[MHml] drying out (lessons learned)

[Evan Gatehouse Diane Selkirk]

It was a good low tide this weekend where I live (Vancouver) so I
took the opportunity to dry the boat out on a mud bank across
from it's dock and put in a new thru-hull fitting.

Good Things that went well:

- fast curing epoxy to seal the foam core

- a small propane camp stove to help heat the environment around
the hole (it was only about 15-18 C) and cure the epoxy faster

- using a piece of scrap plywood to keep me out of the mud while
I was doing this work

- having enough caulking for the fitting, and making sure it was
not cured in the tube before drilling the hole

- I used a pry bar inserted into the fitting, wedged against the
scrap plywood, to hold the fitting in place while I screwed on
the seacock from the inside (I did this alone)

- having an inverter handy to power my Dremel tool to carve out
the recess for the fitting.


Things that were not so good:

- I scouted out the spot from the opposite shore with binoculars
at another low tide and noted a few very big log stumps in the
way.  I tried to avoid them but my memory was faulkty.  When the
tide went out, the biggest stump was between the hulls at the
stern.  I had glided right over it....

- I should have set a stern anchor to assist getting off.  If
there had been a strong stern wind, the boat could have been
pushed higher up the beach as the water returned.

- MUD is a bad idea, sand is much easier to work on.  I spent a
lot of time washing mud off my legs as I went on and off the
boat.  Having a bucket of fresh water available helped

Generally it was a very trauma-free event and I'm glad I did it. 
It was a lot easier than I had anticipated.

Evan Gatehouse


	
		
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