The boat work begins.

 

The Snow Goose has a real 1 ¼ inch thick teak deck that, if not taken care of, can shrink and open up a seam and leak… which it has done over the summer. The water then gets into our overhead panels on the inside of the boat and discolors them. So, one of the first projects is to remove the bad panels and replace them. Fortunately, when we used Deaton’s pickup truck to but materials for the bathroom project at the Lowe’s store in New Bern and we also picked up 3 sheets of 4 x 8 foot white board that the overhead is made from. Back at the boat, all I had to do was:

 remove the grab bar above the couch, remove the speakers on each side of the boat,

and remove the wooden ceiling battens, the wooden edge trim and then the overhead panels.

Then, take down the insulation from the ceiling to try to locate the leaks.

Drag a hose over to the boat and run water on the deck for 10 minutes looking for the leak. Cut new panels and slowly reverse the process until we have our house back again.

Anna says "NO FUN!"

On another note concerning boat maintenance, I took a look in the bilge to find a slow leak in one of the freshwater hoses connections. Only to find that the black water discharge pump (poop tank) had the discharge hose un-connected! The hose clamp had rusted thru, broken apart and the hose had slipped off. If I’d started the macerator I’d have pumped Poo all over the inside of the boat. Worst was when I checked the pump I found that the two bolts that hold it together had corroded in two and the pump was coming apart!

This is a brand new pump that I installed last year. The last one lasted 11 years this one less than 1 year. My advice, think twice before buying Jabsco they’ve gone cheep on their materials but remained pricy on their pumps. Since I can’t buy the required bolts I will have make a new pair tomorrow. This is a good example of boat maintenance, you go to repair one little problem (no more that 3 minutes to tighten a clamp) and it turns into a ½ day long project. I guess that it beats shoveling snow though.