The Westlake Pirates

So we had to give the bottom of the hull a nice smattering of waterproofing paint, the anti-barnacle kind, and it had the consistency of warm tar. At first I thought this was simply that type of paint, but based on the fluidity of the second can, we were just scraping the bottom of the barrel. It was like molasses on a Buffalo day in December.

Steve had the roller, and I had the paintbrush. Mainly, I sat around and told him when he missed a spot.

Our tresses suffered greatly by the end of the day; Steve's gathered enough tar paint to warrant a seasonal head-shaving (pics to follow).

In other big news, we got the bimini up after a brief scrapple atop the roof of the boat with the decidedly awkward canvas canopy. Which is essentially what a bimini is -- it's the beach umbrella of the boating world. Ours is green. It's in really good shape considering its job is to protect you from the weather. The bimini is definitely a bonus of this particular boat, and it will serve splendidly this summer under the relentless Seattle sun. (And yes, we do have sun here. I'm serious.)

It took three of us to put it up and two of us to take it down. It's more complicated than it looks.

While the guys were busying themselves with the Chemistry portion of our program, I grabbed my Palmolive and a large, soft brush and went to town on the dinghy. It was covered in algae and filled with water, but it looked new when I was done. Well, it looked clean, anyway.

I really want to get a fancy Zodiac inflatable dinghy with a big fat motor for it so we can load in our friends and zip around the Lake and go scuba diving. But when I saw that a new Zodiac with a big fat motor costs far more than my car, I decided to see what was under all the algae on the dinghy that came free with the houseboat.

Before...

...after.

Meanwhile, the boys were talking about electrolysis and such, and I learned about the importance of zinc plates and sacrificial wires. (Doesn't that sound dramatic?) Now this is what I gathered: metal parts put in the boat, like plates and screws and bolts, get corroded by random electricity zinging around in the water. When they do, they look like this:

The hardware by the props was kind of beat, and all the copper was turning green and grubby from breaking down in the water. So we installed a zinc plate, which is supposed to break down instead, and Steve connected little copper wires inside to do the same. He'll have to explain more about the chemistry of the process, but basically the zinc plate and copper wires are supposed to keep our metal fixtures in the water shiny and new. So we removed the plates and screws from the swim platform like we mentioned in the last entry, put in fresh ones, sealed them up with supersealant caulk, and painted them over.

Before...

...after.

The ol' copper wire trick.

The engine compartment. I hear this is what makes the boat GO.

Vroom vroom.

I know you all are just waiting with baited breath to hear about the leaky wall and what became of it. Last week we pulled out a lot of the wall covering (Steve took on the wood and I mostly took down curtains) and revealed puddles of sodden rot. Well luckily, our man Gary had his "Boys" rip the wall out and put in new wood during the week in our absence. The room was dried out and the fittings were caulked again. Here are some post pics. We have a "during" pic that Gary took, but I'll have to scan it so you can see because he gave us a hard copy of it. Here's the stateroom:




This is the exterior of the stateroom all sealed up nice and tight.

Here's our pretty paint job after removing the tape:

Taking inventory of our sorry soon-to-be-replaced lifejackets that were stewing in the bowels of the boat. (Note the KEXP 90.3 FM bumper sticker)

Steve holding up the boat, even after an arduous weekend of hard labor.

Us -- dirty, beat, painted, rusty and utterly thrilled.

Tune in next time for my long-winded boat insurance saga. I figured we should secure some insurance first before I go bragging about how I got it.