….there was work to be done. Boat work. Boat projects. The thing that ALL boat owners know all too well. 🙂
I’ve had my boat interior pretty much in various states of disassembly for the past year and a half. Primarily, the v-berth has been needing the most attention. So instead of taking advantage of some perfect sailing weather, I decided to do some boat work.
I needed to do three things right now.
- Attach the final piece of plywood to the anchor locker from inside the v-berth
- Get good measurements for the wood shelving that needs replacement in the salon and v-berth
- Install a new battery charger / monitor
I have still been unable to find any 5200 adhesive in my local area [and I’ve been unmotivated to order any online], so I used some Liquid Nails adhesive. I believe for this project, it should work just fine. I applied the adhesive and put the piece I had cut into place. The adhesive bottle said it takes 30 minutes to set and 24 hours to fully cure. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to just hold that piece in place for that long. so I used a few pieces of trim to wedge the thing in place and hold it for me. [see photo]
Anchor locker / v-berth reconstruction.
I figure it’ll be almost a week until I get back to the boat, so that should be good to go by then. Cross the fingers.
Next up was the measurements for the wooden shelf pieces I need to replace that had been rotted when I first bought the boat.
Rather than attempting to draw out the measurements to refer to later, I thought it’d be handy to use a feature on my phone that lets me draw on the screen. Here’s a couple pictures to check out.
Port side v-berth shelf.
Starboard side v-berth shelf.
What I plan to do is cut the shelves at a right angle a few inches away from the damaged part and fit the new shelf right up against the cut. I’ll use some wood glue and flat connecting brackets on the bottom to join the old and new together. I’ll then use some wood filler in the joint/seam to hide the seam. After completing all that, I’ll be ready to apply paint.
My plan is to paint the interior hull walls and shelves with a white paint. The boat originally came equipped with a carpet-covered interior hull. That’s what I tore out when I first bought the boat because it had molded and rotted since the prior owner neglected the boat for so long. I may at some point in the future, recover the hull with carpet, but for now I think it’ll look good and be a drastic improvement with just a paint job. After all, this is just a “learner/fun” boat, not my “retirement” boat.
The final thing on my list of projects for today was installing a new battery tender. After my last battery was completely discharged during a period of time I didn’t have shore power, I had to replace the battery. There was an old trickle charger installed, but I never was really sure if it worked well, so I spent the $20 to get a new one that I knew would work.
Black and Decker battery charger. Karma in the background.
Black and Decker battery charger installed in starboard lazarette.
I installed it under the starboard lazarette where the battery is located. Once connected, I could see for sure that it was working. Now I can rest a little easier.
Although I wanted to go sailing, I’ve been putting this stuff off for so long I knew I needed to get to work. Next step, get some plywood for the shelves [and cut them to fit], paint for the hull walls, and some elbow grease. 🙂
Síochána,
Mike