sail cleaning | Project Ensign

One week in

I couldn’t be more pleased. The kids have accomplished a significant amount of work in a relatively short time. Nearly all of the woodwork has been cleaned and sanded in preparation for varnish, the interior of the boat is gutted and almost ready for rebuilding, two of the sails have been cleaned, and the shop and boat got a good cleaning this afternoon. Only one week in and things are moving right along.

Fridays are going to be our major work days thanks to noon dismissal. Some of the kids with either a study hall or a home pass during the last period of the day M-TH may opt to stick around and work on the boat, but Fridays from here on out are the only scheduled time to continue the project.

Today only a handful of students showed up, but we were enough to make significant headway.

Michael R., Tony J., and Jared C., faithfully and determinedly, continued sanding and prepping the woodwork. They now have the majority of the sanding done. Perhaps we did things a little backward, but we started sanding the worst of the damaged wood and then tried a chemical treatment, TeKa. We probably would have started with the TeKa if I’d thought to bring it last week when we started the process, but quite honestly I don’t think it would have made much of a difference. The teak was so badly weathered that sanding was inevitable. The guys issued several oohs and ahhs when they saw the treated teak and realized that all their hard work was paying off.

Nick G., Alex S., and I continued the interior demolition. I brought my angle grinder and full-face respirator so we could remove the plywood pieces that were still attached to the hull with fiberglass tabbing – i.e., long, narrow strips of fiberglass. Our goal was to have the interior completely prepped for reconstruction so we could pull the boat outside while it was still on the trailer and give it a good washing to clear away the dust and grime before beginning the rebuilding. Cutting out the old bulkheads took more time than anticipated, however.

Nick works to remove the tabbing

Alex pries out tabbing

Grinding the tabbing with flapper wheel

On the recommendation of another Pearson Ensign owner who is in the middle of a similar restoration, we decided to cut out the old cabin floor while we were in there to expose the supports for the mast step, an aluminum collar that secures the foot (bottom) of the mast. We hadn’t planned on removing the cabin floor, but the potential for water damage beneath it meant that we ought to investigate, especially since we’re already doing so much reconstruction (uh, demolition). The supports were solid but wet, so they will be removed and replaced and the cabin sole (floor) rebuilt.

Wet mast supports that will be replaced

After grinding much of the tabbing with an abrasive flapper wheel, we’d had all the dust we could handle for the day and decided to clean up the boat and shop. We moved the boat outside and Nick G. and Alex S. gave her a good cleaning with a power washer (many thanks to Nick’s aunt, Tina, for letting us borrow it!). Satisfying is hardly the word to describe the feeling of watching all the gunk and grime being blasted off of the hull and deck. At times, the sunlight reflecting off of the hull was too bright to look at without squinting. Imagine how she’ll look when she’s freshly painted and polished!