Wednesday 23 Oct, HHN day 12: Beautiful day. Preparations for getting the boat watertight again.
Today starts very promising, with bright sunshine and the deliveries from Defender: the galley sink drain and a heavy box of skin-fittings. We are like kids in a toy shop, so happy with upgrading to these sturdy bronze fittings. Now looking forward to start installing them.
The morning seems to fly by, as we potter inside the boat and have a trip to the hardware store to buy some more epoxy and other bits-and-bobs. On the shelf we spot West System Six-10 epoxy, which we haven’t used before. Looks a lot easier to use than mixing the usual two-packs, so we grab a couple of tubes to experiment with, to glue the backing plates prior to installing the new thru-hull fittings.
Finally we start today’s actual jobs after 1am. Just where did the morning go to?
First, we try out the new six-10, filling and sealing the deeper gouges on the leading edge of the keel bulb. It goes on really smoothly. Looks like we will be buying more of these tubes!
Next, drill the new hole for galley sink drain. Originally Hallberg Rassy had installed 3 x 2” isotherm keel cooler thru-hull fittings. So effectively the galley sink had 3 drains! Having switched to Frigoboat keel-coolers last winter, the isotherm thru hulls were no longer needed, so we sealed them up. And now we have to drill for a smaller (1 1/2”) thru-hull for the new sink drain. Always a bit nervous drilling holes in the hull! But it’s not our first time. What is nice to see, as we inspect the plug that comes out, is that the repair (in-filling of the thru-hull holes) looks perfect – indistinguishable from the original hull material. Good job us!
And late evening we get around to actually install the first new thru-hull fitting. Starting with the easiest one, the bow toilet outlet. Easiest because it’s easy to get to and on a flat floor. To install the actual fitting we need to cut the thru-hull to the correct length. Glen marks where he needs to cut. But when it comes to the actual cutting, he soon realizes he really needs a vice to do this properly. This part of the job will have to wait till tomorrow morning, when Weaver workshop opens. So proceeding with plan-B, Glen glues the backing disc in place. Meticulously applying the Six-10 epoxy, he comments “it needs to look very professional, just like the guy in Antigua did it when he installed the Frigoboat keel coolers”. And the result is indeed a very neatly mounted backing plate aligned perfectly with the outside surface of the hull.
As usual we flop to bed somewhere close to midnight, thoroughly exhausted.