My First Sailboat

[LittleWing77]

Here's Peggie's post from Damage's thread from about a week ago called "Help - Super funky smell"

"Peggie" Hall's Forum name is PegHall. She is the author of a book about how to keep boats sweet smelling:

Damage - It appears that you've cleaned everything but the most likely source of the odor: the bilges and/or anyplace below the sole where water can be trapped.

A wet bilge is a dark stagnant swamp.... And it behaves like one, growing a variety of molds, fungi and bacteria—some that thrive in dark stagnant water, others that just like damp dark places...and it generates the same gasses--hydrogen sulfide and sulfur dioxide--that can make a whole boat smell like a swamp or even a sewer. The warmer the weather and water, the faster they grow. Add some dead and decaying sea water micro-organisms, dirt, food particles, rain water, wash water, hot weather and humidity, plus a little oil or diesel, and you have a real primordial soup…no wonder it stinks!

Most people’s approach to bilge cleaning consists only of throwing some bilge cleaner/and or bleach into that soup when it starts to stink and calling it done. I’ve never understood why they think that’s all there is to it. They wouldn’t just add some detergent and bleach to a bathtub full of dirty bath water, swish it around a bit, then just pull the plug and expect the bathtub to be clean. Or just pour some more dishwashing detergent into a sinkful of dirty greasy dishwater, swish it around a bit, then pull the plug and expect to have clean sink. So why do so many boat owners think they can have a clean bilge without any effort and especially without rinsing ALL the dirty water out of it? So if you really want to get rid of odor inside your boat, roll up your sleeves and get to work!

If you don't have a power washer, get one...it can get water and detergent into areas that are impossible to reach with even the longest handle brushes and mops.

excerpt from my book (see link in my signature below)

--Peggie

The green scrubbies sound good to me. I go through tons of them each season.

If she didn't look different at the end of all your hard work, you'd see nothing for your efforts! Only way to go is up.

Good luck, Jon!
Warmly, LittleWing77

P.S. Auspicious and Thomm225 are both in your area, maybe you could reach out to them by PM and see if they know a surveyor they could recommend for you.

[JPA Cate]

John,

Those cracks would be done better in the water. When the boat is again supported by the water, her shape will be different. The keel will hang down, whereas now it is pushed up with the boat drooping around it.

If this sounds preposterous to you, discuss it with a trusted fiberglass repair person. It certainly proved to be true for a major repair Jim had to make to our previous boat.

The point is that the boat's shape will change when it is launched.


Actually, if those cracks are the reason the boat has been abandoned 3 times, you may have to have it placed in slings to do the repair. If they go through to the outside, you cannot launch her safely; nor can you properly repair her with the keel shoved up into her interior. If it were me, I would need a consultation with a competent professional before continuing, or walking away. It really is OK to make a mistake: all of us do at one time or another.

Ann