I am currently taking a break from the unfun part of owning a boat. I started to say cruising, except the situation I am now dealing with would have been a simple solution had we been on SYL. Sometime after I left the boat in Destin and during the sail from Destin to Houma in which Rusty and Jono encountered some bad weather and rough seas, SYL took on water in the Starboard stern compartments. This problem was compounded because we were not aware of the issue until Rusty brought SYL home after being in Houma, La for several weeks. I didn’t know the extent of the problem until today. Dealing with water issues on a boat is never fun but to let your “stuff” ferment in water for weeks makes a NASTY problem. It is without a doubt the one thing that puts me in a foul mood immediately. Older Seawinds have a known problem of taking on water through a thru hull that the motor steering runs through. No one has come up with a good solution and I doubt the newer models have this issue. It usually is not a problem because you catch it early, remove the water and it never gets into the main stern storage. We have put a false floor in the storage so that if water does come in it doesn’t get into our “stuff” and we just wet van it out. This didn’t happen this time which alone would not have been a biggie because everything is in open plastic containers that are stacked for easy access. This time however, water and I mean a lot of water came in through the hatch and all of my containers had 1 to 2 inches of water and it had been sitting there for weeks perhaps a couple of months……..NASTY!! Everything had to be separated from its box, washed, dried and in many cases scrubbed free of rust. This area we have converted into our “garage” so it has all the stuff in it the name implies. Yesterday I finished getting everything out and washed. The “floor” was ruined and had to be removed and I ran bleach water through the main storage a couple of times. Today, I looked into the farthest stern compartment and it has about 1′ of water but a least this is not nasty water. Most everything in it is plastic. The above pictures are the state of SYL at the moment. Yesterday, was not a good day. Today is better. All the nasty is gone, and as I said I don’t do nasty well. I have the music on, the day is cool and beautiful and everything is clean……disorganized…..but clean.
Sea Yawl Later!!
Linda