blue 30 | a makeover

On a warm spring day when I found Schyler under Blue 30 grinding all the old surface off the bottom, I asked him how much all this work he was doing would cost a customer if it was a client's boat. He stopped grinding, looked up, and simply told me through his mask "I would tell them to buy a new boat". Oh, I thought, and continued up the ladder to do my little part of sanding wood for new varnish. I was later stung by a wasp on my rear end for asking such a stupid question. 

When Schyler starting working on Blue 30 back in April when we became the proud sole owners, I had absolutely NO IDEA the amount of work involved in giving her a facelift.  He has been working endlessly almost every night after work, and every Sunday to get her ready for her big splash in Lake Ontario at Fairpoint Marina, her new home. Me, being the newbie at all of this, I simply thought we would just sand the bottom, fix what ever little holes we found and slap a new coat of paint on her. Please, just give me the dunce hat and send me to the corner. Schyler is amazing in all that he has done so far on her. Granted, she may still look a little rough to you in the photos, but she is beautiful to us. 

Just a little list of what he has done so far:

• Tore out the cockpit floor and replaced the rotting balsa wood. Re-glassed the floor.
• Fixed the end of the keel that broke off a few years ago when Blue 30 broke loose from her mooring during a bad October storm.
• Grinded the entire bottom to get off all the old tar so that we could paint the bottom. 
• Drilled holes into the keel once we realized it was leaking. :-( It took him several weeks to dry the keel out.
• Re-glassed all the holes in the keel and a new one we found in the hull most likely from a lightning strike. That's a little scary.
• Faired all the small imperfections with epoxy fairing.

This has been, and still is an overwhelming project, but it also has been very rewarding at the same time. Friends who stop by to say hello find some sort of tool in their hands to help out. The beer at the end is their reward.  No "just watching" allowed. We even got Miller to sand! 

Here are a few shots!

Left,cockpit floor without all the rotten balsa, Right, with new balsa sandwiched between seven layers of fiberglass mat

Here she is in the north bay. We are about to start sanding off the old waterline.

The first coat of epoxy primer.

The waterline all gone after 2 days, and now Schyler is taping the hull for the new waterline.

Pulling off the tape after the new waterline is done!

Yes, Miller sanding. He was allowed to have a beer while doing this. It kept him quiet 

Schyler says I did a nice job on the teak cockpit coamings

More to come...