Kaimusailing

It was time to go back to Crisfield and do some sheet rock work on Cornelia Marie’s dining room ceiling. Also she wanted to trailer her skiff there to be used exploring local waters, such as Janes Island State Park. She had gone through the laborious process of getting the boat and trailer in shape for inspection and registry. I loaded the two windsurfers, two booms, and two sails, but only one mast, into the boat on the trailer. I had planned to bring two masts, but a tree had fallen on the power lines on the dockmaster’s property and now the only way out was under the sagging powerlines, so I used one mast to prop the wires up out of the way.
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We needed sheet rock screws and wine and shopped on our way down the DelMarVa Penninsula to Crisfield. I bought worklights and some stuff to bring back to the Catalina 30 when we returned. I would also buy a couple of tools to bring back, tools for the Atomic Four engine repair.
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I had contacted the Previous Owner’s Husband who had worked on the engine over the past few years without solving the engine’s basic problem. He followed the advice of the experts at Moyer Marine who insisted he was getting water intrusion from his water lift muffler. As a result, the exhaust system had been rebuilt and was an excellent example of how to do it right. However this was a wrong diagnosis by the experts, the water intrusion was coming from the other end of the engine. I can imagine the frustration of working on this 42 year old engine again and again, each time having the valves out and cleaned up, and each time having the engine fail while producing tons of steam out the back. He finally gave up and bought a new boat, not a bad move at all. This old Catalina 30 has other problems, although all the basics seem to work OK. I will try to fix those problems. It seems I have a skill at solving problems and that leads to me getting more than my share of problems to solve.
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After the long trip down the Penninsula we unpacked. Some mail had arrived during the week including a new bicycle seat for the Serotta that came from China, and my title and registration application for the Catalina, the application returned because I did not sign it. I signed it and we took a walk to the post office to mail mail. It was hot but I am used to heat now. We returned and ate leftover Mexican food and flew the drone which now needs new propellers.
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The next day a truck from the hardware store arrived with two burly fellows who brought 6 sheets of drywall into the dining room where it will be installed on the ceiling. I strategically placed a pair of sawhorses and a plywood piece to form a sort of table right in the middle of the room. That’s where they piled the drywall.
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We had been planning this little project for a while and had ordered extra drywall and had picked up an additional box of 1 1/4“ drywall screws. The layout of the panels and pieces of panels had been worked out to the nth square inch. I knew exactly how it should be done, but I couldn’t find the little notepad I had written it all down on. We started anyway.
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First we stripped the tape that held the panels together in pairs. The first panel went up in a corner, it was a simple panel of drywall, no cutting, we had a few anxious moments with the panel up on our strange rig, but after pressing it up against the stringers and marking where to screw screws, we screwed the panel up with 21 screws on a 12“ pattern, leaving the screws of the perimeter to be done after the rig was taken down. The rig was like a giant rectangular easel that you place a sheet of drywall on and then swing the panel up, careful, the rig hasn’t been well tested.
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After putting the perimeter screws into the first panel we had a problematic second panel. The light fixture was in the middle of one end of the panel, so careful measurement and judicious cutting left a hole in the panel for the light fixture hook up. We had a problem when, with the panel almost in position, one of the sticks we had been using to hold up one end let loose and the panel came crashing down with a loud sound. We were stunned and looked at the shattered debris of part of the panel. I thought it could be repaired, but CM said we have extra panels, let’s use one. But we’ve already damaged 50% of the panels we’ve handled.
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There was sweeping up the debris and then redoing the whole thing from square one, moving all the drywall panels and their table to open up the space where we were raising the panel. Marking another panel, then cutting out the opening for the light using a jig saw, much better. Up went the panel. It was moved a bit this way and that until it was aligned, then the 21 screws, remove the jig, and then put in the 24 perimeter screws.
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The next panel was above the dining table, so that had to be moved. It went up fairly easily. The rearranging furniture was the hardest part. Now the rest of the panels were small, less than 4‘X4‘. A corner built-in cabinet made one of the small patterns a challenge, but I measured once, cut it out, and it fit almost too perfectly. I said it was a shot in the dark. The remnant, like a triangle, was perfect to fill in the rest of the angular space around the cabinet. At this point CM wanted to cut all the rest of the small pieces out of the whole new panel because of the straight edges. I wanted to cut the small pieces out of the remnant panel that almost fell on us. We could get all we needed out of that panel and not touch the remaining new panel. We had an argument about this and I put of one more of the small panels and called it a day.
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The next day was pizza day, so we did a little shopping for mozzarella, etc. Although the bulk of the drywall ceiling work was done, we were not celebrating like we should. We had hit a snag of stubbornism. Gradually the day moved on and pizzas got made. I did not have my baking pans and Walmart didn’t seem to be carrying them anymore. We would have to make pizza the same way as everyone else, make the pies out of a dough ball, one at a time. And so we did. Friends declined to come over but invited us later. A fellow from the neighborhood stopped by and ate some pizza. The pies were good. Making the pies individually went well. We had tons of pizza left over for the next couple of days.
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We put all the windsurfing stuff, tools, leftover wood, and the pizza oven away, stowed the whole house, and we left for the drive back up to The Bodkin. We stopped at Harbor Freight for tools and Walmart for some galley items for the Catalina. At the Bodkin a repair crew was fixing the power line that had been taken down by an old tree. I noticed power had been interrupted on the Catalina. CM went off to work and I began unpacking new tools.
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I called Moyer Marine to follow up with Ken in the parts department. I now had a magnifying glass and bright flashlight to inspect the hole that the stud broke out of, out of the block, and now they tell me I have to remove the valve cover, remove the valves, clean everything up, put it all back together with a repair stud for the broken one, and see if the engine cooperates.
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The image is of the Atomic 4 engine before I tore into it.