2. Boats

Boat Damage on 12/15/2008

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This picture shows the remaining 1/2 of the breakwater, still perilously close to the boat.
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This picture shows the remaining 1/2 of the breakwater, still perilously close to the boat.

boatdamagestorm

  • This picture shows the remaining 1/2 of the breakwater, still perilously close to the boat.
  • A closer view shows the implement of damage. The boat took the pounding from a steel girder extending out of the breakwater pier for 6-8 hours. My boat evidently held the whole darn breakwater off, preventing any damage to the dock or the other boats. Hero status!
  • The rudder was the most Northern component of the boat. I'm guessing that it was probably floating and only attached by the line I use to keep it from swinging. The huge half circle chewed out of the bottom is perhaps 2 feet top-to-bottom out of 2" thick plywood covered with epoxy and fiberglass. <br /> <br /> I was wondering how the rudder had held up over the years and noticed that the now exposed core was in perfect condition. Notice that the hinge pins and attachments that I fabbed are still there, although I suspect they're a bit bent.<br /> <br /> You can also note the new hatch covers that I just installed. In fact, the aft one was installed after about 2 months of once-every-week-or-two sanding, cutting, grinding, fiberglass work, and painting just 8 hours before the storm :-(
  • The rudder was held in place by three enormous aluminum bronze fittings. Aluminum bronze is incredibly strong and these weldments had been properly heat treated. I spent months machining these, getting them professionally welded, and then heat treated. The stresses to crack them must have been immense. You can see the one at the waterline is missing a good chunk out of the hinge top.
  • This picture shows the hinge slot at the top of the transom. It's been moved a bit and bent a tiny bit, but still standing. The transom must have been impacted a lot, because the plywood underneath is shredded.
  • Here's the picture of the worst damage. This was a bit hard to snap, since the waves were large and it required holding the camera out past the transom as far as I could reach.<br /> <br /> The hole is about an 18-inch to 24-inch circle. The blue foam was a compartment that was foam-filled to do exactly what it was called on to do here-prevent collision damage from sinking the boat. The compartment on top is the propane storage compartment and is sealed off from the rest of the boat. Bottom line is that no water is getting in past these watertight compartments.
  • A little skin on the side by the big hole. A key factor in the difficulty of repair is this damage. The transom is plywood, which some people can probably manage to work with. All the rest of the hull is strip-planked and damage will be challenging to properly repair.
  • This is the other side of the hull. There is some abrasion and evidence of damage about a foot or two forward of the transom, from the waterline up to a foot from the gunnel. May be cosmetic if the fiberglass isn't cracked.
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