GroupWBench

 Part One – It seemed like a good idea at the time….

We had a sneaky intruder on the boat causing damage by eating up the wood work and generally making a mess. No – not one of the raccoons that run around on the deck once in a while. This intruder was getting in no matter how careful we were about locking up. No matter what we did our intruder found a way in. No, it wasn't a wood eating insect. Finally, as things got worse and worse, we knew that we had to do something serious to put a stop to the repeated invasions.

The guilty intruder was water. It was coming in through leaks in our windows. The plastic frames were clearly the victims of decades of Texas sun and needed replacing. Funny thing though, replacement windows for boats are seriously not cheap. Plus, I didn't want to get part way through the job on a weekend and leave a big hole in the side of the boat while I waited for the next non-rainy weekend.

I noodled around over the problem and came up with what seemed like a brilliant solution for a temporary fix. I bought some of that plastic that contractors use to stick down on new carpet to protect it until the job gets done. It was tough plastic that I could stick over the window (also known as portlights and portholes to the sailor brains that lock in on their silly terminology). I bought a roll and tested it out over a window.  I stuck the stuff onto the fiberglass and peeled it back off without problem. It didn't damage anything and came right off. I went ahead and stuck the stuff over all the windows. Problem solved, no more leak. I had time to figure out a solution.

Part Two – Hmm, not feeling so brilliant now…

The plastic over the windows worked so well that it lasted almost a year. In that time I had figured out how to replace the windows without spending more than the boat was worth. I found a blog with a great step-by-step description of how to use cast acrylic to replace old windows. About the time I felt comfortable with the answer, I noticed that the plastic wrap was starting to disintegrate. Between that and the onset of fall weather with the promise of rain coming back to the parched Hill Country area of Texas, we decided to pull the trigger. Fortunately, I had some time free from the grind of work. I ordered a couple of largish sheets of cast acrylic in a dark grey tint and some industrial window sealant they use to stick skyscraper windows into buildings. This was going to be far less expensive than replacement windows and looked like it would not be too hard to do.

We started the project by trying to remove the plastic that had been stuck to the boat for almost a year. It had withstood the hot summer sun, but had turned very brittle. When we peeled a little up, it would just break and leave us with nothing to pull on to remove more. Out came large quantities of Goof-Off and mineral spirits – no luck there. They would remove the exposed glue, but wouldn't penetrate the plastic to unstick it. Next came the heat gun. This worked but was an awful mess. Eventually, Ivy figured out that by taking a razor scraper and slowly peeling the plastic off, she could get a pretty clean result. She worked diligently at getting all the windows cleaned up. By the time she was done, she walked around in a cloud of Goof-Off and had worked her fingers raw scraping at the brittle plastic. I would have opened the seacocks and let the boat sink to the bottom if I had been the one on that task. She gets big points for cleaning up the mess from my not so brilliant idea.

 Part Three – Snowballs in Texas

You know how in cartoons they show a little snowball starting at the top of a mountain? It rolls down and starts collecting skiers, trees, and rocks as it grows into a huge monster from that little ball of snow. Keep that in mind.

So far we have replaced five of the six windows and they look pretty good.

They look pretty good from inside, as well…except for the paint. The old paint inside peeled up with the old window frame caulk. So now we have pretty windows and ugly walls. The job had snowballed like most boat jobs. Now we are going to have to scrape and paint the interior walls. That was a nasty messy job on our last boat. I'm hoping that it won't be as bad on this one. I also wonder what nasty little thing will come up with the snowball on that chore..

Also, you might ask "Did you stop the leaks?" And the answer is…nope. While the windows no longer leak, we discovered that a couple of our stanchions leaked. When we pulled them loose we discovered that the caulk or silicone they used when installing the lifeline supports was all dried up. We had to rebed them with butyl tape, which is great stuff and never dries up. But, snowballing again, the backing plate for the stanchion was wood. Wet soggy rotten wood. I had to go buy some nice hardwood, cut, drill, and varnish it to look nice and then rebed the stanchion. It turned a ten minute job into a couple of days.

I wonder if getting to lower latitudes would reduce the snowballs?