Odalisque - Home Page

Log 2004– Spring 2004

Spring 2004 – “On the Hard with Many Repairs to Make”

When Odalisque chafed off her mooring last October 12 in 40+ mile an hour wind she ended up bow first stuck between the pilings of a private dock. The result of the wave action while pinned under the dock resulted in a shredded genoa, some dinged up extrusions of the Harken roller furling, several pieces of teak toe rail damaged, some fiberglass damage on the port bow lip which was chafed by a piling. The rocking motion of the 3 – 4 foot waves and subsequent low tide may have also stressed the rudder as it hit the bottom resulting in a lot of play in the rudder. You could lift the rudder up and the pintel would come out of its bottom gudgeon. All the teak on the topsides was going to need attention even before our accident. These were the challenges ahead of us that we were aware of that needed to be done in order to get Odalisque back in the water.

We had insurance and although they totaled the boat and sold it back to us for $800 we ended up with a check for $6200 (insured boat value was $7K). The repair estimate we put together with the help of a local boat repair professional had come to over $6K which is what we thought we would get. As it turns out the insurer (BoatUS) paid for the salvage towing but when the damage reaches approximately 50 – 75 percent of the boat value they deem the vessel totaled and will pay you the face value of the policy. The only problem is that they then own the vessel and all its gear. They will sell it back to you however (in our case $800). I guess they understand that boat owners can get attached to a boat even after one season of ownership. We discussed taking the insurance money and buying a different boat but it seemed such a shame and sad, not to mention that the Atomic 4 engine still worked fine and got us from City Island to Glen Cove the day after the salvage. We decided to keep her.

Some pieces of teak that were removable were taken off the boat and worked on over the winter and spring (tiller, grab rails, eyebrows, cockpit lockers and lazarette). Caleb was still happily unemployed and so he oversaw most of the repairs. We had tried to see if the local professional could do any of the work (@ $70/hr) but he proved to be too busy so we would have to figure it out ourselves unless we wanted to launch in August or September. The words of the previous owner kept coming back to me as explained about the bucket with a line attached: “Oh, you will figure it out”. He meant: don’t use the head. Mathew helped replace the old holding tank and hoses which smelled, in part because of our misuse of the head the year before (lesson learned: always pump out the holding tank. No exceptions!) Matt also helped replace the bow pulpit which was also mangled in the accident. Tenzen the Tibetan worked on the exterior teak and helped out for about 8 days of paid labor. We somehow decided to scrap the old Harken RF unit and got a new Furlex from the Doyle sail shop in Huntington. I would have to do the rest, whatever it was.

I worked on the pieces of teak through the Winter. The stuff that had been sanded, oiled, let sit for weeks, oiled, sanded, tack clothed and coated with varnish 6 times looked the best (the tiller). I coated some of the removable teak with the West System #207 clear hardener mixed with the #105 resin after sanding, oiling and wiping off the surfaces with acetone and then varnished over the resin on the recommendation of a West Marine employee in their NYC store. This is a lot of extra work and I can only hope that it will stand up to the environment as well as the stuff I just varnished. It all looks great now; especially at sunset when there is an orange sun pouring over it, it glows.

I had done some fiber glassing on the hull of my small 14’ day sailer “Olga” so I had some experience working with the cloth and resin and micro fibers. I was unsure of how to repair the damaged fiberglass lip of the port bow until I bought a book (“The Boat Repair Manual”) that suggested the use of forms for curved surfaces. I took some time to envision this idea while I worked on the platforms for a motorcycle show at Rockefeller Center that my friend, Godfrey, was contracted to do. I scrounged some 1/8” poplar plywood, some C clamps and saws and set out to make a mold.
The section that needed repair was between 1/2 – 3/4 inches thick and 1 inch wide across the top flat part, above the registration numbers to port. The teak toe rail had been completely ground away and the piling had dug into the edge of the deck and hull. The 1/8” ply was flexible enough so that strips could be clamped together and would conform to the contour of the bow. I used a piece of 1 x 3 lying around the boat yard to stiffen the whole affair when it was clamped together using 4 C clamps. You need a saber saw and a steady hand to make a cut that conforms to the shape of the hull. My mold supported the section of the lip (underneath the toe rail) that I needed to build up to match the undamaged sections. Then came the laminating.

It turns out that building up this material is not that difficult. Messy, smelly, sticky – yes; but not difficult if the temperature is warm, even hot. It chemically bonds together if it has not fully cured, which is what you want. If you let it cure overnight the next layer will not chemically bond to the last and you must give the next layer(s) something to key into, like a small drill hole in the previous layer. The gist of it is to build up the layers to slightly over the dimensions you need and later sand it down to more exact dimensions and then gel coat it.

Once my fiberglass repair had cured and been shaped by the saw and sander I had to replace the damaged and missing pieces of teak toe rail. My friend Godfrey consented to come out to help me with this as I had helped him with his motorcycle platform job. I had already purchased a piece of teak 11’ long by 1” x 8” from ML Condon (White Plains, NY) for around $100. We ripped and cut pieces for the 4 boards that were damaged or missing. The pieces of teak seemed to fly onto the boat in one day. I finished the job the next day cutting plugs of teak out of scraps and taping them into the bung holes left behind by the screws going into the fiberglass lip. Some oil and varnish and the toe rail was done.

— Caleb Davison