Cleaned Up Engine Room

The engine room repairs are complete with new fiberglass on the tested and approved engine stringers.  All the wood rot has been cleaned out, a new marine plywood deck for the genset installed, and copious amounts of bilgecoat painted on.

Bottom Peel

The old coats of hard paint were no longer sticking to the gel coat / barrier coat.  We determined it was time to remove all the old paint and start over.  There was a debate between sand blasting or peeling.  Sand blasting works, but is indiscriminate.  So we chose the 25% more expensive peeling.  The results look promising.

Now the boat sits on the hard and dries out.  There are no actual blisters on the boat, but a dozen or so beginnings of blistering where the resin is delaminating.  The boat will probably sit for six to eight weeks before getting a new barrier coat then a paint job.

In addition, the sides, boot stripe, and water line are being restored with Awl-Grip.  Work is moving ahead there.  We are also resealing most of our portlights.

Bottom Job

Pelican had a barrier coat about 14 years ago, and the hull seems to be holding up great.  There are little or no blisters.  However, the paint is pretty much falling off the hull and will all have to be removed.

So we are going to peel the paint off to the gelcoat or below, fill and fair it, add 3 new coats to the barrier coating, then a bottom job.  About triple the price we expected, but it was about time.

30 Years of Bilge Gunk

The old Perkins is pulled out.  And the Northern Lights Genset as well, off to get a new paintjob and inspection.  The good news on the genset is they did a precautionary compression test and it passed with flying colors.

The bad news is the exhaust hose id delaminated and should be replaced.  That will be costly.

The metal pan under the genset is toast.  Full of rusted out holes.  The mounts are badly rusted as well.  Yacht Power Products is getting a new pan built, and will install new mounts as well.

While the engine room is empy I crawled in and thought I would clean it up.  Ha!  It's a huge job.  Too much grease, wood rot, and trash.  I spent four+ hours and it looks like it is now ready for cleaning.  The engine mount stringers are suspect with fiberglass delamination.  The marine plywood under the genset is soft and the support below the platform is rotted.

You can't paint on top of rot.  So we are contracting to have someone come in and repair the stringers and platform, then paint.  Hopefully my afternoon of shoveling the filth out of the engine room will save me a few bucks.