Al has a Holey Adventure Too!

We have a big hole in the bottom of the boat.

Al did it.

The new depth sounder has arrived and part of installing it
requires removing the old transducer that fits through the bottom of the boat.

Hence the hole.

First Al was concerned he wasn’t going to be able to get the
old transducer out.  The factory
installed it with 5200. That’s the super-duper PERMANENT adhesive everyone is
warned about. 

 ”Don’t use this if you
EVER want to remove it.”

Of course if he hadn’t been able to remove it, we would have
needed another hole in the bottom of the boat.

Now the idea with sail boaters is that one should keep the
number of holes under the waterline to a bare minimum. Some people have been
known to wash dishes in a bucket and forgo a real toilet so they could have NO
holes under the waterline. We aren’t going to go that far.

Besides, it’s too late for that. We already have 15 holes
under Journey’s waterline. That’s right, 15 separate places where water can
someday come rushing in to sink our boat. Why? Why not? I guess for those guys
building the boat, it’s an easy matter to grab a hole saw and pop out another
plug of fiberglass.

Then when the PO put in the dual air conditioners and genset
and refrigeration, well more holes.

I really didn’t want another hole.

So Al tried to remove the
dead transducer.

He pulled, he pushed, he twisted, he banged.

He managed to
tear the plastic housing to pieces.

He worked on it the daytime,

he worked on it when he woke in
the middle of the night.

He worked from the inside,

he worked from the outside.

He finally proclaimed, “It’s out!”

Then he proceeded to try and remove all the 5200 residue that
was left.

A couple days later, and he is busy making epoxy-covered
wood doughnuts for the new transducer to rest on, he is routing messenger lines
for the wire paths through the guts of the ship.

 I asked him what adhesive he
was going to use to bed it with and he replied 5200.

He figures if it took him four days to blast this thing out,
he will never have an issue with leaks.

Now I can rest easy, knowing I only have 14 holes that I
need to worry about.