WORKIN’ ON THE RAILROAD
Balboa, Panamá, Wednesday, May 27, 2009

(N.B. I still have not got the photos for this blog sorted out and time is now running short before we leavbe Panama for The Galapagos ande French Polynesia. Will add photos when I get a chance.)

Vilisar is back on the marine ways at Balboa Yacht Club to complete the work planned for her when she was up for a few days in March. Back then Erwin Pitti and his helpers from the commercial yard at Vacamonte not only repaired the pintels and gudgeons for the rudder (with new bronze bolts), but they also caulked all the planking below the waterline.

Our work programme for the next six days consists of:
1.
Stripping off the old and loose bottom paint. We are using chemical stripper until we get down to a good base, then wet-sanding with #80 paper. This work is being done by “Ricardo”, a fast-talking (and, as it turns out, semi-gangsta) local who has rounded up a few other guys; they use chemical stripper and hand-scrapers.
2.
Re-caulking the topside planks. The bottom planks are now quite tight and we are taking no water at all as long as we are level. As soon as we heel over under sail, however, water begins to trickle down the inside of the topside planks, and we have to man the pumps rather more often at sea than makes us feel comfortable. Over Vilisar’s thirty-five years, the caulking has simply dried out. Up in the dry desert climate of Mexico’s Sea of Cortés, I remember once looking out from inside the cabin and seeing a thin strip of light.

While Ricardo and his boys (Luis & Luis) scraped yesterday, Erwin and Ivan Pitti et al. cleaned out all the seams on the starboard side; Erwin did not want to start driving cotton when there is a big chance of an afternoon downpour to soak the material. This morning they are already at work caulking. The familiar and to me pleasant, rhythm of mallets hitting caulking irons as the cotton is driven deep into the seams is accompanying our morning coffee. Ricardo’s crew will show up at 0800 and we can add scraping noises to the background.

3.
Stripping the old white paint off the topsides and repainting. This paint will be ground off with heavy sanders once the caulking is done and the seams filled smooth with 3M 5200 epoxy sealant (5200 is more flexible than other materials; damned expensive, of course). The two-part polyurethane paint will be sprayed on later. Erwin Pitti swears we will look just like a brand-new boat. I joke with him that Vilisar will look just like a plastic yacht.

While they are working, the carpenteros de navales identify one piece of planking that has somehow split lengthwise and now some rot has set in. In my early days on the boat when I once discovered a piece of rot, I was in a real funk. But a shipwright in Port Townsend, WA, just laughed and said, unlike fibreglass boats which seem to fall apart all at once after 40-50 years (without there being much that you can do about it), if your wooden boat is stoutly built, no rot develops in the first 3-5 years and you are keeping an eye on things, you will probably be replacing bits and pieces of wood for at least 100 years but the boat will be basically sound. HIs word in God´s ear, as the Muslims say.

Anyway, the shipwrights use a chisel and hammer to cut out a clean, bright-yellow and still-aromatic section of Alaskan (yellow) cedar planking about two feet long and just forward of the cockpit. This also exposes the side of our new fuel tank (a chance to inspect for rust: Nada). They will cut a new plank out of mahogany and scarf it in flush.

4.
Removing the caprails amidships. This is a big job for perhaps not much return. But, something is bleeding rust down the sides of the boat, and there is hardly any point in repainting the topsides if this corrosion cum staining problem is not identified and taken care of. At present it seems to be only cosmetic. But it may indicate something more serious out of sight. In addition, one of the bronze sail tracks has pulled out just under the normal strain of the jib sheets, and I don’t know whether they are through-bolted or held in place with large lag bolts. So, we need to get a look inside, remove the corroding bits and make sure we don’t have any rot at the top of the vessel’s frames (ribs).

Ivan Pitti, also a carpentero navale (his brother, Erwin, calls him,“El Terrible”,) is working with his helper to get the oaken caprail off. They use wooden wedges to lift the nailed-on caprail. One of the caprails has a bit of rot underneath it and we decide to replace it with a new teak plank. The caprails’ vertical side-covers are in excellent shape. Everything inside (i.e., underneath the caprail) seems to be in good shape except the original galvanised square boat nails that were used for horizontal fasteners (the whole boat was originally fastened with hot-dipped galvanised boat nails drifted over). This part of the caprail often gets seawater dousings when we are heeled over. The galvanisation has therefore worn off over the years and the nails are bleeding. This accounts for the rust stains down the side.

All the wood under the caprail is a dark, dark colour. George Friend, the boat’s builder, told me that he had creosoted everything wooden he could get his mittens on when the boat was being built between 1970 and 1974. ¨Lot’s of times!¨ That creosote had kept the wood healthy. Vilisar’s frames are only 11 ½ inches apart (i.e., 11 ½ “centres”), which makes her that much stronger. Between the vertical tops of the frame-ends there is in each case another, horizontal block of wood, which adds even more lateral strength and backing for the caprail and sail tracks. The rusty nails were only used to keep these blocks of cedar in place. Unfortunately, these blocks have to be dug out to get at the nails, which is a bit labour-intensive. When replacing the wood blocks, stainless steel nails will be used.

The bronze sail-tracks are through-bolted with bronze bolts and nuts and are backed with a strong piece of creosoted wood. I guess one of the nuts worked itself loose and allowed the sail track to pull up. Also, as mentioned, at the lowest point of the caprail (where water tends to gather), some rot has set in and the caprail will be replaced with teak there. The other caprail planks are fine.

So, currently we are living on a beached boat with 4-6 guys working only inches from our beds. We plan to be here all week and hope that we have enough time to get everything done. In addition, since it much, much easier to re-provision when you don’t have to ferry stuff out to an anchored yacht, we want to get as much as possible of that done while we are still here. Much easier than trying to row everything out to the anchored boat later. Kathy made a solo expedition yesterday afternoon to Machetazo, one of the bigger chain supermercados here to start the process. She came back in a taxi loaded with long-term goodies including toilet paper, paper towels, sponges, noodles, Spam, etc., etc., etc. We are provisioning for six months, so you can imagine the problem of purchasing and storing. She said she felt completely overwhelmed at times with so much to buy and so unsure about prices, etc. that she was tempted to give it all up.

We go to the bank every day and hit our two bank accounts for as much as they will cough up. This is going to be an expensive week! We try not to worry about it. But, that is easier said than done.

If we add in the new fuel tanks made in Ecuador as well the new stainless forestays installed last week to what we are doing this week, we shall be spending altogether about $6,000 on Vilisar. This doesn’t even count her new suit of tan bark sails ($3,500). She is now 35 years old, of course, and we have gotten used to the idea that she needs new “systems” (fuel tanks, sails, etc.) and larger maintenance projects (caulking, caprails, rudder gudgeons, etc.)

We have lived aboard and sailed her now for nearly eight years, about a quarter of her floating life and, we presume, full time, more than any owners before us. And we are about to embark upon a long sea voyage across the South Pacific. All these factors combined make the investment understandable. But, it’s still a lot of lolly!

Ahead of us are specific costs for the crossing including, fuel, provisions for 4-6 months, lubricants, a phone card for our old Iridium sat phone, electronics checks for our EPIRB, repair of our electronic tiller pilot, etc. etc. etc.

I think I’ll stop now and lie down for a while!