Aft Cabin Part 2: Fiberglass Repair, New Floor, Paint, Insulation

Yeah. I know. It’s been like 2 years since I updated this website. I’ve actually made progress. Just haven’t updated the site in a while. Let’s start with some small things I accomplished. 

The boat has wrap around toerails, but they have no holes, so any water that gets on the deck can only go through the deck drains. The deck drains that constantly get clogged. So water just fills the deck. I also plan on installing folding ladders on each side of the boat. This allowed me to kill two birds with one stone. First, I cut out the toerail at the lowest point of the deck. A sawzall made this a lot easier.

 

 

 

 

I filled any gaps with thickened epoxy. I’ll eventually fiberglass over the toerails and deck hull joint. But for now, the water can just go over the edge of the boat. I didn’t actually install the ladders. Just did a test fit. I also drilled and filled holes where the bolts will go.

 

 

 

 

The hatch for the aft cabin was weirdly shaped. It was super heavy duty but only had a small vent. Since this will now be my bedroom, I decided to replace it with a more conventional window hatch. I wasn’t able to find one that matched the forward cabin in a size big enough, but I did find one that looked close to similar. Even my fat ass can fit through it.

Much of the process was the same as detailed here. I used 1/4 ply and traced out the opening for the hatch. I used thickened epoxy to glue that in place. Then I used a sawzall to cut the rest of the hole to size. I would have loved to have used a router with a flush trim bit, but my router could not handle the fiberglass.

 

 

I added a fillet around the edge so water runs off, then I primered and painted it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some of the bolts broke while I was installing the hatch, so I do have to replace them, and there’s a small leak somewhere, so I’ll have to reseat it. But it’s good enough for now.

 

 

 

 

 

All right. On to the aft cabin. So when I left off, we had removed most of the interior. There was a little bit of the old bulkhead still in place, to hold up the rudder stock. Ian got that off and set the rudder down on the ground. The boat is just barely too low to remove the rudder, which is annoying. At least it’s out of the way.

I cut the bulkhead down to the rib. It looks like it was tabbed in, and I didn’t want to deal with grinding that off. I had a new design anyway.

The old bulkhead was screwed to the forward side of the ribs. Then there was an 1.5 inch spacer between the back of the bulkhead and the bracket that held up the rudder. The rib is an inch thick.

 

So after doing some templating, I installed a 1 inch thick layer of marine grade plywood parallel with the rib. Then I added a 1/2 inch layer behind it. Blah blah thickened epoxy blah fill gaps blah fillet blah shiny.

A queen sized bed is 60 inches wide. I know I want to add sliding cabinet doors on either side of the bed, so I cut a notch that is 63 inches wide, and as low as I could while still allowing the rudder to rotate. That would give the cabinets a 1.5 inch frame which should be more than enough.

Now the rudder mount will be perfectly lined up without the spacer. I drilled and filled the mounting holes for the bracket, but haven’t installed it yet.

I also fiberglassed the opening of the notch, as well as all the way around where the bulkhead meets the hull.

   

I did have to get creative and make a little conduit to keep epoxy away from the steering cable. I had an old vacuum hose, so I just cut that in half.

Because I love the Count of Monte Cristo, I decided to hide a little easter egg on the bulkhead. It’s Abbe Faria’s part of the “map” to the treasure. In the book, the fragment is torn, so I used the notch of the bulkhead in it’s place. It kind of looks like the rest of the map was on the part of the wood that I cut out. I then epoxied it into the wood. Someday, someone will remove the paint, and see this and think that they’ve found the secret to some buried treasure.

 

 

 

Separately, I patched the old thruhulls. The hull is an inch thick, so I think it took 12 layers of 1708 at a 6:1 ratio. I can’t do the patch on the outside due to laws, but I can do the inside.

The color scheme inside will be grey and blue. The grey is some outdoor deck paint. I really like it. It’s thick and goes on easily. The blue is interior grade paint that advertised that it prevents mold. So we’ll see. Above the waterline, there will be insulation, so I didn’t bother painting it.

Now, to be fair, I admit that I’m talking about this project by project, which doesn’t match reality. So if you notice that the pictures show things I haven’t talked about, that’s why.

Let’s go back to the flooring. My fake mom helped me create templates based on the old flooring. Then we transferred that over to some 1 inch plywood. We had to break it down into three sections so they would fit through the hatch. Then she applied some epoxy primer to the bottom of the flooring. It’s unlikely water will get that high, but just in case. I painted the top with more grey paint. The grey is just an extra layer of protection. I covered it with PVC vinyl, and I’ll discuss that in a future article.

There’s an access hatch to the engine compartment at the forward end of the aft cabin. Directly in front of that is another through the floor that accesses the prop shaft. I kind of need to keep that access, so I cut a hole in my new floor. I had to use a jigsaw and multitool for the thin blade. This way I can keep the cutout as the hatch. I added some blocks to hold the lid back in place. Then I painted everything some more. It was so nice to have a flat surface to stand on again.

I kind of don’t have anywhere else to put this, but it was a huge pain in the ass. Because of the thickness of the insulation I’ll install in a few paragraphs, I needed to attach these 1 inch… “frames” throughout. This way, the insulation would go between the frames, and then a panel that will cover the insulation could mount to the frame.

The main problem was that plywood is flat and boats are not. For the most part, I just used 4 layers of 1/4 ply. That… kind of worked but holding it place didn’t. I ended up screwing them into the hull towards the middle. That also kind of didn’t work because fiberglass is really hard. And predrilling is a huge pain to line up. So this took a ridiculous amount of time, and an unbelievable amount of swearing.

 

Now let’s jump forward to the most recent project we did. Insulation. The plan is to have 3/4 inch insulation on the hull to address condensation, then 1/4 reflective insulation to address the temperature, then some sort of panel to protect the insulation. I don’t remember the brands or anything of the insulation, because I bought it like 3 years ago. I know it’s all closed cell foam. We used spray adhesive and my Keanu! Even with respirators, the fumes were killer.

Anyway, I cut the black foam to size… well, I tried. Then I handed it to Kellan who cut the reflective foam. Then once all the pieces were cut, we worked like the wonderful team we are. I sprayed the hull with adhesive, she sprayed the inner side of the black foam. I attached the foam. Then I sprayed the outer facing side of the black foam while she sprayed the inner side of the reflective foam. Then I attached that.

Then this cat from the boatyard made sure everything was going well and got pets for all her hard work.