Pupae

We moved onto the sailboat in early spring and spent most of the summer familiarizing ourselves with it. When we bought the sailboat we had like six hours of actual sailing experience under our belts. A good part of that first summer we spent bobbing around Boston Harbor trying to figure out what the hell we were doing. We were less concerned with the big projects that loomed ahead of us and more concerned with having fun with our new boat home.

At some point our thirty-five year old Westerbeke 4-108 engine decided to be an asshole. We hired some of the work out and quickly realized that we'd go broke if we stayed reliant on a mechanic. We both dived into diesel engine repair books, took a diesel engine class together, and rolled up our sleeves and got greasy. I've never been particularly mechanical but once I got over my fear of the engine I loved tinkering with it. It was something that seemed so scary to me when I knew nothing about it but, once I learned how the hunk of greasy rust worked, I enjoyed doing little engine projects. 

The engine before. Ew. It's all greasy and ugly and stuff. 

My first big project was to remove the heat exchanger. It's that cylinder thing mounted horizontally in the above pic. The problems we were having with the engine could possibly be caused by a clogged up heat exchanger so I yanked that thing off and we sent it to a radiator shop for a nice acid-spa day.

Heat exchanger after an acid bath.

I wasn't going to put it back all grotty, so I painted it. It's so pretty!

When Jon leaves for work, he's usually gone for four days. It was always during those four days when I'd decide to rip into the engine. Jon is a sensible person, the voice of reason. The one to say, "Let's wait a week or two on this." He thinks about things and plans. He's like a real grown-up. He's awesome. Me, I have two or three beers and grab the tool bag and start ripping shit apart. It was usually on day two or three of Jon being gone when I'd get bored and decide to wage war with the engine. I had nobody home to talk me out of it. I should never be left unattended. 

Like the day I took out the water pump. We're not talking about changing the impeller, that's sissy work. I'm talking about removing the entire raw water pump and rebuilding the sonofabitch. Shaft, seals, everything. It was not easy. I was seriously regretting it by about week two of tinkering with it. Jon was super nice and kept his snickering to a minimum. 

Corroded raw water pump. It was spewing salt water all over the rest of the engine.  Not good.

New seals, shaft, impeller and a few coats of paint to make it feel special.

Draining the margarita bottle. That water pump kicked my ass. 

So yeah. The engine kept me busy. It gave me a whole new level of confidence, but it also shot my confidence as far down as it could possibly go. Nothing was scarier than taking the boat out after I'd been tinkering with the engine. It's like, if this thing catches on fire, it's all on me. No pressure. 

Remember what it looked like before?

This was the after. I have a knack, no?

But I'm getting ahead of myself. I did the majority of the engine work after we painted the boat itself. 

The boat was chalky yellow. We needed nonskid on the decks before the kid slipped and killed himself. So, that first winter, when the decks were covered in shrink-wrap, we started planning. We would paint the decks in early spring when the boat was sheltered and warm from the shrink-wrap. I decided on a nonskid paint: Kiwi-grip. I decided on a paint for the shiny bits that didn't need nonskid: Petit Easypoxy. Now it was just a matter of getting the job done. 

Deck, before. The area inside the blue tape is a nonskid area, the part of the deck where one might walk. The paint in this area needs to be textured and rough. Grippy. Outside of the tape is shiny paint area. In this pic, the shiny paint was already applied. All of those little holes from old hardware would have to be filled with epoxy before applying the Kiwi-Grip nonskid paint.

We spent the entire next spring prepping and painting the decks. It was a crazy, crazy project. But the end result would be more than worth it.