Armed with a relatively inexpensive hand pump, we went back for our next visit. I had two major tasks I wanted to accomplish:
1. Get the water out of the bilge
2. Tap into the glassed in chain plate knees to see if the plywood in there had rotted
I forgot to bring the camera to document progress (and to show off how much better things looked with just all the crap cleared out of there!).
A plan to siphon the bilge water out via garden hose and pump didn't work (hose didn't really fit) so we did it via bucket. Not sure how long that water had been there or where it had come from (no watermarks above the cabin sole that I ever saw though), but at the bottom were a lot of paint chips, various soggy paper debris, two rubber squares of uncertain function, and a bilge cover from a smaller section up in the V-berth. At last we could see the bottom of the bilge and the keel bolts and what not. The wet vac that had been so disgruntled last week cheerfully slurped the last of the water and paint ships out of the three compartment we drained. I immediately poured in some Simple Green and some fresh water and am letting it sit there to contemplate the error of its greasy ways.
I'd seen this on the deck:
Sure enough, when husband drilled into the fiberglassed in knees below, the plywood came out looking like compost. Water leaked out of the hole to boot. Not surprised, really but now we have three chainplates that need fixin'.
Which means we have to get stuff out of the way. Like the head:
The chain plate is hanging out behind the shelves there, in a perfectly rotten place to do any work on it. The opposite deal is in the hanging locker, equally lousy for working on.
I wouldn't mind taking the whole hanging locker out anyway. It's all very cramped in the head/locker/galley area and getting rid of some of it would open things up.
Something that looked like a good idea was to fabricate the new knees out of fiberglass board rather than plywood. Like so:
Or even to just glass in the knee and leave the chainplate on the outside, like this:
It's a bit intimidating of a procedure for us newbies, but so many people have done it, there's a lot of references out there to study.
Next Friday is the insurance survey. Should be interesting to see what he has to say. We'll work on getting those shelves out and dismantling the rest of the trim/doors and what not to get the interior as cleaned out as we can for working around in there.