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Old 04-10-2019, 11:37 PM
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Haul Out Chapter 1
"How Hard Could It Be?"


Remember back in post #2 where I thought a 'haul-out' was sailing slang for "partying on a boat for 2 days straight?" I can now say unequivocally it is the opposite of that. I promise if you make it to the end of this tangent, you'll see how a haul-out became the final straw to remove and rebuild the motor.

The Background:

The boat hadn't been hauled out in years and was in dire need of bottom paint. For the climate the boat was berthed in, (San Francisco Bay) and our usage pattern, (infrequent) our diver strongly recommended we switch from the ablative paint the PO used, to a copper-based 'hard' paint like Trinidad SR. Without the boat moving through the water frequently enough, the bottom growth built up quickly and he'd inadvertently remove too much paint with the quarterly bottom scrubbings. Switching paint types meant removing all the previous coatings back to bare gelcoat, and starting fresh with at least 2 coats of barrier coat, and 2 coats of bottom paint. The good news was, there were "no blisters and the hull is in good shape."cough cough

My date with the travel lift had been scheduled months in advance. While doing my due diligence on the project, I had called around to multiple Bay Area boatyards (most of whom had good reputations) to discuss pricing and the reply was always the same; "We'll see once we get the boat out of the water." Even when I pressed the issue for a 'ballpark' figure 'within a couple grand,' nobody would give me a straight answer. I became highly skeptical and formulated a complicated conspiracy theory that the Bay Area boatyards must be in cahoots with the State Of California and a seedy underworld of boat manufacturers to prevent people from maintaining their vessels thereby ensuring they must pay the California scrap fee and purchase new six-figure boats, generating massive registration tax revenue, which was then used to pay off the boatyards into complicity. It was a vicious cycle I had unwittingly stumbled upon. Well, there actually may be a small shred of truth lurking somewhere in that last sentence. Without getting political, I'll say the State of California has a significant amount of regulation on the books when it comes to bottom maintenance or vessel disposal. I came to realize the only way I would have any control over the cost of this project, was to D.I.Y it. Unfortunately that left me with only 2 options of boatyards who allowed DIY work. Even then, I was obligated to tarp the area under the boat, rent and use their sanding equipment exclusively, (one of those Gucci $2000 Festool HEPA vacuum powered sanding units) purchase consumables from the yard, and capture "95%" of the sanding dust. I selected Berkeley Marine Center because of their friendly, straight forward demeanor on the phone, as well as their proximity to my home port. I put a plan in motion. I'd have my wife and parents come out from Colorado to help with the sanding. My folks could stay at the nearby hotel while my wife and I would crash on the boat in the yard. With the 4 of us sanding all day Saturday and Sunday, we could be sipping wine by Sunday evening when I'd send them back home and finish up the priming and painting on Monday/Tuesday. Well, I got the Saturday part right I was just 26 days off on the prime/paint part.

The Haul-Out Begins:

Before we began, the plan started to unravel. In the months between scheduling the haul-out and the boat finally in the travel-lift slings, my wife and I found out we were expecting our first child. During the first ultrasound appointment, I had begun to ask the Doctor "Would it still be ok for a pregnant woman to operate aggressive power sanding equip...." and was immediately cut off. Like, Ned Stark in Season 1 of Game of Thrones head cut off, cut off. I'm pretty sure I'm lucky I got out of that Doctor's office with my head. My wife agreed to still come out for moral support but wouldn't be participating in any sanding of potentially noxious bottom paint. That left my seventy-something year old parents and I to the sanding.

We got the boat into the slings, but within minutes of getting the boat out of the water while the yard staff pressure washed off the barnacles, the owner of the yard supervising the lift operation said casually "Wow, look at all those blisters. Are you going to deal with those on this haul-out?" "Whhhhhhhatttt?" I replied in disbelief. "My diver said I didn't have any blisters!" As I tried to convince myself this guy who's spent 50+ years of his life around boats didn't know what he was talking about, I saw the telltale bumps begin to swell.

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It was a rough start but there was no turning back now. I suited up my parents in some brand new Tyvek suits and respirators, rented 3 of the Festool sanders for the day, gave them a quick tutorial about "keeping the sander flat against the hull" and let 'em loose. It was as comical as it was predictable. The industrial strength sanders immediately overpowered them as they tried to control the rogue tools that whipped around like possessed spinning demons. Imagine Wylie coyote getting spun around an axle and you have the mental image.

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Within an hour they were spent. I felt terrible for flying them all the way out to California for such an unpleasant project to begin with, and the realization they just weren't physically strong enough for the task was deflating for everyone. I tried to keep morale up by saying "just take a break, I'll keep going" but it quickly sank in this project just went from 4 laborers to 1. I could extrapolate from the day's (lack of) progress that I was facing many, many days of sanding before I could even think about tackling the blister repairs. In an effort to get a 'quick win' I turned to the cutlass bearing replacement. With the shaft out, I carefully hacksawed through the old worn bearing, applied my homemade press-tool, and went to town:

[YOUTUBE]D8LX3nfZnOw[/YOUTUBE]

The next day was an even larger fail than the previous. You'd think a holiday as significant as Easter would've registered on our collective radars but in commotion of getting the boat towed up, hoisted, and launching into the project, we completely forgot the yard was closed and we wouldn't be able to do any work. On top of that, it had rained heavily the during the night and my tarp was now floating under the boat. We made a trip to Home Depot, kicked around Berkeley a little, had a cup of coffee at the original Pete's Coffee, and pretty much called it a day.

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As we sat down for Easter dinner in the hotel that night, I tried to assure everyone that after I drove everyone back to the airport, I'd get the project back on track. I'd re-double my sanding efforts and have the boat back in the water by "maybe Thursday or Friday" now. I could sense the mixed looks of concern and doubt on my wife and parents' faces as I drank my wine as fast as possible to numb my sore arms. Their doubt was warranted.
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Last edited by Launchpad McQ; 09-24-2019 at 12:16 AM. Reason: Brevity, grammer, YouTube shennanigans
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