once we arrived, she wasn't hard to spot. She was at the end of the first row right when you turn into the boatyard. There wasn't anyone around who worked there that we could find and we ended up waiting about an hour and a half before someone finally showed up... We had fun entertaining ourselves in the meantime though. We walked around a bit. It was sooo cold and wet we decided to stick it out in the truck. We ran up to the store, looked at other boats, and then walked back over in the cold rain to see her again. She had been badly neglected, not damaged but, severely neglected. We didn't have to open the hatch to look into her because it had already been left open for quite some time... Well, I am guessing that because of the amount of water that was in the boat itself. The mildew was unbearable and I was dreading even thinking of how to get it all out. She was sad and ugly but, sound. So, right there pretty much without having to say anything we bought her.