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The Bottom Job on Dinah-Moe Humm |
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When we hauled the engine we also did a bottom job on the boat and closed the aperture that was there for the prop. There were a few dozen blisters - nearly all of them were very small and more importantly, superficial. A handful were a little more than superficial but still not seriously bad. We took a grinder to the blisters - water squirted out some of them - and we let the boat sit overnight. For the superficial blisters we used Splash Zone (made by Z-spar) and faired it in with a putty knife. If you haven't used Splash Zone do yourself a favor and get some, it's awesome!! For the deeper ones we laid in some little pieces of fiberglass cloth and used System Three epoxy. The aperture was pretty easy to close up and closing it results in markedly decreased drag and improved maneuverability of the boat. The top picture shows the first step to close the aperture - fiberglassing in a piece of plywood and using some filler to bulk it up. The final coat over this was Splash Zone again because it's so easy to fair. While some were working on the bottom and others yanking the engine, Tom was practicing yoga in the remote corners of the boat while removing the old bronze seized up seacocks. Note Jay's clever use of the old shaft to hold the thru-hull while Tom loosened it from the inside. We replaced the seacocks with Forespar Marelon seacocks and flush thru-hull fittings which we bedded with splash zone on the inside and System Three with some micro-fibers added on the outside.
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