Pensacola FL Sailing Blog - sailingnightwatch

We decided to cover the hull by installing pecan wood strips that would resemble the inside of a wooden hull. For this I purchased 8-quarter pecan planks, ripped them at ¼ inch and used a quarter round in a router to finish the edges. To attach the pecan, I cut 1” firing strips of ½” marine plywood and cut notches about every 1” through all but the top ply to make them bendable. I adhered them to the hull on 16” centers. To accomplish that, I marked the hull where I wanted to put the firing strips. Using a Dremel and small barrel sanding attachment, sanded the surface of the hull to remove any remaining adhesive used to attach the burlap and to rough up the fiberglass. I then epoxied the strips to the hull and let them set for a day to cure.

One of my neighbors is racing to Mexico next spring and is starting to put together his crew. I was invited to crew, but had to turn him down because of having a habit of eating and therefore having to work, and the date is about the time for our first grandchild. All that aside, I did go out on the boat with the crew to date. A couple of the crew had never steered a sailboat. Yesterday was a good time to start getting them some steering time. This was also the time to try out a brand new asymmetrical spinnaker.About the time we are about ready to leave, a heavy rain squall ran over us. It was about a half hour later we got underway. It still was a good day to train. SSE wind around 10 knots. We get out and set sail and there is another squall to our SW. We head east and it misses us to the west.We turn around and head west and decide the wind is low enough to try the spinnaker. I helped bag this think last June when it was delivered. We have one of the new helmsmen on and sure enough, it goes up and has a rap. Almost had two, top and bottom. The bottom came out easy, the top one came out as a gust hit us and almost put a rail in the water. Not a way to treat a new 10 knot max sail. The helmsman relinquished the helm and it did take concentration to keep the boat on course. It was fun. We had to be near hull speed on this Pearson 35 foot ketch. As the wind began to build, we got the shoot down without incident. May have not been to American’s Cup standard, but everybody and everything survived.The rest of the sail was pretty routine until one of the many squall nailed us. 150 Genny and full main with 30 plus gusty knots and we had a good rail down sail. And it did rain.

We had decided to insulate the hull from waterline to deck. Researching what type of insulation to use was interesting. Much of the material releases toxins in its natural state, and will kill you quick if it catches fire. We have not even begin to discuss money. We settled on the 1/2 inch blue insulation you see used on home exteriors. It has all the bad characteristic that you can find and its cheep. My wife was in charge of insulating.She did an excellent job at measuring and laying out all the pieces to fit snugly in and behind some very tight places. The waterline is about 13” above the sole. That means that every cabinet or space behind anything had to be insulated from deck level down. Because of the constantly changing angles of the hull, there are no square corners. She used a ruler, 3’ straight edge, utility knife and spray contact cement. We used the spray contact cement because it was quicker, less messy and seem to have much less fumes then the non-aerosol contact cement that you roll on. Did not want to burn our brains out while doing this project in a confined area.

One of the upgrades to the décor was the removal of a burlap type wall covering on all exposed areas of the hull. The burlap had to go for a couple of reasons, not the least of which, that it had its own ecosystem growing on it. What ever it was, it tried to match the fuel tanks for interesting things living on this earth. With the names of your relatives and a Latin dictionary, you may have been able to name some new species. Secondly, we also wanted to insulate the hull above the waterline. Being a flush deck vessel, these areas were large and needed to blend in with the overall look of the interior. Our hull ports are only a few inches below the deck and installing cabinets would cut off the light in the saloon. We looked at paneling the area, but with no breaks other then the covers over the chain plates, it looked strange. We therefore decided on 2-inch pecan strips. It gave a more traditional look to the inside that goes well with the overall appearance of the boat.

There were several places where water had come into the boat through open hatches and ports and ruined the pecan plywood paneling. This had to be torn off and replaced.Taking off the pecan plywood was accomplished by removing all the bungs and screws holding the molding in place, then using various tools to pry the molding off the boat. The molding was not only screwed in place, but was also held in place with an adhesive. And a damn good one I might add. Eighteen years cured the stuff well.