We Hate Fibre Glass.

Three weekends ago we started taking out all left over wires and plumbing then we got on ripping all of the fibre glass ledges off the hull. This was not in any way fun, interesting or pleasant. It just consisted of taking a hammer and chisel and clouting them off. With fibre glass dust everywhere, sweating like pigs and the three cats trying to get involved you can see how it wasn’t a lot of fun. For those of you who have never worked with glass it’s miserable, itchy work that if you’ve never needed to do don’t start now. No matter how much protection you wear it still gets through and stays in your clothes even after a few washes. Next thing to do was take the second head (boat loo) out which again is about as interesting as an empty pack of smokes. Just crowbars and hammers and a lot of pulling, tugging, yanking and sweating. We then swept up and stood back appreciating our work. We’re coming up with some great ideas. Hopefully when I get back from my break in England and Scotland we’ll get a scaled CAD model of the whole thing and then you can see what we’re going for and how we’re going about achieving it. We decided to take a closer look at the core of the deck because I could tell when we drilled the old holes out that there were some bad spots and personally I don’t like core under the stanchions anyway so why not replace it with glass. So we started cutting through the first layer of glass to the wooden core and it was all going well just cutting about 6 inch by 6inch squares out around all the stanchions but then I got to one on starboard a little aft amidships that I had to go further than 6 inches and then I had to keep going and keep going and I eventually got to solid core after cutting back about 2 feet by 10 inches. It’s not pretty. We haven’t yet finished the cutting out process yet but we should have it done and re-glassed before I leave this coming Tuesday. We would rather it done before I left because there are now big holes for water to get into and destroy yet more of the core. Of course it’s covered but that doesn’t mean nothing is getting in.

The Cats.

Sorry to all those English readers but I’m using an American computer with American spell check and you know how they’ve twisted our awesome language but there’s not a lot I can do.

Also apologies for the lack of blogging we’ve just been doing too much.

If you have a sharp eye you might have noticed a few very cute kittens running around the boat. These are the boat cats Ayra, Bilbo and Ollie.

We didn’t quite mean to get to three but things happen here. I have these friends in town on a boat called That, an amazing trimaran built here on the river. Their cat had just had a litter of kittens when I went over to see how they were getting on with That because it’s another project boat. When I eventually got to leaving I said that I could be interested in one. Then Jonas arrived and having owned cats he immediately thought it was a great idea. So we went over and one very quickly turned into two. We were very happy at this and went and got the food and all was well.

Literally the next day Paul of a boat called Samphire came back from his run and came to find us. Two weeks previous to all of this he had seen a local dumping four kittens into the jungle while on a walk. Once he found us he said he had just found one of these kittens after not seeing them since the dumping. He went on to say “seeing as you’ve already got two cats and I’m allergic would you take this one. So in comes Ollie.

And The Work Begins.

Before Jonas got back I hauled the engine. This went as follows.

We kinda  realized from the word go that the engine was a bit of non starter in more than one sense. The last owner took the head off and he left here nine years ago so it could have been off for even longer than that. But we`ll get back to that in a bit. You can see the damage in the photos.

Thankfully George on Lisbeth II who I mentioned in my first post is a Mechanic and Electrician so he played a big role in this part. I started by supporting the boom because the topping lift was and still is too far gone for any kind of strain. We then tied the mainsheet still in its blocks to the boom so we could use this for pulling the engine forward out of the huge engine room and up through the companion way. Once everything was ready we took the Transmission off. We then set about sorting through the mess of tangled wires, plumbing and other things that were in the way. Next step was to take the engine mounts apart but this was a much bigger task than it might sound. The bolts were all seized and only two came off without a fight the others we had to attack with a hacksaw. Eventually after fighting for a while with these we managed to get it loose. We then lashed it up and attached it to the mainsheet and with George pushing and me pulling on the mainsheet we shifted it inch by inch forward into the saloon. Next step was to lighten it by taking off anything that would come off so the bell house, fly wheel, starter motor and a few other smaller things. Then we heaved it up and into the cockpit. Even when everything`s off it stills ways well over 300 pounds. The Tortugal maintenance crew then worked there awesome Guatemalan genius of being able to move anything no matter what the size. They managed to shift it to the workshop.

We still haven`t taken a good look at it by taking things apart but it looks like it would be cheaper to get a new one than to rebuild this one. It`s a Perkins 4-154.

We`re now thinking of going engineless with just an outboard on the back, because we have plenty of time and after all it is a sailboat right.

After a few months of waiting for Jonas he finally arived and we started of course with dreaming about how it's going to look on the inside. We want something different but still accommodating. We plan to do charters when it's finished to save up enough money to do the Pacific in style.

We started by waterproofing the deck. We took all the deck fittings like stanchions and cleats of and drilled them out, dried them with a heat gun then filled the holes with epoxy. There are two spots that I need to grind out and re glass.

Originally, to save on the work we were going to keep a fair amount of the interior but as we looked and looked again we came to the conclusion that what we were going to keep was only OK and that's just not good enough. So we went ahead with ripping everything out. Now all that is left is the soul (floor), and some of the electrics and plumbing. In time everything is going to come out. As you'll see in the pictures we have cut everything out that was fiberglassed to the hull in a bit leaving a ledge this was solely to save on the glass dust.

After all the fit out was destroyed except the soul we set about taking apart each and every part of it to save the best of the left over plywood and all the stainless screws and fittings. This is as far as we've got so far, work will resume at the weekend.

Next steps are to take apart what little is left. sorting the crap from the crap, keeping what's worth keeping. Then outcome what is left of the electrics and wiring and the plumbing. We then have the horrible job of taking a crow bar and hammer to the ledges that are left on the hull getting rid of all the old fiber glass tape holding in the old bulkheads and such like. Then the floor and any tanks or other things that might be hiding under there.

How The Bad Idea Was Brewed.

About 7 eventful months ago I pulled into Tortugal on Ghostboat after an incredible 7 month cruise of the Caribbean. I fell in love with Tortugal the minute i stepped foot on the dock and how couldn't I, being set in the jungle and trying hard to keep as much of that alive as possible it's a stunning Hotel and Marina.

A few weeks past and all the varnish re-done on the interior of Ghostboat it was time to start booking a flight home which I had seriously been looking forward to. Until I passed Esther, an amazing, energetic and very creative Ausie, on the dock, she had been working at Tortugal for about two months and was loving life and I just asked whether there might happen to be a job available here and with my experience in boats they immediately said yes. This posed as a huge opportunity yet did put a stop to any plans of going home. I took it.

Not long after, a one of a kind boat pulled in with a one of a kind crew. Lisbeth II owned and basically built by the German owners George and Brigitte, was a 50ft steel ship, with more space than I've ever seen on a boat of her size.

They had a young crew on board named Jonas who had been on a two month brake cruising Honduras and the Bay Islands of Honduras. We immediately started talking and I don't think it was more than two or three days before we were scowering the River up, down and all around for a very cheap small boat that needed some work after two days of doing nothing but driving the river on a small lancha lent to us by Tortugal we had nothing we had searched every creek on the river. Then we spoke to the broker on the river and he said that there was a small Halman 27 sitting at a very small locally owned marina so over we shot and we thought that was the one. The next day after we had sent all the necessary emails to see if the owner would say yes to our low ball offer I headed down to the workshop to get on with the day to day stuff and Myke the owner of Tortugal was down there and as I'm sure you'll come to realize he's hands down the most amazing man I've ever met. As we worked we talked and he slowly began to mention Fjellrypa a Norwegian Gulfstar 41' that had been abandoned here by an alcoholic ni-on 10 years ago. Didn't take long for us to make an agreement that was to good to be true so of course me being me and Jonas being Jonas we leapt at the opportunity of a life time.

Jonas then went back to Germany to cancel going back to school after doing his three year apprenticeship as a industrial mechanic and electrician specialist and sort out a few other issues. He's now back and we've started to rip the boat apart to turn her into something special.

So let the fun begin...

Rhum

Jonas