Happy Pi Day to all!  As the month of March approaches mid-point, we are seeing some real signs of Spring here in Michigan   We’ve had agreeable, sunny days with temperatures in the balmy 40° Fahrenheit range all week. The snow hasn’t quite melted and we are in the muddy limbo that happens every year.  This morning, we saw a number of Sandhill Cranes croaking overhead.  Their voices have a primal tone much like that of the Loon.  It stirs some kind of gut feeling that has no true explanation.

Last Sunday, we drove over to Holland to get the Winter’s snow off Reverie before it became an impossible mess of ice and condensation.  The last time we were there, it was 15° F and I was barely able to get under the heavy mass of snow piled atop Reverie’s tarp.   At the time, I knew we would have to get there at just the right time when things were softening up a bit but before temps were steadily above freezing.

 It took over an hour to get all the snow and ice off the tarp. The snow on deck was knee deep and weighed a considerable amount.  Massive blocks of ice had already formed along the toe rail pinning the tarp taut against the cabin and hatches.  This setup is  temporary and soon, we’ll have a better framework for the tarp so as to be able to work without having to untie the tarp every time; with a 20′ x 30′ tarp, that’s a lot of work.  I pulled the tarp back and we let the deck air out for the rest of the afternoon.  Had Reverie sat without a tarp for another Winter, I’m sure she would have been much worse off.  I know we got to her just in time; before she became nothing more than an assemblage of rotted wood.

The main problem with Reverie is her leaking deck, which started the insidious process that rotted her deck beams and other parts of her interior.  Her cabin-side seams are where a lot of the water entry was occurring; it was there that water leaked down into her galley space and wreaked havoc on the cabinetry.  Water was seeping into the sink/stove area which is the top of the galley space.  In December,  I removed the sink and found the opening completely soaked. In fact, the entire formica covered 3/4″ inch plywood top was completely saturated.

The drawers below had also gotten soaked making them impossible to open.  Luckily, there are two latched doors below them through which I was able to squeeze my arm in and force the damaged  drawers out.  We took them home with us with the intention of yet another off-site project.

The bottoms of the drawers were made of old school plywood, circa 1953, that didn’t take kindly to having water dripping on them.  The plywood was completely shot.  After taking the drawers apart, I decided to ditch the oak drawer sides in favor of 3/8″ marine plywood that will get sealed with epoxy.  The oak sides looked worse for the wear and were glued up from odd, narrow pieces that would have to be cleaned and  re-glued.  That’s more work than using fresh pieces of modern marine plywood.  The original wooden drawer faces are still serviceable but have splits that will get epoxied when they’re put back together.

So, I have the materials list all made up and construction method determined.  The entire galley cabinetry is going to have to come out to facilitate a frame repair so, I’m going to cut out the pieces and leave them that way until it all goes back together. If I assembled the drawers, they would be bulky and vulnerable to damage in storage.  For now, they’ll sit in a nice stack, ready to go back together in a moment’s notice.

So, the moral of this story, dear reader is: Never allow your deck leaks get to this point!  The whole mess with Reverie was caused by her leaking decks and would surely have been her undoing.

Stay dry, my friends!

~Roger