9/24 Out of the yard in 48 hours

We got to the yard at Marina Del Rey on Wednesday at three and will splash this afternoon, Friday, at three. Pretty quick for the job we faced. We had planned on being in the yard for about a week. The job was to be done in stages with lots of time for curing and drying between coats of various products and a whole list of auxillary jobs to do between stages. One glitch though - inspite of numerous calls to ascertain the cost to haul the boat and keep it on the hard we seem to have made a critcal error in communication.

When Bill called he asked what it would cost per day. The answer was "$223 for three days. Then when you pay for three you get day four and five free." Ok.....so at home we pay $60/day. Calls to Ventura said it would be $80/day....so $223 devided by three is $75/day. Marina Del Ray offered bathrooms and showers and we could live on the boat while there and do our own work. Great! Except they meant $223/day for three days. Not $223 for three days. We figured out the problem on the first day but we had already had the boat hauled at a round trip cost of $600. So it became a matter of time, crucial, expensive time.

The problem we had was a salt water leak, slow seepage around our rudder post where it enters the boat under the bed in the aft cabin. In order to pull the rudder off we needed to first pull the boat out of the water then remove the folding prop, pull the prop shaft then remove the rudder. Once the rudder was gone we could remove and replace the coupling that was basically a metal plate and a compression nut that should have been bedded in sealant where it sat on the shelf below our bed.

The sealent was almost non exhistant and what was left was all crumbly. Numerous people from the Peterson Owners Group had explained their process and it sounded difficult and involved. Then we got a great email from a friend and fellow Peterson owner, Bob on Escape Velocity who kindly took the time to describe what he had encountered. It was all much easier than we had anticipated so we were still on the fast track.

We rebedded everything and gave it some time to dry then started the epoxy phase. Two rounds of epoxy starting Thrusday morning got us on schedule for the lasst of the sanding at 10pm followed by the first coat of bottom paint. Bill went out at 2am armed with a flash light for another coat and then another at 8 this morning. This morning we tested the caulk for dryness and decided to wait till 3pm for the relaunch so in the mean time we put on two more coats of paint.

All this means we postponed a few jobs we had hoped to do but saved ourselves a bundle of money. Once we splash we are going about 150feet across the canal to the city guest dock. Hopefully we will get to take an evening and go have a meal and see a movie, for now we are just killing time in the 85 degree heat waiting for paint and caulk to dry.