It felt good to get back aboard Robin for a few days and to dig into some of the work that was waiting.
I arrived in Cambridge shortly after noon on Monday with a plan. My priority was to find the leak or leaks that had caused the headliner in the V-berth to rot. Then I wanted to begin removing and resealing all of the nine leaking bronze portlights that I still hadn't touched in two years.
Equally important, I wanted to keep writing on the youth novel, which my plans had me completing (first draft) next week.
As soon as I had my stuff unloaded from the car, I climbed into the V-berth and, on my back, began prying the plywood overhead with a flat bar. It was easy work removing it, but messy. I used a circular saw to slice the large slabs of 1/4 inch plywood into pieces narrow enough to pass up to the deck through the forward hatch.
The job involved removing a wooden cover that had been fabricated to hide the wiring for the windlass. When the cover and the plywood were gone, the four bolts anchoring the windlass were exposed, as well as the heavy wiring.
Next, I brought a garden hose forward on deck, tied it to the sampson post and turned on the water. I expected to see water weeping around the windlass bolts, but it didn't. That shot my quick theory of the root of the problem and made me begin to rethink the source of the water.
Some times, thinking is the problem.
I went topside and moved the hose forward about four inches. Down below, a stream began flowing through what apparently was a bolt hole for an earlier windlass. The hole was plugged somewhat, but the water came in relentlessly.
Back on deck, I discovered why. The caulking in the teak deck was missing beside that old, plugged hole. The water was running between the teak planks and across the fiberglass deck beneath the wood until it reached the old hole.
I have applied fresh caulk to the problem spot and will check it again next week to see if the leak has been plugged, or if there are more villains.
Interspersed with that work, I began removing the portlight above the galley range. (It's the one seen in the top photo in the prior blog.)
The bronze portlight came out easily to my surprise. Using a circular wire brush in an electric drill, I got all the old caulk off so that the bronze shone like new. I used a Dremmel tool with a tiny wire brush to get the debris out of the gasket channel.
Yesterday, I completed rebedding the port over a new section of wooden liner in the galley that replaced the rotten one we'd been staring at for five years. It still needs to be painted, and I'm in the process of ordering new gasket material, so the job is incomplete.
As for the writing, I almost entirely failed. I wrote one chapter instead of the five or six I had planned.
S0 today, at home, it's back to the book.