S/V Passage - Refitting a Classic (& Building Our Skills) Before Cutting the Docklines

It’s been another couple of productive days preparing Passage to be water-ready. Although she’s not going to be ready to take off for saltier waters any time soon, we’d still like to try to spend some time enjoying Lake Michigan from her deck during the short, hot Chicago summer! We’ll see what happens.
It rained and stormed all day yesterday, so going down to the boat wasn’t in the cards but I was still able to run errands to get more cleaning supplies with my dad and start reading through The Complete Illustrated Sailboat Maintenance Manual by Don Casey. I found directions for making new curtains (the old ones use rv track curtain hardware) and a handheld sewing machine that works on D/C and A/C power. I don’t think the handheld will be able to handle curtain making, but hopefully it’ll be good for basic repairs going forward. I also bought David a “boat warming” gift-four tropical themed drink cozies! Now when we have guests, we can keep the beer cold since the refrigerator isn’t totally working. It feels colder than the ambient air but doesn’t really chill anything…not very high on the repair list yet, but we’ll get to it.

Today was a much more productive one, since the rain ended and temperatures were nice and warm! I cut the foam for the v-berth which ended up fitting perfectly into the boat when we took it with us this afternoon. We might even be able to use the extra pieces to add a second layer to the mattress if we can get just a bit more for the middle. We went to Home Depot to get “Krud Cutter” as my dad recommended in order to work on the water stains above the floor in the main cabin. It really lightened the dark area below the dining table, and I have high hopes it’ll do the job for the rest once we sand off the remaining varnish. My dad said he’d mail us his palm sander when he gets some, so we don’t have to buy one.

David thought he was going to have to rebed two of the portholes-in the hallway and v-berth-but it turned out that there was so much dirt accumulated between the window and the frame that they couldn’t seal properly. A thorough cleaning hopefully fixed the issue; we’ll see next time we’re down there if the water puddles don’t reappear below them. We are pretty much done with the v-berth now, and Passage is starting to look like more than a forgotten storage closet. Because we were able to find great berth cushion replacements at Ikea, I was able to talk David into trashing the old ones…which I’m convinced came with the boat when it was first launched in 1980!
We did decide to keep a couple of them so we can trace the right shapes for our new cushions, since that’ll be much easier than tracing below bench backs in the main cabin.

We also tried to take measurements for new sails, and did get the jib done but the main halyard is somehow stuck at the top of the mainmast and I wasn’t about to test out our boson’s chair on a rather windy day so we saved that for later. Passage’s inside is now clean enough that I’m not worried about getting some crazy mildew/dirt disease by walking on the floor, sitting on benches, or leaning against anything. So we can now get started cleaning the bilge out (David found a shoe down there) and we’re looking at having Crowley’s marine diesel guys evaluate the Westerbeke since neither of us even know where to start.

Tonight I’m going to try the Kool-Aid trick suggested in a previous blog comment for cleaning some brass fixtures I brought home today. By the time we finished, I was too tired and hungry to clean the lifejackets to take back to the boat, but that’ll be a good project for some warmer weeknight this coming week. David thinks we’re going to get Passage in the water before July 4th but to do that we need to clean the bilge, set up an engine review appointment, buy some basic sails and throw a coat of antifouling paint on the bottom. Stripping and repainting will need to wait until next spring.

We don’t need a working shower, hot water heater, or refrigerator in order to get out there. The Pardey’s don’t have all sorts of complicated trinkets and they cross oceans! People who’ve seen photos of Passage or stopped by in person all seem to have a similar response, “you’ve got a lot of work to do.” But we knew that going into this, and it’s nice to feel like we’re getting to know Passage a little at a time.