Friendly Fire - Bombing our Boat

At the start of every Winter for four years now we've closed the boat up tight, turned on the diesel heater and insulated all the ports and hatches as well as any interior hull surfaces that we might come into contact with.  This has worked well to keep the boat, and us, nice and cozy even in the coldest weather.  Because of the temperature difference between inside (70 degrees F) and outside (usually somewhere between 0 and 40 degrees F) there's bound to be condensation that forms inside the boat.  Condensation left unattended results in mold and mildew.  Of course, this only happens where there's poor air flow, which would be in places that you can't normally see or reach.  Of course.

So every Spring we field-day the boat and scrub it down from bow to stern with bleach and water and soap and more bleach.  It's a nasty job.  We hit every place we can get into and some spots really require a 12 year old dwarf contortionist but we do it because we're dedicated to keeping our boat really, really nice inside.  But there's always those spots that you can't see or reach.  These are the areas that are responsible for that lingering odor throughout the year and for the never ending runny noses.  We know it's not just allergies because when we travel and stay somewhere else our noses stop running.  Starts right back up when we return to the boat.  And every now and then, under the right conditions, we'll get a blossom of mold in the boat that tries to take over.  More bleach and water gets it back under control but we know it's always there, somewhere, just waiting to come back again.

Back in March we had dinner with some friends who had recently bought a previously owned Island Packet and are cleaning it up and modifying it to make it their own.  Over dinner they told us about a mold bomb (click here) they tried and were very pleased with.  This sounded like the answer to our woes.  We ordered two cans (just in case one didn't do the job).  The order came in on Friday and we tried it out before leaving Saturday to spend Easter with our family.

It works just like a bug bomb where you set it in the middle of your home, pull off the cap and press down the lever, then leave for a couple of hours while it fills your home with a mist, killing off any mold spores.  It's supposed to be good for up to 1000 square feet.  We opened up all the storage areas and the access to the bilge.  Our chain locker was the worst place, practically black with mildew, so we pulled all the chain and rode up onto the deck and opened the access door into the forward head.  We set the bomb off right in the forward head thinking it would cover all our spaces pretty well from there.  I think we might have about 400 square feet of total space in our boat.  Maybe.  Smaller than some people's closets.  We lit it off, closed up the boat and left.  I wasn't really aware of a problem on our boat because we constantly work at keeping it clean and Cheri uses these melted wax things from Yankee Candle to keep it smelling nice down below.  When we came back the following evening the boat smelled the cleanest it ever has.  It was immediately obvious.  There was no residue to clean up from the bomb so we just closed up all the cubbies we had left open and went to bed.  The next morning Cheri contacted me from work and said this was the first time in over 4 years that she hasn't had a runny nose.  Me too!  This stuff really works!  It's not cheap but it's worth every penny.  Highly recommended for all those stinky boats out there.  This stuff will make you love your boat again.  It's that good, I'm not kidding.

We do take pride in how clean our boat is.  It smells nice and fresh when we come home from our jobs.  At least most of the time.  We're still fighting stagnant water in the bilge caused by air conditioning condensate.   The two A/C systems were installed so the condensate drains into the bilge, guaranteeing that we always have water down there.  In warm weather it turns pukey within a week and we have to flush out the bilge.  The solution is to drain the condensate overboard and to do that we need a device called a Mermaid Condensator (click here).  This cool little device gets placed in the cooling water line that exits from the air conditioning condenser.  It T's off into a small tube that runs up to the pan beneath the A/C unit where the condensation collects.  The cooling water running through the hose creates a vacuum at the Tee and sucks out the condensation and dumps it overboard.  Now that's the way to do it.  We have two of these on order to the tune of $165 each from Defender.  That seems like a lotta dough (it is) but to be able to dry out the bilge and get rid of this occasional stink it's worth it.

Something else we worked on this past weekend was finishing up the dinghy cradle project.  It's not actually finished but we made some significant progress on it.  With the dinghy hanging on the derrick over the side we disassembled the cradle on the dock and sanded it down with 120 grit sandpaper.  For paint I selected an exterior latex primer/final coat with a semi-gloss finish.  I had the paint custom mixed to match the ivory color that Island Packet uses.  Three coats should give it enough protection to last a few years.  I also added bunk carpet to the rails.  I used aluminum strips (1/8" x 1/4" x 48") with holes drilled through every 7.75" or so and mounted them on the underside of the rails to hold the bunk in place.  It gives it a nice finished look but more importantly it provides a non-scratch surface to slide the dinghy onto.  To finish up this never-ending project I still need to install anchors in the deck so I can bolt it down securely instead of using tie-down straps.  I also want to make a zip-up cover for the dinghy.  Probably come up with more to do before the next time I write.

We're also working on replacing our mattress on the forward bunk.  We picked out a nice 10" latex mattress and saved up our bucks.  Cheri made a template using heavy brown paper because the mattress will have several interesting cuts to fit the space we have and the corners are more rounded than a regular stock mattress.  The sales lady said it was no problem with a custom order for the foam mattress.  On Saturday we drove into Annapolis to place our order.  When we opened up the template the sales lady immediately started back-peddling.  "I'm not sure we can do that!" says she.  "Give it a try" says me.  She's supposed to call us by the end of the week with an answer.  We do have several other options so I'm sure we can get what we want one way or another.  It would have been nice to get it locally because these guys will deliver it to the boat and take away our old one.  If they fall through it'll be up to me to muscle two mattresses through the companionway opening and around the dock.  Uhm, yeah.  That should be fun.

Springtime is a busy time for boat owners.  We still have to scrub down our exterior teak and re-oil it.  Also have to wash, polish and wax the exterior from the waterline up.  And re-paint the anchors.  And finish up all those chores that I managed to put off all Winter.  But it'll be nice to wash away the Wintertime blues, spend some time in the cockpit and get back out on the water.  I think that last one needs to go to the top of the priority list!