This blog is not about our travels but rather about the disaster with our old boat and how we dealt with it. It is a story about boat restoration.
When we decided to stop working we initially decided to keep our old boat in the Mediterranean with the idea to spend the summer months on the boat and the winter in a house in the Philippines.
Hence the boat was shipped to Türkiye and laid-up on the hard for the winter in “Marmaris Yat Marin”. On the photo to the right you can see that the boat was parked next to a grey building with the idea that we would be back after one year.
Fast forward: Plans changed, and we decided to become full time live-aboards, to travel beyond the Med, to not build a house and to buy a bigger boat. The search for the new boat, the upgrading of the new boat to make her suitable for full time cruising and the ensuing sail from the Netherlands to Türkiye took 4 years.
When we arrived in Yat Marine the boat was not in the location where we left her 4 years ago. She was tucked away in the far corner of the yard, the cover was blown to shreds and the deck and cockpit drains were clogged with leaves and debris. We were shocked when we opened the hatch on 12 Oct 2020.
The boat was knee-deep filled with water (due to the clogged drains) with a layer of oil floating on top of it. Rotten seat cushions, fungus, dead insects and cabinet doors and drawers shut tight because if the swelling of the wood. Metal fittings rusted and corroded, dead batteries despite the solar charger, but the solar panels were also bust as we found out later.
Our initial thought: “This is a write off”.
Slowly coming to our senses Frits started to operate the manual bilge pump and Liza started bailing with buckets. The pump broke. With nothing to loose we connected the boat to the power grid and switched on the battery charger. To our amazement IT WORKED. Since we now had power, we tried the electrical bilge pump. That WORKED TOO! With all the water pumped out we could assess the damage. The interior of the boat is solid teak which doesn’t rot. We should be able to restore it. All structural parts under the floorboards are fibreglass, not wood, so structurally the boat was still sound. Electrical and mechanical we would have to find out as we went on, and all interior cushions except for the matras in the fore cabin, would need renewing.
We realised that we had a mammoth task ahead of us, also driven by the fact that we needed the proceeds of the sale for our cruising kitty.
We bought a dehumidifier to thoroughly dry out the boat so we could then open drawers and cabinets without causing damage. Second thing was to salvage the tools, derust and oil them so they could be used again. Liza concentrated on the woodwork and Frits did all Electrical and Mechanical restoration works.
Click on the arrows below to get an impression of the mess.
Let the work begin. The world was in COVID lockdown so we had nowhere to go anyway. Luckily the measures were not that draconic in Türkiye and we could still take the bus to Sanayi, the industrial area in Marmaris, for parts and materials.
The boat has two epoxy dieseltanks under the floor boards. The main tank has an aluminum plate with nozzles for the hoses and a Stainless dip-stick. The aluminum acted as anode for the stainless when under water. The Alu around the welds had dissolved and had sprung a leak, resulting in water getting in the tank and diesel getting out, hence the oil film on top of the water when we first opened the boat. The second tank and the diesel within were OK and could be salvaged.
Only the e-terminal block for the mast wires had been submerged under water. The boat builder uses waterproof crimp-terminals throughout the boat. Non of the yard installed wiring had to be replaced.
Although the following is not related to the water damage in the boat we regalvanized anchor and chain and marked the chain every 10 meters. She had to be in top shape before we could put her up for sale.
The waterlevel had reached until an inch below the engine’s air intake. There was no water in the engine oil and we could move the crankshaft with a wrench. There was hope. The starter-motor had been submerged but could be salvaged like the diesel transfer-pump by meticulous cleaning and replacing of the bearings. The damperplate had to be renewed. We also renewed the injectors and (later) had the compression tested. The stop solenoid could not be salvaged and had to be renewed. Already before we brought the boat to Türkiye we had a few things on the to-do list like replacing engine mounts and cutless bearing since they were still original and 30 years old. We had the parts on board so replaced them. The 4 glow plugs where within specification. On the engine control panel we renewed the alarm buzzer, the pre-heat button and two out of three instrument lights. The diesel supply pump between main tank and engine looked badly corroded and we didn’t want to take chances to we replaced that pump as well.
The gearbox had been fully submerged and was filled with water (through the breather hole). We do not have the tools to disassemble a gearbox so we hired Marlin Yachting Technical Services. They have a workshop here in the marina, are familiar with this specific gearbox and had the revision kit in stock. The water damage inside the box was surprisingly little and all gears and shafts could be salvaged. Marlin renewed the two clutch packages, bearings and seals.
The boat builder is out of business but we could find old yard photo’s and stories from personnel that had worked there. We came to know about the interior finishing and how to restore it. It took some trial and error but eventually Liza got the hang of it to restore the interior wood to its original finishing.
We looked into every possible detail to ensure that EVERYTHING in the boat came back to working order. Leaking batteries had corroded the clock movements beyond repair and we found replacement movements that fitted the 30 year old clocks in the UK. The analog voltage dial could be repaired and the broken LED’s in the electric panel could be replaced since the Mexican company that manufactured the panel was still in business.
The manual bilge pump broke when we used it the first day we returned to the boat. Subject pump was NOT the original factory installed pump but a larger capacity pump probably installed by the previous owner. When replacing the pump we found out that it was not properly installed, causing it to break. Now it IS properly installed.
The saltwater deck-wash pump was corroded beyond repair. We replaced it with the deck-wash pump of our new boat and installed a bigger pump on the new boat.
The condensate drain valves for fridge and freezer were frozen but could be refurbished.
The burner assembly of the cabin heater was corroded beyond repair. There were no spare parts anyway because the 25 y/o design does no longer meet the current gas safety standards. We found a redesigned drop-inn replacement made by a Canadian company which makes the heater like new again (and safe!).
We replaced the “old crap” in the steering mechanism, but that was more of an overdue maintenance issue.
When checking the Autopilot ram, we discovered a surprising amount of black “dust” that doesn’t belong there and it turned out that the sun gear (central gear) of the planetary gear had hardly any teeth left so we replaced the sun- and planetary gears.
The sails had been partly submerged into the water and were ugly and tarnished with some brownish grimy stuff. We brought them to the UK sail-loft in Marmaris to have the stitching checked and to have them cleaned. They advertise with “Sail Cleaning”. Upon retrieval of the sail we could not see any difference in cleanliness. Even when we explained to them what chemicals they had to use for cleaning, they refused to use anything else but “mild soap”. (It turned out they did not want to take any responsibility for something they had never done). The stitching was redone where necessary and was as expected. We were left with unsaleable sails so with nothing left to loose, we decided to clean them ourself and Liza’s magic hands and patience did the rest.
It is amazing what you can achieve when you feel you have nothing to loose and just get on with it.
The extendable cutting board in the galley was never submerged but the high humidity in the boat and ensuing swelling of the wood caused it to disintegrated in individual planks. It could be refurbished.
The list of jobs goes on and on. Replaced all sanitary hoses, inspected the rigging, repaired the roller furling, replaced navigation lights by LED’s, new solar panel and charger, new AGM house batteries, new water level gauge, serviced the outboard, new dinghy, new bimini, new antifouling, varnishing exterior wood and more.
But after 9 months and 9 days she was ready to go back into the water.
We were proud of our achievement. She was restored to her previous glory, turned heads again in the marina and we were confident that the new owner would get a good and safe boat. Judge by yourself by the foto’s below.
The new owner had the boat surveyed. They crawled over the boat for two days and found NOTHING.
Lessons learned:
Visit your boat once per year. Things do break. If the solar panels hadn’t stopped working, the batteries would have survived and the automatic bilge pump would have done its job.
The cover that we put on the boat was too flimsy. Although the cover survived 20 years in the harsh Middle East sun, the same was blown to shreds in one of the ferocious winter-storms in Turkey. We are here now for 1.5 years and now we know.
Thanks again for reading this story. Warm regards, Liza and Frits.