It dawned another sprinkle filled daybreak. Not a huge deluge but a nice gentle set of drops. I'd taken my umbrella to the internet room so I didn't need rescuing like I did the day before when I got myself trapped by another rainstorm. Tracy walked down figuring that when I didn't come back, I must have forgotten my umbrella. Oh how right she was. Today I went prepared. With it raining, we weren't sure if the workers would come since they have a reputation that if it's raining or even thinking of raining, they take the day off. Just after 0800, in they came, all ready for another fun filled day of cutting fiberglass, drilling fiberglass, sanding fiberglass, unscrewing screws from fiberglass. You get the picture--it was all about fiberglass today.
First, they started in on filling all the screw holes, ok, just the portside screw holes with epoxy and filler. Lots of little white dots replaced the little black holes the screws left when they were removed. They had bigger plans for the starboard side. They were going to cut a section out of the fiberglass deck to see how much of the core had rotted. Out came the circular saw and off came a nice 2 X 3 foot section of the deck. The core was soaked. We'd read the original construction details of when Zephyr was made so we knew that the back deck core was made up of small(about 4 inch square)pieces of plywood. It was correct, lots of nice totally soaked chunks of wood. Out came the chisel and while they were soaked with water, they were still firmly attached to the bottom fiberglass panel. After a lot of chiseling, the core was out. Once the panel was cleaned out and dried, a layer of epoxy was brushed into the void and pieces of Airex foam was laid out and it was then epoxied in as well. A panel was put on top of the mass of foam and epoxy and it was held in place with a huge chunk of a log. It's going to sit over night and then once tomorrow comes, work will start again. The top piece of fiberglass that had been cut out will be re epoxied back in place and then layers of fiberglass will be added to make sure it never leaks again. The leak that we had has been with us ever since we bought Zephyr back in 2007. We kept small bowls in the cabinet where the water came in. After tomorrow, we won't have to do that again. What a relief that will be.
About 1000, Mr. Ali took us over to see a sailboat that he had re decked last year. He's stripped off the teak and done the same thing we want done to Zephyr. He wanted us to see his work. One thing we did see was that he'd missed removing some of the screws that held the teak down. These bits of screws had rusted under the new fiberglass and had now left a black/brown stain in the new fiberglass. We now knew we had to make sure every screw was stripped off Zephyrs decks. Other than that, it looked great.
Shortly after we got back to Zephyr, while the weather was getting better, Mother Nature whipped up some wind and quickly ripped the last tarp we had put on the very back of the stern to keep the rain out. Then it ripped the grommets out of the second tarp we had put over the deck. We headed back on deck to capture the tarps so we could put them back on later. It wasn't raining and the sky had actually gotten some blue in it so there was no big rush.
Last Friday, I made an appointment to have one of the local electricians come by. We haven't been getting the most out of our batteries. While the monitor showed us at 12.5 or above, the circuit panel showed us at about 12 volts or lower. We were bleeding off some voltage. Bad wire? Bad contacts? No clue. He stopped by earlier in the day and took a look at our system and batteries. He thinks that our batteries are on their last legs since they are showing signs of bulging on the tops. We bought the Trojans when we were in the Philippines back in 2013, just three years ago. So far, they have performed flawlessly and still charge and hold a steady voltage. I guess we will now have to start watching them closer. I try to check and fill all the cells around the first of each month. They never take much water and have been excellent batteries. Brian also pointed out what looked to be some questionable connections on one set of buss bars so I spent some time late in the morning disconnecting, cleaning, coating each screw and connection with Vasoline and re attaching them. I then did a test of each cell on the batteries with a hydrometer to see what they read. Each read in the 13 volt range(charger was running). Not a single cell showed any signs of decay. His job as he sees it is to come on a boat, check the systems and batteries and make recommendations for what it might take to fix what he thinks is wrong. Then he leaves it up to the owner to make the choice. The owner can do some, or all the work, or the electrician will do it for them. I opted to do the work myself. It's sort of fun working with all the bits and pieces of the electrical fitting on Zephyr. When we had much of the wiring replaced in Port Townsend back in 2008, I made sure to watch and learn how the "pros" did it. I've done just about all the electrical work on her ever since. I'll be talking to him again tomorrow so he can do some more investigations. I don't like getting bad voltage readings on our Vulcan 7 when we are on passage. This error in what the voltage is is something new starting about 6 months ago and really came to a head when we left Walvis Bay in Namibia. We will figure it out in time.
We spent the last part of the afternoon(after the workers left, putting the third tarp back on, removing the ring that covers the opening for the emergency tiller on the back deck and then tackling three screws we found that were broken off on the deck. It took a lot of drilling and grinding to get them to finally come out. A real pain in the ass but a necessary pain so Zephyrs new decks will look great. We're really looking forward to our new look and the lessening of the heat inside that the teak decks caused as they cooked in the Sun.
We finally broke about 1700 and walked up to the shower room for our afternoon cold showers. No hot water. Well, there might be as we've seen a coin slot in one of the shower stalls that is supposed to give you hot water. No clue if it works. The one in the mens room(out of four shower stalls)had no head on the shower pipe. Not sure if it works but will be asking tomorrow
That's about it for now. Time to walk over to the Internet room and get this posted.
The picture on this post is off the section of the stern deck with the top layer removed. You can see all the small blocks of wood. The piece on the right is the underside of the decking that was removed. You can see him chiseling out the pieces of wood on the left.