Boats n' Holes! (Calico Skies Sailing, Ep 167)

This episode opens with Calico Skies being fitted into a travel lift. She’s being raised up and out of the water and onto solid ground at the Cabrales Boat Yard in Penasco Mexico. Right away we can tell the bottom is not in great shape and since we haven’t gone down to the barrier coat since we owned the boat, it’s not totally surprising.

The very first step in our refit process is to tape the new waterline because we have to raise it – Years of cruising has caused Calico Skies to sink a few inches thanks to the heavy cruising gear we’ve added over time. Next we decide to tackle a project that is easy to start since our list is long and daunting. We’re removing our transducers and replacing them with new ones. In one of our thru holes we’ll now have a new unit measures us depth, temperature and water speed and in the other we’ll have new forward facing scanner.

Though we consider this to be an ‘easy’ boat project it takes a bit longer than expected to remove the old transducers which are caked with 5200. Eventually Bill has to take a sledge hammer to them, which ultimately does the trick. It’s a team effort to fit the new transducers in and afterwards Bill uses a leave to measure the slope where the sleeve exits to ensure they are within recommended guidelines.

Next we discuss the current condition of Calico Skies’ bottom. After hauling her out we made a trip to the US for the Annapolis Boat Show and in that time had the yard Sand Blast the hull for us. That process removed all of the many many old layers of paint and brought it down to a small remaining amount of barrier coat. Now we can see where we have blisters and osmosis issues and take an initial assessment of these as well as the keel to hull joint which appears to require some fairing along with a void we find at the back, upper part of the keel.

The other consideration will be when we can begin repairs to the hull because as of now it is wet and needs to dry. The dry air of the desert in Penasco is perfect for this and while we wait we’ll tackle plenty of other projects. Before moving on to these we use auditory and visual examination to locate and mark each blister, arriving at the very high count of 71! Next we use a moisture meter to inspect the hull whose measurement will give us a numerical baseline which could be helpful when determining whether the hull is dry or not down the line.

Moving on we turn our attention to the rudder. Bill sands it down and once we get the layers off we can asses whats going on underneath, and unfortunately it is not looking good …..

0:00 Getting Calico Hauled for the First Time in Two Years
1:49 Raise that Waterline!
2:53 Checking Out the State of the Bottom
4:35 Installing New Depth Transducers
12:06 How Many Thru Hulls?
14:34 Sand Blasting the Hull
15:18 Flaws revealed after Sand Blasting
19:15 Checking The Hull with a Moisture Meter

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