We jumped into a doozy of a project this spring by removing the ornate main hatch cover and both interior and exterior hand rails from our Alberg 35,
Mystic, after finding leaks. The project included sanding out the old varnish overflow to the deck and repainting the non-skid area beneath the teak.
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| Main hatch without teak cover and rails |
We took the hatch off first and brought it home to sand and add coats of varnish to the underside. Dave added weep holes so water that gets underneath will have a means of escape. A few years back, we had to repair a small rotted section of the cover caused by sitting water. The changes we've made should avoid further issues.
We removed the interior and exterior rails on our next visit. As soon as we got started, the rain, wind and cold set in. Of course, that meant that the screw holes for the rails began to leak. We waited out the weather for two days, hoping it would clear enough for us to complete the project, but it just got worse. The temperature was too low for the paint and varnish to cure and the wind was brutal. Mystic was doing a little quiver dance on her jack stands. There was no getting around the uncooperative weather so we purchased a small tarp to cover our work area and packed up to head home.
Before leaving the area, we visited our new summer berth at Menominee Marina at the end of a fixed T dock. We were alarmed to see that the water on Green Bay is down over a foot which puts the waterline at four feet below the dock. Luckily, we noticed that our slip did not have a second fender board. Without it, our boat could go right under the dock.
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Dave checking the depths
at Memonimee
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| Dave on our pier |
We talked to the Harbor Master, Bill, who agreed to let us use his work barge to install lower treated lumber fenders and two bumpers, as well as a ladder that Dave built to get us from the dock down to Mystic. The high to low water range on Green Bay is 8 feet. It is currently in the middle so it could get worse, but it could also rise. We'll be prepared for it either way.
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| Dave installing a second row of fenders |
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| Our slip with ladder in place |
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| All we need is a BOAT |
Back at the house, we began the arduous task of sanding the hand rails. Some areas of teak had turned black from moisture. I carefully sanded them out, right down to the teak. Our teak cleaner was on the boat so I tried using a 2:1 mixture of bleach and water with a touch of dawn detergent. It seemed to lighten the dark spots a bit. We applied 6 coats of varnish to the rails then wrapped them in towels to protect them for the ride to the boat.
The ornate teak hatch went back into place pretty easily but the rails were another story. They are held together with bolts that ran through the outer rail, the hull of our cabin, then into the inner rails with a nut locking them in place. We weren't able to thread the bolt into the nut so Dave decided to put threaded inserts into the inner rails and shorten the bolts. The other option would be to drill out the plugs on the inner rails which we really didn't want to do. It took a lot of time and messing around to get them to line up. In the end, we think we may have had better luck if we'd just drilled out the inner plugs. The job is done and looks great! That's what matters. Now we can get in the water.
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| Newly installed teak hatch |
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| Hatch and rails in place |
