The Seadog has been leaking rainwater from somewhere along the hull of the ship for years now, but back in September I finally went searching and found the problem.
And it was a big problem!
Vacation time aboard a “Wadder”
Back in early September I had a small vacation while helping my parents sail their new boat to their new home. This type of boat is called a “Wadder” and it’s a pretty cool boat when you want a lot of space in a relatively small package with the ability to sail in very shallow waters. It’s specifically made to sail The Wadden Sea. Here are some of the photo’s that were taken back then.
For more information about these types of boats check out this website (in dutch):
http://www.wadder.nl
Down the hatch!
As stated in the last update the next step was to also sand and varnish all the hatches that are on the boot. The main entrance hatch was in need of some serious repair, because the teak top appears to have been leaking and the wood underneath started to rot. All the rotten wood was removed and I just filled everything up with an epoxy filler. The hatches of the roof window on top of the cabin just needed some extra caulk here and there and the same goes for the other hatches. After sanding the whole lot, they where ready to be varnished. But it turned out that it would take a long time before that finally happened, because there where a few other problems to fix first. But more about that in the next update.
Adding of the hand rails and vanishing of the outside teak
In the end of July and beginning of August when the weather was still hot and sunny all the teak that was not yet varnished was finally sanded and was treated with 6 layers of 2 component sealing varnish for teak. After those 6 layers another 2 layers of extra UV-filtering varnish was applied for the finishing touch. Because one needs to sand between the layers that are applied the whole endeavour took (even with some help of my father) more than two weeks. But one the upside after all this work, applying more layers in the future (about 2 layers a year) will seem only a minor task compared to this.
The teak hand rails where now also finally placed back onto the cabin roof and treated with the same varnish layering.
As one can see in the photo’s the handrails, the cabin ceiling window, the entrance and side beams of the cabin are now truly looking as new. The next step will be to also sand and varnish the hatches of the entrance, the cabin window and the hatch on the bow, but those will first need to be repaired and will then be varnished in the wintertime.
Portholes placement
Back in June I decided that it was finally time to permanently place all the new portholes in the side of the cabin. I kept on postponing this task because I was not sure how to go about it. The cabin wall was thicker then the brass portholes, so that created a problem.
I finally decided I would just use some more caulk between the portholes and the porthole rings on the outside of the wall. As I excepted things got a very messy, but with some aceton and cotton cloths for the finishing touch the end result was better then I had hoped.
Also the glass of one of the two bigger portholes was broken and needed a replacement glass. Luckily my father found a round glass plate somewhere at a second hand boat shop that had the exact measurements that where needed for those portholes for only 5 euro a piece!
This was also a good time to clean and polish those two old big porthole so the caulk would adhere better and also to make them shine as new.
