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The Log of Ariel: Winter Haul-out and Initial Projects 2004

3.15.05 - Began working on Ariel's hull this morning at 10:00. It was my goal to remove all of the ablative and be done with the blue mess. I began sanding with the random-orbit but my aching shoulders forced me to give the paint scraper a go. I'm glad I tried it. The paint scraper made an extremely dusty and grueling job just easy enough that I was motivated to continue working until 3:00 with an hour break for lunch. I didn't get all of the ablative off, but I did get most of it. There are a couple of spots where the turn of the hull makes it very difficult to work. Those spots will probably require sanding. I am still rather shocked by the scraper's efficacy; I figured it would be more work and take more time than sanding. The reality: it works faster and with far less mess than the sander - not to mention it's a much lighter tool and, thus, easier on the arms. The only potential drawback with the scraper is gouging the gel coat. This isn't an issue with Ariel since she has a barrier coat that is going to come off anyway.
I'm off for England shortly, so this bit of work is all I'll be able to do during spring break. Too bad.

2.20.05 - Here it is February already and nothing has happened with Ariel in the intervening months! What's worse, I've complicated my life by adding a neglected Alberg 30 that needs to be refurbished to my already daunting "to-do" list. Am I in over my head? Probably. What am I going to do? Work my tail off.
There is some good news, however: school ends May 29th and Ariel doesn't need to be in the water until early June. So, if the weather cooperates, I should have enough time to finish up the pre-launch list. Among the things that need doing: install bow rollers and midship cleats; sand and paint bottom (no barrier coat after all); secure mast cables to internal slides. I'm confident that it will be done in time.
Our plans for this coming summer are potentially a bit risky: We did not renew our slip at Pier 33 and have instead committed ourselves to a summer of the vagrant life, wandering from port to port and anchoring out or staying in transient slips. The plan is to spend the majority of the summer on the boat cruising to Green Bay and Door County then on to Mackinac and the North Channel. There may be times when one of us must depart, leaving the other with the boat for a few days, but Ariel shouldn't spend too many days alone. We'll see how this all pans out. We're beginning to coordinate our calendars and plan the trip in an effort to maximize our time together on the water - without upsetting the lady-folk, of course.
In other news, I discovered that one of the sawhorses that supports Ariel's mast had collapsed during a wind storm, smashing the radome and slightly bending a stanchion. I spent a Sunday building sturdier supports out of 4x4 and put things back in order. Unfortunately all of the king's horses and all of his men couldn't put the radome back together again. Anyone interested in selling a newer used unit at a decent price? As my dad says, "this radar has been a boondoggle from the beginning."

11.13.04 – Tomorrow morning, bright and early, I’m heading over to the boat to begin sanding the bottom down to the gel coat. Friday evening, just before sundown, I bought a Porter-Cable 6” random orbit sander that will hopefully make the job a bit easier. And I recently received my brand new 3M full-face respirator, so I guess I’m ready to go for it.

We decided that we may as well take Ariel’s bottom back down to gel coat and re-barrier coat since it’s apparent that the previous attempt (by the PO) didn’t take: Every season we have several “blisters” between the gel coat and the barrier coat. Although these aren’t serious, they seem to indicate that the barrier coating job was improperly done and they require that each one be sanded down and epoxied. I’d rather give her sufficient time to dry out, re-barrier coat, and – hopefully – be done with this forever.

11.12.04 – I removed the clamps holding the new teak piece in place. Everything looks pretty good; there appears to be a good bond between all of the surfaces with plenty of epoxy squeezed out all around. I need to trim the excess wood and begin shaping the bowsprit “forks”.

The new Spartan rollers and mid-ship cleats arrived today. I took the rollers with me to the boat to see how they fit. I’m going to have to do a couple of things to get them securely mounted: 1) widen the existing roller space; 2) extend the bowsprit prongs about a ½ inch or so to move the rollers far enough forward so that they don’t interfere with the stem-fitting. As it is, the aft end of the roller flange will contact the stem-fitting.

11.7.04 – I continued the work on the bowsprit that I’d begun a few days ago. With the stem fitting removed and the threaded bolt that runs through the laminated strips out, I chiseled out the split portion of the center strip to make room for a new piece of teak. I cut the new piece of teak down to size, with a notched out rabbet for the new threaded bolt to pass through, and mixed up some thickened epoxy using colloidal silica. The thickened epoxy was liberally applied to the mating surfaces and the piece put in place and clamped down with several C-clamps. I wiped up all of the epoxy that oozed out of the cracks and left things to cure.

10.19.04 – The winds that arrived on Friday built and then remained fairly steady throughout Saturday and Sunday, reaching gusts of 40 knots. Even the well-protected waters of the marina became pretty nasty as the west wind kicked up decent sized waves and blew them straight down the St. Joseph channel, creating significant surge and seiche (wind-generated tidal effect). I rigged up a few extra lines to keep Ariel from ramming her bowsprit into the dock, doing yet more damage, and came back every five or so hours to snug her lines and assuage my worries. After ensuring Ariel was secure, I’d walk around the marina and check on other boats. Several needed attention, so I climbed aboard and tightened lines, and, in one case, secured a dock line that had snapped – unfortunately, the boat was already badly scratched from rubbing against a piling.

Today was an in-service day for me, so after attending a few meetings I made my way over to the marina to haul Ariel. Although there are several boat owners who have no qualms about letting the yard haul their boat unsupervised, I’m not one of those people. As it turned out, it was a good thing I was there. During haul-out, one of the yard workers insisted that he knew the correct placement for the aft lifting strap. I dissented, telling him that I knew best and the aft strap should be moved forward. No big surprise: it turned out I was right; had he gone ahead with the lift, he would have lifted Ariel partially by her rudder.

When Ariel was finally out of the water and over the ground, the Travel-lift decided to take a break, spewing coolant all over the place. There Ariel hung in the slings for about an hour while the guys waited for the engine to cool. About three hours later – thanks to more of the same – Ariel was finally resting on her cradle and soon winterized, her water tanks empty and the cooling system flushed with antifreeze.

10.15.04 - The 15th proved to be too blustery a day for Ariel to be hauled. The wind began building around noon, and by about 2 o’clock it was gusting a good 20 knots, making it very difficult for the yard workers to back boats into the haul-out well. In fact, when I arrived at around one o’clock, I was just in time to help fend a sailboat off of the seawall. While trying to maneuver the boat into the haul-out well, the skipper had gotten the boat sideways to the wind and didn’t have nearly enough room to build up sufficient headway to get the boat’s bow pointed back into the wind. We’ll have to wait to haul Ariel on another day.

10.6.04 - Failure to regularly check on Ariel resulted in a badly cracked bowsprit. Apparently the channel got pretty sloppy during a storm and Ariel managed to get her CQR under the steel I-beam that supports the dock. The surging forward and aft, and up and down motion of the boat, cracked the port bow roller mount, leaving the roller barely attached to the bowsprit and the laminated strips outboard of the stem-fitting separated from the center strip. A quick inspection made it fairly obvious that the old bow-roller setup would no longer be useable (a weak point from the factory originally, it seems), and the threaded bolt that runs crosswise through the bowsprit, drawing the laminated strips together, was bent and needs to be replaced. What a bummer! I had no idea her lines might stretch as much as they did to allow her to poke her nose under the dock.

I rescheduled her haul-out date for a week earlier and moved her from her slip at Pier 33 to West Basin, where she’d wait for the 15th of October.