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| The Galley on the Starboard Side |
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| The Dinette on the Port Side |
The survey had mentioned that the bilge area included a black steel diesel tank that was leaking. Black steel tanks are similar to the tanks used for domestic heating oil storage. Certainly not suited for long-term marine use, but usually used for diesel storage because the material was relatively cheap. I had been told that the tank was "down" in the bilge, and when I poked around with a flash light, I couldn't see any evidence of any tank, which caused me to fear I had to rip our the entire center of the boat! While I said crap a few times during the removal of the holding tanks, this was a resounding crap!
I knew there was very visible evidence of dry rot in the galley by the refrigerator/freezer. Why? Well, when I stepped on the teak an holly sole in that area I fell through the floor onto a water tank. Damn! OK, its only TEAK at $32 per board foot: no problem - nothing a few boat dollar couldn't fix.
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| Complete Rotten Sole near Reefer/Freezer on Starboard |
So, armed with a few delicate pry bars, screw drills, and other surgical implements I went about removing the interior screw by screw. You see, I am a frugal New Englander! I had figured out that I could save a ton of boat dollars by carefully removing every piece, labeling it, and refinishing it. Brilliant!
That mindset worked until I met the third screw I needed to remove. Yep, you guessed it: stripped. No problem, one eats an elephant one bite at a time. After the 25th stripped screw, that tasty elephant meat tasted a lot like lima beans to me. No I didn't say Yak, because that what I do after eating lima beans!!!
My plan to carefully remove the interior and repurpose it disintegrated in buckets of stripped screws, splintered teak, and rotted wood powder. I was able to save a few pieces to serve as either patterns for new milled components or as blanks out of which to cut wooden plugs. However disappointed I was about the destruction of the interior, I was getting a great tour of how Harmony was put together.
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| Galley / Dinette Material after Demolition - Ouch! |
This view into the structure of Harmony and a Westsail 42 would be extremely valuable as the plan for rebuilding the interior took shape. Additionally, I realized how well designed and stoutly built the Westsail 42 had been. Beyond that, the very logical design would make the rebuilding more straight forward.
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| Starboard Side Galley sole and what's left of the Navigation Station |
So after several hours, days, and weeks, I was finally able to get through the removal of all damaged interior. I discovered that the dry rot extended into the starboard side of the salon. This discovery forced me to remove most of the starboard side of the salon and rebuild it. Furthermore, I needed to gut the navigation station because it, too, had suffered the damage of leaking rainwater.
The demolition involved removing over 1000 screws, the filling of two small dumpsters of rotted teak and plywood, and the stripping of yards of fiberglass tabbing used to secure the cabinets to the hull. The end result was a very open cabin and relatively easy access to the tanks under the galley/dinette deck. Getting to them will be covered in another posting.
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| Port Side with all furniture and fiberglass tabs removed |
The biggest thing I noticed once I had removed all of the rotted wood was that the boat no longer had that "old boat" smell. Yes, one could definitely smell the lingering aroma of diesel oil and antifreeze, but that not so quaint fetid smell of rot had vanished. Yep, its a wonderful thing!
Fair winds and Following Seas!
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