Inside projects

We kept ourselves busy this past weekend with projects inside the boat. First we chased some leaks. The heavy rains created some fairly active drips, rivulets, and a couple of small puddles. All boats leak, but we worry about the wood in the deck rotting. Matt put some silicon over the suspect areas up on deck for a temporary fix.

I tackled the project of removing the old insulation up in the v berth. (See photos - right photo has insulation removed, along with some paint, left side is partway done.) It's been there for at least 30 years and is rather musty - especially on the starboard side where there is a notable leak that drips down. This was not the nicest project; the insulation was behind wooden slats, 12 on each side, each slat having an average of 4 screws to remove. Then, the insulation had to be removed, and it did not come off cleanly - I had to do a lot of scraping because each square had been adhered completely to the hull. And since there isn't a lot of space to work in, a whole lot of uncomfortable contorting went on to accomplish all this. Hours of contorting...

Meanwhile, Matt worked on re-installing the Dickinson kerosene heater and attempted to get it to run. He replaced most of the old copper tubing with fuel hose, added a fuel filter, and reworked the wiring for the heater fan. After several very smoky tries, he almost got it going, but he turned on the fan which caused the flame to go out. It is obvious that the heater is going to be just as finicky to light as the kerosene stove and oven are. However, we are hopeful we can get it running next time. It will be nice to have a heat source that's not dependent on shore power.