Scenes from Ventura Harbor

 

Ventura Harbor is a really lovely place - great restaurants and shops all around, neat commercial fishing vessels, a beach with good surf. We'd walk around in the mornings and evenings when we weren't working like crazy bees!

Fiberglassing: the skin of the boat

After we finished the wood repairs, it was time for the "exoskeleton" of the boat - its fiberglass skin.  Fiberglass comes as a cloth that can be cut with scissors, full of fibers that are bonded together when resin is added. We bought 30 yards of cloth (3 feet wide) for the job! 

Why so much? Above the waterline, we used two layers of fiberglass, whereas below the water, we used between three and five layers. Each layer needs to be cut at increasing sizes so there is overlap and no "edge".

Doing flat sections like the port ama (side of the hull) was hard enough. The transoms took a lot of brain damage, until we figured out that we simply could not figure it out. Then we just decided to cut the cloth as we laid it on. Ed and Pat show off our attempts to "cut to fit" using tape to hold it in place.

Feeding the crew lunch. Delicious burritos courtesy of executive chef Alyssum.

After applying epoxy resin and multiple layers of cloth, the wood is sealed off and the skin is really tough. Many trimarans were built in this way (fiberglass over plywood) because it avoids the complications of a wood plank boat (by sealing the wood from the water), and is a lot cheaper (and lighter) than an all fiberglass boat.

The big downside is that resin used for fiberglassing is fairly toxic - certainly not eco friendly. However, it will last a really long time, if taken care of properly, which can justify the process.  It is like drinking water out of stainless steel bottles instead of plastic disposable bottles - although the stainless steel takes a lot of energy to produce, if it is kept long enough, it far offsets the problems of disposable plastic. The trick is to keep the boat healthy (no delaminations or rot) so that the fiberglass can stay on for decades.

The crew at the end of the day... Ed, Trout, Jonathan, Sequoia, Dee, Alyssum, and Kristian.

The Fish Factory

Everything is quiet until around 11pm... when a crazy din starts just outside, fish being unloaded from 80 foot commercial fishing vessels. Sucked out of their holds with big pipes, deposited in big blue bins, carted away by trucks: sardines, squid, etc. It's the fish factory right next to the boatyard, which we became intimately familiar with, sounds and smells.

I met one of the guys working there: Jose from Oaxaca. He was stoked we are headed to his home state. "Too many things to see in Oaxaca. You will like it very much." We had a good conversation at 2:30am one night, after I fell asleep too early exhausted from a day of sanding/fiberglassing. My hard work pales in comparison to Jose - he works 8 hours at the fish factory and another 6-8 hours at the boatyard.

After a few nights of the fish factory I didn't need earplugs anymore - I must have gotten used to it. I almost grew fond of it.

Wood work on the transoms

I had no clue!  Fixing the three transoms - the back part of the three hulls of a trimaran - was a huge job.
All three had delaminated fiberglass. On top of that, the port transom had deck rot and some funky wood on the sides, which we replaced. Garrett, our friend from Los Osos and aspiring world cruiser, drove down and spent 3 days with us tackling that repair. He maintained good cheer despite the nightly din from the local fish factory (more on that later!)

The main transom had considerable rot, which we removed and replaced with a brand new panel. Sequoia, our friend and director of OceansWatch, took it upon himself to fix the main transom. It took 1 week in all to prepare the hole, cut new 6 laminates of 1/4 inch marine plywood, along with doublers and knee joints; epoxy, screw, and bolt into the frame; and reinforce the area weakened by the old chainplates.

Why had all this damage occurred?  Water had leaked in and transoms are notoriously bad at ventilating air.  The leaking was due to poor deck fittings (cleats, rails) that were not well bedded with sealant.  Also the chainplates for the mast rigging were inserted through the deck, creating opportunity for water intrusion. Now we're reconfiguring the chainplates to the outside of the hull, to keep water out (and keep them from corroding and weakening).