New to me Marine Trader 36 Sundeck - Questions

[ABfish]

Check out Dryhull.com. You might get some ideas.

 

[DBG8492]

I have plenty of posts on this forum showing multiple trash cans full of laminate I took off my bottom....a boat that lived 20 years non-stop in Florida overheated canal water. Search, you will find them.

Oh holy shitballs.

I just searched and saw a few threads where you posted pics... This one in particular:

https://www.trawlerforum.com/forums/showpost.php?p=266131&postcount=5

I have a feeling that once I get to the aft part of the keel, that's what I will find. I don't WANT to, but what I want doesn't really matter that much.

I know the PO of my boat had her for 19 years and for most of that time, he lived in South Florida. He did the loop on her and then used her mostly to go up and down the Florida coast whenever. But I also know that for the last ten years of her life, she was docked behind a private residence where he rented space, and while he spent time on her, he stopped getting underway as much. When we were cleaning her up after buying her, the owner of the house had friends over and they said it was "the best she's looked in at least seven or eight years."

I say all of that to say that we seem to have mirrored situations where our boats sat in the warm South Florida ICW/Canal waters - without moving - for WAY too long.

So as I scrape and tear away the decades worth of bottom paint and gelcoat, I'm fairly certain I will find some of the same issues you did. I hope I don't, but reality is a bitch.

Most people say no big deal as no boat has ever sunk because of this issue. How do they really know that?

This is the same thing I said to my wife - how do they really know? Is every boat that sinks recovered to pinpoint the exact cause? An insurance company might spend that money to avoid a huge payout - but if the recovery cost is within a certain percentage of what they have to pay out - why bother? I don't know, I'm not in the insurance industry - but...

Once I started worrying she was wet, I wasn't just going to say "blisters never sank a boat" and go on about my way as that just seems like a huge famous last words opportunity to me.

Plus - I like my boat and I want to take care of her so she will take care of me.

So I guess in addition to sanding and scraping, I will start digging and see what happens.

Question: Looking at that pic, are the dark areas inside the laminate areas of concern? That's where the meter is showing the most moisture...

 

[psneeld]

I can't tell from your pic.

I never had a moisture meter.... I just ground till I was sure everything was dry.

Where the big chucks of laminate came off, it wasn't moist, actual drops of water dripped out as I pulled/chiseled it off.

 

[DBG8492]

Sometimes, fate smiles at you...

Today we were spraying for bugs, and in the course of that, we took the drawers out of both bedside cabinets. At the bottom of the starboard cabinet was a huge pile of plastic grocery bags. Like hundreds of them. All appeared brand new - not like they'd been used and stuffed in there, but like they'd been taken out of packaging unused and laid in the bottom of the box...

Under all of these was a pouch. Inside that pouch was a 1941 Colt Officers Model 22 Long Rifle with a 5-inch barrel. She's a little worse for wear and needs to be cleaned up, but the action is tight, and the bore looks good.

Cleaned up, she should fetch a little bit of spending money...

 

[Barking Sands]

Wow. Pretty darn cool.

 

[DBG8492]

If you're in a yard where you can't pressure wash, and sandblasting your bottom paint is outside the realm of affordability, and they require you to vacuum when sanding, get yourself one of these...

https://www.harborfreight.com/5-amp-9-in-variable-speed-drywall-sander-59166.html

It takes nearly all bottom paint off in just a few passes using 60 grit paper, and when hooked up to our WalMart special (Hart) 5-gallon shop vac, it passes zero dust outside the sanding head. I was lying on the ground under the bottom near the keel with it right over my face, and there was zero dust escaping. All I was going to do was test it because it rained over two inches yesterday and I didn't want to get messy and put on all the Tyvek and what-not, but I ended up sanding nearly a third of the port side from the bow towards the stern.

The paper of the same brand available at Harbor Freight isn't the best - and I went through four sheets doing what I did - but I ordered some highly-reviewed velcro screen 60 grit from Amazon, and we will see how that works.

The only downside (in my case anyway) is that the pad is foam and spring-loaded, so it reduces the amount of pressure you can put on the sanding surface, which means that while it takes off the ablative paint, it does not take off the gelcoat. That's okay, though, because my DeWalt Finger of God will make short work of that - and I don't have to worry about the ablative paint gumming up the discs.

 

[DBG8492]

Huge...chunks of LEAD?

Yes - you read that correctly.

I was cleaning up the lockers in the flybridge last week - it was pouring rain and windy, so I couldn't work outside. The flybridge is completely covered by a tarp, so I took the opportunity to do the needful and get rid of several contractor bags full of trash.

Anyway - while cleaning out the port and starboard "seat lockers," I found five huge chunks of lead. Each of them is almost perfectly triangle-shaped, and each weighs at least fifty pounds. There were three of these in the starboard locker and two in the port. They weren't bolted down or anything - they were just lying there on the deck at the bottom of their respective lockers.

Why? Any ideas?

 

[PhilPB]

Interesting place for some ballast. I found some 50lb square metal pieces in my boat, one in lazarette and the other in the engine room. Both were on the port side which I assumed were used due to list from 6 batteries on the starboard side. I removed the metal chunks when I installed an additional water tank on the port side.

With older boats po's had a lot of time to do different things.

 

[RT Firefly]

Greetings,
Mr. DB. Our boat had 8 tons of ballast throughout. Some were in the stern and were square blocks of iron each weighing, I would guess, 80+lbs. Must have been 40 of them. Found other blocks throughout in various nooks and crannies. ALL down low. Pretty sure they were factory installed.

 

[Comodave]

First if you are going to leave them in the boat they need to be secured. And if they are lead I would encapsulate them so you don’t get lead dust all over since it is dangerous to people. But I am not sure that I would leave them up high. The flybridge can only support so much weight without compromising stability.

 

[DBG8492]

First if you are going to leave them in the boat they need to be secured. And if they are lead I would encapsulate them so you don’t get lead dust all over since it is dangerous to people. But I am not sure that I would leave them up high. The flybridge can only support so much weight without compromising stability.

This was my issue more than anything else.

Why put ballast (if that's what it is) in the flybridge? They have holes drilled through them on each corner - but I've not seen anything anywhere in the ER that looks like a spot where they might go. There are no bolts sticking out of the glass or anything.

And if they're ballast for the batteries - and there were a lot batteries, all on the port side - why would you put them in the flybridge?

Makes no sense.

I was just wondering if maybe there was some reason. I thought I would ask and everyone would say "Of course, you moron - everyone does that because of X"

 

[Comodave]

They may be there to change the speed of the boats roll, maybe. I would remove them and see how the boat handles. If you see a problem then put them back and test. If you do leave them I would completely encapsulate them with glass to secure them and contain any lead flakes.

 

[DBG8492]

Stuff keeps breaking...

And I can't seem to stop it, LOL

I don't mind if things break, but I wish they would abide by my schedule.

I didn't post about this, but somewhere around a month ago, the water pump gave out - it was leaking from the front. I went ahead and pulled it to see if I might be able to fix it, but to no avail. Upon taking the cover off, I found the rubber diaphragm inside was split - rotted through it looked like.

The PO of the boat was very good about labeling things and this was no different. Affixed to the bottom of the ShurFlo pump was a piece of tape marked "June, 2010." So I think it was about time for it to go.

Unfortunately, we'd not budgeted for that and had to carry ALL our water until yesterday.

I could have replaced the diaphragm for $100 or so, but instead chose to buy a setup from Amazon. It's a Chinese knockoff of the ShurFlo called "SeaFlo" - and it's such a knockoff that the parts are likely interchangeable.

See here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07QN8D18H

The only thing wrong with it was the connection from the pump to the two-gallon accumulator was sucking air, and I had to disco it and add Teflon tape. After that, it worked flawlessly. Funny thing - they tell you in the directions that the tapered plastic ends will seal without tape. I tried that on the inlet and outlet - nope. And once those were sealed properly, you could hear the air sucking into the other fittings...

I also had to do a little creative engineering on the intake side because the existing Pex piping setup didn't match up to the height of the new system.

The two-gallon tank is very nice as you can use quite a bit of water before the pump has to cycle.

For $199, if it works for a couple of years before giving up the ghost, I will be satisfied.

 

[DBG8492]

Breaker Panel

How in the name of all that's holy do you work on this breaker panel?

There is ZERO room behind it - but it looks like you're supposed to remove a screw from the breaker on the front and pull it out of the back. However, half of the 12v positive common-side connections are soldered. And for the other side, they're screwed in, but there's no way to get a screwdriver in there.

There are no screws holding it in from the front, so I don't see any way to get it to "fold out" or anything.

I'm pretty sure that the breaker for the sump pump is bad, but I don't for the life of me see how I'm going to get it out of there and replace it.

 

[DBG8492]

I will post another thread with the breaker panel question - try to get more eyes on it.

But I wanted to post these before and after shots and say that Citrisurf 77 is a lifesaver.

Same portlight - two different angles and two different times of day; the first is before treatment (clearly) and one after two twenty-minute treatments with Citrisurf.

The first one (last week) included a liberal application of 0000 steel wool (while wet) before letting it sit for twenty minutes and then rinsing. The second (today) was just soaking it in Citrisurf and letting it sit for twenty minutes.

There are still some spots where the rust had pitted, but they turned black - all surface-level rust is gone.

It doesn't look "new," but we didn't want it to look new - she's a nearly 40-year-old boat. We wanted it to look decent - and that's what we got.

 

[DBG8492]

Meatball Redux

So when we bought this boat, we found the "meatball" Marine Trader plaque was in place on the flybridge. However, it was in REALLY rough shape. It had worn down to where most of the carving was nearly flat in many places, and bits of wood were missing on the lettering. In addition, someone had - at some point - painted it white and blue... We talked to a few guys on Etsy about recreating it in wood, but had yet to pull the trigger on any of them even though they were not as expensive as I would have thought - around $250 or so.

This weekend, it rained constantly, so there was no way any work was going to get done on the outside. It was boring sitting around doing nothing, so I went to the v-berth, pulled out the meatball, and after looking at it for a few minutes, I went and grabbed my Dremel and some small scrapers and dragged everything up to the sundeck where I could work out of the rain. I loaded up the small carving bit on the Dremel and went to work to see what I could do with it.

I worked on it half a day Saturday and most of the day yesterday - see the pic for the results.

It needs to be refinished, but I'm not sure which way I'm going to go. I'm also not sure whether to leave the carving marks in it or try to sand them smooth. I like the hand-hewn look a lot and might leave them there. The letters - especially the word "Trader" - were in REALLY terrible shape and I'm worried that if I smooth out all the emtpy space, they will stick out even more than they do now...

Anyway, just thought I'd share - I think it came out pretty nice.

I didn't take a "before" shot because I'm an idiot - but I added the best pic I could find of the original.

 

[DBG8492]

Original meatball...

 

[Action]

I my opinion (which means nothing) I think it is good to go! Or at least good enough.

 

[DBG8492]

Yeah, the Admiral and I discussed it last night. I think we're going to stain it natural - just to try to get the carved areas a little darker than the sanded ones - and then seal it with something - as yet undecided. After that, we let the chips fall where they may.

That's what I did when I whipped out the Dremel and went to work on it, so why stop now?

If it gets gimped up, we can buy a new one from one of the Etsy folks.

 

[Delta Riverat]

I like natural. Wood looks good as is. Just give it the usual multi coat spar varnish and call it good.

I like New Jersey too. Going there to visit Ma's family since I was a child gave me my "boat jones", yeah going fishing with my uncles and cousins...got hooked early -

 

[DBG8492]

Well, what do you know?

https://www.ebay.com/itm/166477030660

Meh - I like mine better. It has more character...

 

[Action]

The listing says brand new.
I assume brand new as in aftermarket.

Not sure what it looked like brand new on the brand new boat. I tend to restore things back to the look of brand new when sold new. I restore cars (poorly) in the same manner.

 

[Max1]

So when we bought this boat, we found the "meatball" Marine Trader plaque was in place on the flybridge. However, it was in REALLY rough shape. It had worn down to where most of the carving was nearly flat in many places, and bits of wood were missing on the lettering. In addition, someone had - at some point - painted it white and blue... We talked to a few guys on Etsy about recreating it in wood, but had yet to pull the trigger on any of them even though they were not as expensive as I would have thought - around $250 or so.

This weekend, it rained constantly, so there was no way any work was going to get done on the outside. It was boring sitting around doing nothing, so I went to the v-berth, pulled out the meatball, and after looking at it for a few minutes, I went and grabbed my Dremel and some small scrapers and dragged everything up to the sundeck where I could work out of the rain. I loaded up the small carving bit on the Dremel and went to work to see what I could do with it.

I worked on it half a day Saturday and most of the day yesterday - see the pic for the results.

It needs to be refinished, but I'm not sure which way I'm going to go. I'm also not sure whether to leave the carving marks in it or try to sand them smooth. I like the hand-hewn look a lot and might leave them there. The letters - especially the word "Trader" - were in REALLY terrible shape and I'm worried that if I smooth out all the emtpy space, they will stick out even more than they do now...

Anyway, just thought I'd share - I think it came out pretty nice.

I didn't take a "before" shot because I'm an idiot - but I added the best pic I could find of the original.

Interesting .
Ours is bronze and was covered in layers of paint.
I took it off when it came out for the winter and took it to work to sandblast it.
It doesn't look too shabby now that it's all cleaned up.

 

[DBG8492]

Interesting .
Ours is bronze and was covered in layers of paint.
I took it off when it came out for the winter and took it to work to sandblast it.
It doesn't look too shabby now that it's all cleaned up.

Holy crap that looks awesome!

After seeing that original on eBay, I'm assuming that ours had the carved lat/long lines in it as well when new, and that time just wore everything down.

I may try to draw them on there in pencil and then try to carve them back in...

 

[DBG8492]

The listing says brand new.
I assume brand new as in aftermarket.

Not sure what it looked like brand new on the brand new boat. I tend to restore things back to the look of brand new when sold new. I restore cars (poorly) in the same manner.

Considering the seller is MarineTradingInternational and you have to pick it up in Toms River, NJ, I'm assuming it was one they had laying around somewhere.

I'm sure it was on a boat at some point - but maybe not.

I like to try to bring them back to what they were when new, but we said with this boat that we don't want to make it look brand new - just like a nice old boat. Scars tell stories - and we don't want to cover up all of them.

One of the things we said we'd leave when we redo the interior is the banister on the aft steps from the sundeck companionway. It's rubbed down to the wood in the curve and we like to see it and think about how many hands touched it for all those years.

 

[DBG8492]

Long Time, No Post...

It's been a while since I've posted here - we've been very busy however... We usually only get to work weekends because I have a job and the days are short - but I took this whole week off work to try to get as much done as possible. Of course two days into that, our good DeWalt DA gave up the ghost...

The bottom is almost completely sanded to bare fiberglass. There are spots where there there's still some barrier coat and gelcoat, but there's enough exposed resin to allow it to start drying out. We only found some small spots were delamination had occurred. I sanded them all out to good glass and we will fill them and fair them before coating the whole bottom with several coats of epoxy.

The area at the bow - which was the first area I sanded all the way down - now reads less than 30% on the meter across the board. A far cry from the 45 to 50% it was measuring before I sanded. We wash all the exposed areas down with fresh water 3x a week.

The bigger issue is the encapsulated steel rudder guard/support. There is clearly a significant amount of rust there - and some delam. However, if we attempted that repair project now, we wouldn't get out of here until this fall - and that's not in the cards. So I will try to mitigate it as best as I can and then when we haul out this summer in North Carolina, we will tackle that.

We are getting a new swim platform from another boater here who is replacing theirs. He has an 85 Prairie 36 and the platform (custom) is about twice as deep as ours, but the same width and nearly the same transom curve - will need some slight mods, but should fit nicely when done and give us more room - which is what we wanted.

Pulling our platform revealed a few of the "studs" on the transom were spinning freely. When built, the inside of the transom was laminated to 1/2" marine plywood and they used stainless bolts with screw-in retainers through that. However, they THEN glued another piece of something like plastic board over everything so you can't get to those bolts from inside the aft steering area... After figuring this out, I cut the nuts off and used a 1" hole saw without a drill bit to cut them out. I then cut 1/2" plugs from a piece of new marine ply, put a bolt through them, and applied epoxy to the threads inside the plug. Once that was dry, I coated the plugs in epoxy and sank them into the holes to the depth of the existing marine plywood and taped them in place. Once that cured, I filled the empty resin area with new resin. It's cured now and this coming weekend, I will grind it down and apply fairing compound where needed. Doesn't matter much - the areas will be hidden by the mounts for the swim platform - which all have to be repaired or replaced because they were rusted through in spots...

We also filled all the areas in the hull above the waterline but below the join yesterday. It's raining today, but this weekend we will fair those out and apply a thin "guide coat" of white primer so we can see all the spots that need to be faired. Yes, the primer will have to come off each spot before we can fair it, but the whole hull will not need to be faired and the problem areas are easier to see if everything is one color. We will thin the primer up to 50% before applying - just enough to color everything - so even if we had to sand it all off, it would come off easily.

The plan is to get it faired, get a couple coats of primer on it, and then topcoat it while the bottom dries out.

Also, we decided against replacing all the through-hulls this haul-out. The expense of doing so is not in the budget. We will replace the problem seacocks and plan to do the through-hulls this summer in North Carolina.

Because it's raining today, I'm going to stain the plaque I re-carved and then we're going to inspect the forward water tank - which is something we haven't done yet.

We also haven't pumped the water out of the holding tank. We bought a 30 gallon bladder and electric pump to do it, but neither of us really *wants* to do that job, so we keep putting it off. Will probably be the last thing we do before bottom paint and splashing...

 

[DBG8492]

Hope everyone here is doing well!

So - since we got here in October, it's been work my normal 8 to 5 job every weekday, boat work for as long as possible after, and boat work all weekend - then rinse and repeat. In addition, I took two separate weeks of PTO devoted to nothing but working on the boat. Since 1 January, I have taken exactly one day completely off to just screw around with the wife - we went to the beach.

I say all that to say that I just don't have time to post anything here, LOL

However, today, we did the barrier coat and bottom paint and I felt like I had to post this to show how far she's come since we got here:

We splash on 31 May to head north where we will finish up the work on the decks and the rest of the superstructure.

We are documenting just about everything on YouTube for anyone who wants to check it out - Sovereign Sea is the channel.

 

[RT Firefly]

Greetings,
Mr. DB. Your post #117: "...to just screw around with the wife..." Land sakes, young man...I thought TF was a family site!!!!

That's lookin' pretty dad-gummed good!

 

[DBG8492]

Greetings,
Mr. DB. Your post #117: "...to just screw around with the wife..." Land sakes, young man...I thought TF was a family site!!!!

View attachment 154609


That's lookin' pretty dad-gummed good!

Bad choice of words I suppose - but it was Valentine's Day so... LOL