Jersey Girl

Houseboat update, Thursday, October 24, 2019 -- Jersey Girl's starboard gull wing is complete, but for the face board under the overhang, which will tie it in visually to the surrounding stationary roof. When the epoxy cures, I will remove the six temporary screws holding it in place, install the hinges and finish it up with fiberglass and paint, matching the rest of the roof. I am considering using gas lift struts, like the ones on the rear hatch of an SUV, to raise and lower the gull wings. Now, on to trimming the fiberglass fabric hanging down from the roof, giving everything a light sanding, and applying one more coat of epoxy.

Houseboat update, Saturday, October 26, 2019 -- Jersey Girl's roof has its first coat of primer. That, plus attending to some pesky leaks that were diverting rain water from the decks into the cabin, is how I spent my Saturday. Rain is forecast for tomorrow, so I'll learn how successful my efforts were.

Houseboat update, Monday, October 28, 2019 -- Yesterday's downpour provided good information on Jersey Girl's leaky places, so I spent today attacking as many of the points of vulnerability as I could get to in one day. First, I fiberglassed the starboard gull wing roof section, knowing it would take the rest of the day for the epoxy to cure sufficiently for me to put it in place. Next, I applied a second coat of epoxy to the two tongue-and-groove boards I would need to finish building the port gull wing roof section, and set them aside to cure. After that, I edge-cut thin strips from an inch-thick board, for use as drip-edges on the forward and aft ends of the roof shoulders, to prevent water from curling around the end-overhangs of the roof and flowing into the joint between the cabin walls and the undersides of the roof planks. Then, I cut filler strips of plywood to start closing gaps between the aft deck and the roof posts, and to serve as a bulwark against seepage at the joint between deck and the base of the cabin wall. The last things I did in a busy day was to position the newly fiberglassed starboard gull wing in hopes it would help prevent rainwater from entering the still-uncovered deck hatches under it, and built the port gull wing in place. An all-day rain is forecast to start Tuesday mid-morning, so we'll see if I am on the right track.

Houseboat update, Tuesday, November 5, 2019 (catching up with recently completed work) – The storage compartments under Jersey Girls forward decks seem to attract rainwater! This wasn’t supposed to happen, thanks to a system of channels and scuppers I devised to gently persuade water to flow overboard by a clever path of least resistance. Or so I thought, and maybe I was right for most of the water, some of the wet stuff apparently was able to find a path of even leaster resistance. A prime suspect were the unfinished deck edges outboard of the six rail posts that will eventually support a railing and gates around the forward deck. Some of these leaky spots were more obvious than others. Obvious or not, now is a good time to take care of this detail. I do this by cutting three thicknesses of half-inch plywood, stacking them up, and gluing and screwing them into the voids where the posts were installed much earlier in the year. Eventually, probably in the spring when I have warmer weather, I’ll grind these flush and finish off the edge by squirting thickened epoxy under the deck along the sheer line, and cover the joint with a nice (and tough) white oak rub rail.

Houseboat update, Friday, November 8, 2019 (Catching up on recently completed work) – Moving back to Jersey Girl’s aft deck, I decide to make some improvements to channel and scupper system I designed for the forward deck. I think that some of my leakage problem may stem from the half-inch height of the channel that allows water to flow overboard – it may not be big enough for the volume of water that needs to pass through it in an all-day soaker. So for the aft deck, I have decided to make the thickness of the dams around the hatch openings (and under the deck surface as well) 3/4 inch. I’m getting that thickness by using two layers of 3/8-inch plywood for the channel walls, epoxied together. It’s too cold outside today to build them up on the deck itself, so I’m prefabbing them in the heated garage, then, on the fist reasonably temperate and dry day outside, I’ll glue and screw them into their appropriate places.