When we bought the boat we knew that the exhaust hose needed to be replaced and the UV strips on both sails needed repairs. We also knew that there was a small leak wh it poured rain that needed fixing, and that one of the vacuum heads had a small issue. Otherwise, everything else was in order, or so we thought. Then again, it is a boat and boats like to be ornery.
As I began to do the major cleaning I began writing a list of all the things that I was finding that didn’t seem right: water under the floor, windows that didn’t open properly, sump pumps that didn’t seem to run, leaks in other areas, a fridge with wide ranging temperatures, sinks that were leaking… And so on… When I started cleaning all the lines and halyards (ropes and more ropes), I realized that what had looked like dirt that would clean off was actually damage from mildew that made every rope on the boat brittle and start to disintegrate while being cleaned.
As it turns out, the boat had mostly been used as a floating condo for most of its life. It sat in a marina, and rarely left the dock for at least 5 years. This is a common thing in a lot of boating communities we are told. Generally little use on something means little wear and tear which is overall a good thing. However, in this case it also meant that many things were sitting waiting for the slightest use to decide to break. For example, the first time we took the boat out in heavy weather the plumbing under one sink let go, a joint in a wooden shelf cracked open and the big metal clue ripped right out of the head sail! We also discovered that everytime our bilge pump came on, a small hole in the hose leading overboard would squirt water up under the floor.
We began working through all the issues with the amazing competent staff at Racine Riverside Marine. The two owners of this marina have over 75 years of experience between them. They each seem to have their speciality and along with one of their mechanical guys, Jaymie, there is literally nothing that they can’t fix, or tell you how to fix. One of our goals when buying this boat was to learn to do our own maintenance and repairs so that when we are away from the safety and support of marinas we have the skills to handle repairs of all kinds. Douglas tackled most of the projects with me acting as his assistant, mostly passing tools. I took on the major cleaning and caulking the multiple leaks around sinks and showers etc. I also documented every oddity I found along the way and began maintenance log books.
It took us about a month and a half before we felt that the boat was ready to go on more than just a short test trip outside of the harbor. Our first overnight was to Kenosha,WI and for the most part the boat performed very well despite having 6 foot seas at about 2 second intervals with 15+ knot winds and gusts over 20. The next day when going back to Racine, the belt on the motor became loose and started smoking, which gave us the opportunity to learn from the Riverside staff how to tighten them and inspect them. Also, we discovered that our freezer had once again defrosted despite the servicing it had just had done and it was determined that we needed a new compressor.
We did a few more maintenance items, such as changing valves in one of the heads, and filtering out all the diesel with a fuel conditioner that our new friend Roger lent to us. We knew that we couldn’t find all the issues and if we kept up on this path we would end up on the dock all summer. So we bought a bunch of spare parts for most things we could think of (not everything we would soon learn) and we set out to discover Lake Michigan!
