Alberg 30 Refit: Hull to Deck Joint failure

This week has been very productive. This is because the outside temps have fallen into the mid 80's with little humidity, making for a very enjoyable evening and an easier work day. This has led to some boat work. With the bottom of her hull drying out I was able to begin removing items from Sal's top deck.

You can see all the stanchions and the bow pulpit removed.

In this photo you can see where the bow pulpit base plates were mounted. I am not 100% sure when the last time any of this stuff was rebedded (sealed) but I am finding wet core material in her decks. I'll explain the core in a minute.

Here is a picture of Sal's mast base. 

Here it is again with the base removed; looks nasty. All of her core is rotten. This is a common problem on Alberg 30s of this vintage. Unfortunately her decks are worse off than I previously thought.  

Here is a good photo of  how the deck is made and how it should look. In this photo you can seen the yellowish-brown balsa wood core. On either side of the core you can see the fiberglass which adheres to this core to make a nice sound rigid structure. When making a hole on the boat one should seal these areas of exposed core to prevent water intrusion. The problem is many manufacturers never took that extra step and over the years water made its way into the core. With no way out for the water, it just sits there and rots the wooden core.

Here is a close up of the holes that were used to pass cable that went up the mast. Years of water intrusion has turned this area into a "soft spot" and there is now compression on the mast post below. That black stuff is wet rotten core.

On to Bigger Issues:

Hull-to-Deck Joint Failure!!!

While researching my Alberg 30's history online I found some forum posts about Salacia (named Dances with Waves at the time) having hull-to-deck joint issues. In the post, her owner described it as "Oil Canning" on the port bow. Ever since we purchased her I could see the evidence of where the repair had been made. Today I got a really good look. I'm not happy about what I found, but...it can be fixed.

Photo of Alberg 30 hull-to-deck joint. This where the manufacture fastened the deck and hull together. These boats were made in two separate pieces and then jointed together. This joint is crucial to the overall structural integrity of the boat and, ultimately, to her seaworthiness.

Here is a photo I pulled from Alberg37.org (Alberg 30's big sister, the Alberg 37). It is an exact representation of how Sal's hull-to-deck was built. Both boats were manufactured by Whitby Boatworks in Canada so it is no surprise the joints were built the same.

Here is the failure area. You can see the deck is lifted from the hull. The owner at the time just filled the gap with some sort of sealant and kept on sailing....

Here is the hull-to-deck joint that looks normal, with no gap. I will clean these areas over the weekend and post better photos.

As I continue to dismantle Salacia I continue to find issues. I am not unhappy about these things, and I am actually glad they are coming to light so I can fix them properly and feel confident in her seaworthiness.

Alberg 30 Refit: Bottom paint removal continued and hull blisters

This evening I finished up the nasty dirty paint removal task on the port side of the hull. During the last few months I have been pretty busy with work, family and other projects and I was becoming frustrated and worried that the refit would never progress. I had piddled around here and there but no major tasks were getting done. Fortunately, this has changed. I made it a priority to get this refit rolling.

I had been using a 6" sander to remove the paint. That thing made all kinds of dust. It removed the paint but was a bear to use. I decided to try scraping a majority of the paint. This turned out to be a great decision. In about 4 hours time I had scraped almost the entire side. 

After scraping a majority of the paint, sanding with a 5" Bosch orbital sander made getting to the gelcoat quite easy. Another 4 hours and I had 2/3 of the port side hull down to the gelcoat.

Working away at little bit at a time, I put in 2 hours last night.

Using the trailer as a bench and stool has come in quite handy.

Another angle of the sanded hull

Here's where the bad news starts. My Alberg is full of blisters (water intrusion), This is a good example of one. From what I can tell this is not a new problem and one that someone tried to repair long ago...about 6 layers of bottom paint ago to be exact, so maybe 20 years ago....who knows???

You can see the hull issues better in this photo. That discolored area which extends all the way to the stern seemed to be some severe crazing, and is full of blisters

The red dots appear to be old blisters that were filled and the other dots are new blisters. 

As you can see from the pictures I am making progress. I seemed to have opened a can of worms here on the hull. I surely want to fix the issues as best I can, but I also want to be sensible about the repair. I am devising a plan now to use West System epoxy for the repairs, and until then I'll be sanding the starboard side. More to follow!

Alberg 30 Refit: Bottom paint removal

And I've already run into an issue. I started working on the bottom, beginning with the nasty job of removing bottom paint. When I got Sal out of the water I realized she has between 5-6 layers of paint. This being the dirtiest job, I decided to tackle it first. Upon inspection of the hull I noticed some weird coloring where the paint had chipped or cracked away. I decided to start where I noticed this weird coloring.

That small white area is where I started. Small pin holes and the funny looking pattern immediately had me concerned.

Sanded a small area, the odd pattern and pin holes seemed to be wide spread. Can of worms opened! 

As I began to remove the paint I quickly realized that this was going to be way more nasty than I ever imagined. Blue dust was everywhere. I did have a respirator but that was not nearly enough. A few days later with a the proper PPE I decided to investigate that area more. I began sanding with a 6 inch disc sander. Very good tool for the job. Within an hour I had removed about a 4' x 3' area and the odd pattern just kept going. I was looking for the original gelcoat and it was nowhere to found. The gelcoat is the outer protective layer of fiberglass boats, that seals and protects the fiberglass. My immediate thought was that the boat had suffered some damage in the area. I was starting to get worried.

This is the area I sanded. Almost 2 hours of nasty work. 

This is a close-up of what I found

I decided to stop because I was getting pretty discouraged with how widespread the affected area was. I sent a few pictures of it to people I consider "Plastic Classic" (old fiberglass boat) gurus. After a few days of emails and a few calls the general consensus was that the boat was not damaged and I was just seeing crazed/cracked, thinned gelcoat. These pin holes were voids in the layup between the gelcoat and the fiberglass. It seems as though somewhere in Sal's past someone sanded way into the gelcoat. At this point I am still weighing options about how to address the issues I found, but in the meantime I have to finish sanding the hull. I hope to have it completed soon. I believe I can do it in a week if I just buckle down.

Stepped back a bit to get a better view, have a lot of work ahead of me!

I have been pretty busy away from the boat with everyday life. I picked up quite a few extra hours captaining the ferry to get some money into the refit fund. I also had a milestone birthday (40!) and we had some special family members come for visits. I will blog about that in coming days.

Take care~

Salacia our Alberg 30 is now home

Here she is sitting by the house. What a relief!

Busy day ahead, just a quick update, I will post more later

Plans, Plans, Plans

Right now we are in the "planning to plan" stages of going cruising. We have our vessel, we have a vision and  we are working on a plan to get us there. This is harder than it seems: deciding to take a complete 180 from everything you know and setting off for distant shores. Sound scary? That's the best thing about it! First and foremost there is no clear and cut path to this type of life. There are books, blogs and forums written by others that have done it before but they are still only the few. None of the seem to say exactly how they broke away. Some say how easy it is and some say "just go!" but is it the honest truth...or glossed-over hindsight? 

First mate and I have chosen to take a path less followed. Life is a very finite entity. We decided working day in and day out, each day so similar to the last that it seems like sleepwalking until days blend into years and years become old age, is not for us. We have been fortunate enough to travel the world together once already. We have seen the beauty of  east and west coasts of USA, Caribbean, Puerto Rico, Canada, France, Spain, Italy, Israel, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Turkey.....we have been many places and met many wonderful and interesting people. We want to keep going. There is still a whole world out there to explore and we want to experience it. 

Getting Sal ready to take us on such journeys will take time and dedication to the project, but won't be the hard part. While the work itself will be difficult to get done, there are many books, blogs and parts available out there to make her a safe voyaging vessel. 

As I write this I am passing ideas around in my brain on ways to make a living while we're out there. This is the hard part...figuring out what we will do to maintain this lifestyle. We want to eventually be live-aboards on the west coast. That to me is easy and attainable. I can work while living aboard. But we also want to cruise. Can we save up enough money while stateside to leave for years at a time? My guess is no. We want to visit many foreign places but we know we will need income. How will that income be earned? This is the great question and the hardest to answer. All of my money making experience tells me I need to trade my skills and efforts for cash. Can one just cruise up to a foreign country and get a job? Probably not. So what will we do? 

This is where I am right now, trying to formulate a plan and a good one to keep us moving toward our goal of enjoying the life we were given and not waiting for the golden years. We are working hard at the moment and that is all that matters. We are continuing to plan...while moving forward with our plan.

Flying the drifter in 2012

New Year = Alberg 30 Refit, or something like that

With this new year coming in with quite a chill I thought I'd take the the time to let everyone know what 2014 has in store for us and Sal. 

    We will continue to go to work and live everyday life (EXTREMELY frugally). This will help us move towards freeing ourselves of the soul-crushing imprisonment of debt. It will also give us time to work on skills that will help us sustain our cruising lifestyle when we finally do go. First mate is now a 200-hour Registered Yoga Instructor and she will spend 2014 sharpening her teaching skills. We hope she can use this to earn an income while cruising. I will be working on finishing my documentation and submitting my 100-Ton Master package to the USCG. I will also be busy..very busy....because:

   We are pulling our Salacia out of the water and putting her on the hard here at the house to begin a refit. (The neighbors are going to love it) <*snicker*>. As with any other plastic classic, Sal has some issues that need to be addressed. And beyond that she was never meant to be lived on, so we will be working to turn her into a capable cruiser/live-aboard vessel for the two of us. We will not be completely gutting her and starting over but rather working with what is already there, as she is still in fairly good condition. 

The last time we had her hauled nearly 3 years ago

Some of the major concerns and minuses:

• Delamination and soft deck issues, needs new electrical, she has some compression in mast beam area from water intrusion
•    Strengthening of forward chainplate knees
•    Water Tankage
•    Rebuilding and mounting our Lofrans Manual windlass
•    Adding inner forestay and running backstays
•    Rebuilding Toe rails and securing hull to deck seam
•    Painting and freshening up of all areas
•    Dodger/sun shade for cockpit
•    NO SAILING : (
•    Add Boom Gallows
•    Upgrade ground tackle
•    Mounting chainplates for drogue
•    Add ventilation
•    Recondition original 4 forward opening portlights
•    Adding heat source
•    Build deck chocks for our dingly

Some areas that are pluses or already done:

•    Rigging- Both standing and running rigging are only 2 yrs old
•    Already reconditioned mast and mast hardware
•    Head- fairly new Lavoc with a new holding tank
•    Electronics are new and not even installed yet
•    Own dodger 
•    Own windlass
•    I can do almost 99% of the work myself
•    Save money on slip fees
•    Build or sew a drogue
•    Already own new ground tackle, just need to build anchor storage on Sals bow-maybe a small bowsprit.
•    Already own  new ABI porlights
•    Own trailer
•    Aux power-while gas, like new including shaft, cutlass bearing and prop
•    Have Dingy

As you can see, this list is quite extensive and lots of work will be involved. This is one reason we decided to refit her at the house. Traveling to and from the marina wasted time and fuel. I was able to purchase a trailer that I will modify for her. That project is now under way and I will be updating you all on the blog here soon.

I am also going to try to be more attentive to the blog. I am hoping that you all can provide some constructive feedback as I know some of you have experienced a refitting.

Picking up trailer and towing it home about 45 miles. She is made with 2 6,000 lb axles and 4x6 x.375 steel angle. Plenty strong to hold and carry Sals 9,000 lb bottom

I will be adding a keel support and boat stands to keep her upright. 

One other important thing to note is that we know the work involved, I have the time for such work and we have no rigid deadline. I have a goal of 12-18 months but if it takes longer so be it.

Please stay tuned and follow along!