Yikes!

I can hardly tell you all how amazed (appalled, and astonished) I am to see that my last post here was ALMOST A YEAR AGO. And except for some change in the photos, I could probably publish the same blog today, and it would seem timely. No wonder I'm depressed. So no, I'm not here to announce that the boat is finished, or to invite you to the big splash party. I am only here to to tell you that we haven't given up yet. But Lord, it is taking forever, and we are working hard every day and the explanation for why we are not finished yet is beyond me, except to say that one thing is leading to another, almost every day, and not in a good way. For example, I opened up the little floorboard door (Bob isn't around right now, so you're just going to have to settle for my cute, non-nautical names for everything)-- to clean and paint the bilge. And noticed, while prepping this area, a certain amount of rotten wood at the floor joist, under the door jamb opening into the forward head. So I started picking at it, and (one thing leading to another) a week later the entire wood support under the shower in the head had been ripped out, and Bob was happily cutting the 37 (I exaggerate not, see the photo) intricately fitted pieces of wood needed (in his estimation) to replace everything rotting in that area. So now, a month later, after the painstaking reconstruction, that whole area is sound and dry, as opposed to soft and rotten, but sadly, since it was all hidden to begin with, it doesn't look any different than it ever did. It feels better, when you step on the floorboards, but an observation like that takes a certain amount of experience.

So I told you that to tell you this. I am going to copy and paste here something I wrote this morning, in my journal. It's a rant, un-edited. Also, I'll add a few photos to show you that the outside of the boat is pretty much finished, which is saying a lot, considering all we had to do (re-read the explanation of the deck carnage in the last post if you've forgotten). The inside is another story. But here is the journal entry. "Rudy" is what I call Bob, for those of you who don't know. There aren't three of us here. Though maybe that would help.

PS. I know this is going to be a long post and I'm sorry about that. But take your time--if everything continues the way it has been, you have almost a year to read it!

September 26, 2011

Okay. It was hard to get up this morning, and even harder once my brain cleared and I realized how depressed I actually am. Gotta just live through this, I guess. Follow David's advice and “keep working.” Yesterday I managed to glue together with contact cement two layers of 1/4" foam and one of vinyl, to approximate 1/2” foam-backed vinyl, which we do not have. I am going to attach this concoction via white caulking glue (maybe liquid nails? not sure) to the ceiling of what we have decided will be Rudy's closet (the big one in the master berth), which was not even going to have foam on the ceiling, but through my mistakes (which I attribute to the small working space I have carved out for myself in the master berth, on the bed, where I could not unfold enough of the vinyl and lay it flat, so I cut it folded, which turns out to not always work so well, when you're cutting long thin pieces of stuff-- it tends to take on a new trajectory at the fold line, but I really don't understand why, still) so I pick up the sentence here and say that since I have ruined enough of the vinyl that we had inherited with the boat so that we can no longer do the larger area we had intended to cover with this stuff, now, there will be vinyl on the ceiling of Rudy's closet (a smaller space), which he is happy about, because he says it will cut down on condensation. But there will only be vinyl IF, and it's a big IF, I can manage to get this newly-created contraption (of two layers of foam and one of vinyl) to defy gravity and stick to his ceiling and look decent, something I have not managed yet, in four separate attempts, three in the forward head, and one in Kai's berth. I have ripped crappy-looking crap down from these ceilings three times so far (we have decided to leave the blue stretch in the forward head intact, since it is something nobody will ever see, anyway, unless they're really really looking, in which case, screw 'em) but no wonder, really, because in each case I have been working with either inferior materials that I have to jury-rig, or something experimental that we've bought in a failed attempt to simulate actual foam-backed vinyl, which we didn't have. No wonder I'm depressed. Also, though, while I'm complaining, I would like to lynch the old man that made the video for Sailrite, in which he blithely sprays a section of a boat which is ON A WALL, NOT AN INTERIOR CEILING OF A STORAGE AREA, THEREFORE EASY TO GET TO, EASY TO MEASURE, EASY TO SPRAY, and applies a piece of vinyl, which of course sticks, and shows no wrinkles. I could do that too. I'd like to see him contort himself about 50 times total, in only two directions (more would be yoga, and therefore could be construed as good), measuring repeatedly, and here is the big problem on a boat: the section I worked with yesterday was approximately 19 inches wide by 25 long, BUT IT WAS NOT A RECTANGLE. OH NO, IT WAS SOME SORT OF DISTORTED MARINE PARALLELOGRAM, OR RHOMBUS OR SOMETHING. NOT A SQUARE CORNER TO BE HAD, IN THIS CLOSET OR ANYWHERE ELSE ON THIS BOAT, IN MY EXPERIENCE. Okay, I'll take the caps off. But caps on IS kind of good therapy. So yeah, the measuring is, how you say, “impossible.”  Rudy makes CARDBOARD patterns for everything he does. I doubt you know how hard it is to make cardboard patterns, especially beginning with the fact that every pair of scissors we have on this boat is crapped up in some way, starting out, initially, with the fact that they're cheap and poorly made (if they cost over $2, I don't buy them) and then going on to the fact that they are called on to cut fiberglass (while they're still new and sort of sharp) and small bits of epoxy, both of which quickly render them useless for cutting anything as tough as cardboard by anyone BUT my patient, persevering husband. So no, I don't make cardboard patterns. I mostly try to hold the vinyl upside down and get a ball park idea of whether it's going to fit or not, and hack bits off here and there if it's too big, and then, when I get worried that I might be hacking off too much, seeing that I'm only able to hold it up in two spots, and there are an infinite number of spots, I call Rudy and make him come and help me, wherein we will hold it up in four spots and he will get cranky, because he hates these kind of what-the-hell, let's-just-hack-it-off-here kind of measurements, and believes I should have made a cardboard pattern, which I didn't even finish telling you how hard THAT is to do, because I didn't get past the scissors. Oh Lord, my brain does this sometimes, and it's really cruel: it just flipped to a scene that I have lived in the past, this time one where I am following a waiter to our table in a restaurant. But also this time, the memory takes place, inexplicably, in a Red Lobster, a chain which I view with a jaundiced eye. I mean, they DO have carpeting, which I think is essential for a really nice feel in a good restaurant, but I think maybe the carpeting is often red?-- is that possible?? -- and I KNOW that in my experience it has almost always been dirty. So that little brain-vacation, a term I've never used before, but which I like, is a weird one. Maybe it's saying that even dinner in a Red Lobster would be better than what I've been living through these days, and with that, I would, without any hesitation, agree. (All apologies to people all over the world who are in truly dire circumstances, the nature of which I will not enumerate, since it will only make me more depressed and will not help them one bit.)

I just killed a tiny ant on my arm, which journeyed there from the floor, I'm sure. Well, of course it did, ants don't fly. But I saw a batch of them yesterday, ALL OVER a plastic sour cream container that I had sitting by the (trailer) door, ready to go to the boat and be used as a mixing container, and the funny thing is I THOUGHT THE DAMN THING WAS CLEAN. I MEAN, I WASHED IT IN THE SINK WITH THE REST OF THE DISHES, EVEN HAD THE HOT WATER HEATER TURNED ON, SO IT WAS EVEN WASHED WITH HOT WATER, RIGHT?? Apparently, though, it was not clean. Thus the hundred or so tiny ants all over it, feasting on whatever invisible substance had been left there. Allowing for the possibility that we pick up one of these containers, at the boat now, weeks later, and blithely wipe out a little dust on the inside with a paper towel, and think we're being extra-special careful by doing that, and then we pour in $25 worth of epoxy, parts one and two, and mix them together (with a NEW stir stick, not one of the ten million old ones that are hanging around, waiting to get used a second or even a third time), and we WONDER WHY THE EPOXY IS NOT MIXING RIGHT, OR HARDENING UP, OR WHATEVER. OR WORSE, WHY THIS PIECE OF WOOD WE GLUED ON WITH EPOXY A MONTH AGO IS CURLING UP AND USELESS AND WILL HAVE TO BE BLASTED OUT WITH FOUR HOURS OF DRILLING. And it's all because (here come the caps again) SUZY DID NOT GET THE SOUR CREAM CONTAINER REALLY, REALLY, (LIKE THE NEW MIXING CONTAINERS OTHER PEOPLE BUY AND USE EXPRESSLY FOR THE PURPOSE OF MIXING EPOXY) CLEAN!

Okay, I'm done with that. Here come the photos:

Trio, circa 2007

Trio recently, all striped and painted and tied down for the hurricane.

Starboard deck, before.

Starboard deck now, all closed up and Awl-gripped and Kiwi-gripped.

Now the bad stuff: the electrical control panel, BEFORE

The control panel, a few days ago. Bob is rewiring the boat. Can you tell?

 

My galley, before.

My galley, a few days ago. Bob is building in several appliances. Also, re-wiring the boat. Did I mention that? He is, as one friend said, "not afraid of work."

So that's it for now. I will let you all know when the splash party is. Should be in a year or two, right? Save the date, and all that. xoxo Suzy