Lackey Sailing | Skeedeen Phase 6-13

October 13, 2020

Skeedeen Phase 6-13

Tuesday

The areas I’d filled with epoxy fairing compound were ready for sanding after the long weekend. After I’d lightly sanded as needed, I vacuumed and solvent-washed the whole hull so I could closely inspect it for whatever further work was required.

Going over the hull closely, I marked with tape several tiny scrapes and divots around the boat–anything that needed a bit more sanding or some fine filling, along with the more obvious places where I knew I’d need at least one coat of fine filler to complete, such as the centerline seam on the transom and a couple places around the engine vent openings.

After final preparations, I applied a coat of fine fairing filler (epoxy) as needed. The filler is gray in color and most of the areas I filled were minor in nature.

Without much more I could do on the boat itself at this time, I went ahead and masked off the waterline (i.e. top of the bottom paint), following the lower scribe line that I’d uncovered as I sanded the hull earlier. I followed the masking with some paper to protect the bottom paint from overspray when I started the priming and painting.

The owner asked me to remove the transmission from the engine so he could get it to the shop that was going to rebuild the transmission as a matter of course. This was not something I did routinely, so after some brief self-education I set to work and removed the transmission without difficulty. To access all the mounting bolts (four bolts and two studs with nuts), I first removed the transmission mounts, then the mounting bolts. The port lower stud came out with the nut, but the starboard stud remained in place till the transmission was loose, after which I removed the stud myself.

I still had to remove the damper plate, but for now the day was late and I left this for another time.