July 8 to 21

Aylings Boatyard, Merrickville

44°55′7″ N 75°50′5″ W

After the fiberglass repairs were completed Santosha was filthy & covered in dust. It was time for a major cleanup & some detailing.

The hull was also in bad need of a thorough cleaning & wax job. Just doing the hull alone is roughly the equivalent of washing & waxing 10 cars – too much for an old guy like me, so I recruited Jaden, my grand-nephew from Ottawa to lend me a hand. Tall, young, strong & enthusiastic, he was exactly the kind of help that I needed!

Jay, the fiberglass guy was kind enough to give Jaden & I a tutorial on compounding & waxing a heavily oxidized hull. Then Jaden was off & running.

The results speak for themselves. Look at his reflection in that shiny hull! It was a lot of hard work! Jaden made a few extra bucks for his efforts & that will help him out as he heads off to his first year at Brock University in late August.

I attended to a variety of other projects while Jaden was focused on the hull. Top of the list was installing a new bow thruster because the original one had quit working at the end of the season last fall.

Finally Santosha was ready to go back in the water. I must confess that there were times when I never thought I would see the day….

Cheers!

Late May to July 16 – Fiberglass Repairs

Aylings Boatyard, Merrickville

44°55′7″ N 75°50′5″ W

Early last fall Santosha was hauled out & stored for the winter at Aylings Boatyard in Merrickville.

Aylings is a working boatyard where they will perform various repairs for you or you can do the work yourself. I was contemplating getting some fiberglass repairs done to parts of the boat’s main deck & to also fix up several nicks & dings that had occurred over the years. Aylings recommended a local fiberglass repair specialist & I contacted him to give me a quote for the work that I wanted completed.

Jay, “The Fiberglass Guy” as I came to refer to him by, commenced repair work in late May with a target completion date of the first week of July. Jay was fitting this job into an already very busy schedule so I accepted the fact that work would progress slowly at first until he wrapped up a few other projects with other customers.

Renovating an older boat is very similar to renovating an older house – you never really know what you are going to encounter until you get right into it & then there are always a few “surprises” that pop up to greet you.

In Santosha’s case, the deck repairs turned out to be more complicated than expected because the bottom layer of fiberglass of the deck was very thin.

After reviewing repair options with Jay we decided that the best approach was to epoxy 1/2” thick marine grade plywood over top of the existing deck surface, followed by several layers of fiberglass & then finished with Kiwigrip non-skid deck paint.

I am very happy with the end result. The deck surface is very strong & impervious to water.

Jay also repaired several spots on the boat where there was cosmetic damage to the fiberglass – normal wear & tear on an older boat that has had numerous adventures over its life. I must confess that I contributed to several of those nicks & dings!

Jay completed his work on July 16 & now it was time for me to clean up the boat prior to launching. And there was a lot of cleaning up to do!

Thanks Jay!