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The entire interior will be removed down to the bare hull.  Whatever can be saved for another use will be, but there is limited material worth saving.

Update 1:  7 January 2003  |  Update 2:  28 April 2003  |  Update 3:  25 May 2003  |  Update 4:  3 June 2003

25 May 2003--Memorial Day Weekend

With each day I work on the boat (few and far between at this point, unfortunately), I get closer to my goal of removing all or part of the deck.  There's no great need to kill myself working with the deck in place, as much of the interior structure removal and grinding will be more pleasant (tolerable?) with the deck out of the way.

However, in order to remove the deck, I thought it would make the most sense to at least cut free many of the bulkheads and other interior pieces; plus, it all has to be removed sometime, and since I'm not quite ready to cut the deck off, it gives me something to do that is productive.

So, armed with about 10 new Sawz-All blades (Ace brand--thin and easily broken), I went to work and removed the main salon bulkhead, most of the head cabinetry, and portions of the forward bulkhead and mast support beams.  I also removed most of the cabin sole and some additional sections of the settees that I had left in place before.  I would have kept cutting, but I broke my last blade and had to call it quits.  I ordered a good new supply--$150 worth for a selection of about 60 blades--from McMaster-Carr later in the day--no more of those Ace brand, unless it's desperation.  I want plenty on hand for the deck removal, and I'm tired of not having enough.  Plus, several of them are heavy duty, which I've not tried before, and a few very expensive carbide-tipped ones that are touted as being good for fiberglass.  But enough about my saw blade fixation...

I began with the port bulkhead at the forward end of the salon--the after of two main bulkheads that delineated the head compartment.  I started my cut at the inner top edge and sawed along the underside of the deck.  There was no need to make a straight cut, or to worry about keeping the blade in tight to the seam or any such thing, since the only goal was to remove the majority of the bulkhead and to separate the deck from the interior structure.  If I were simply removing a bulkhead in order to effect its replacement, I would have approached the process differently.  Keep in mind, though, that all of this interior demolition work is, at this point, mainly intended to get the deck ready for separation and removal.

Next, I worked on some of the remaining port settee.  Earlier, I had cut out the bulk of the material, but now I cut through the remaining part, trying to get as close to the hull as I could.  The tabbing, installed both on top of and below the plywood settee, was very thick--up to 3/8" in some places, so cutting was slow and laborious.  I also removed the small shelf that was in place partway up the side of the hull; this was tabbed only on the top surface, with the bottom edge resting on a square hull stiffener, and I found that by bending the whole shelf upwards and inserting a pry bar, I could easily rip the shelf--tabbing and all--away from the hull.  The shelves and cosmetic bulkhead that were behind the head were secured to wooden cleats and with light tabbing, and came out easily with a bit of delicate persuasion with a hand maul.

Looking into the head shortly after the port bulkhead was cut out.

The builders didn't skimp on the amount of fiberglass they used to tab the bulkheads in place.  This makes cutting a real chore.

Some of the tabbing securing the settees was ridiculously thick!

A section of the settee tabbing remained in place after I ripped out the plywood.  Later, I cut this off.

Since the head seacock was still installed (it needs to be removed), making cutting nearby difficult, I elected to leave the old head platform in place for the moment, and moved to the starboard side to remove the bulkhead there, plus the hanging locker and shelves behind.  I removed the front of the hanging locker by cutting down the middle of the panel with the saw, then banging the thing out, breaking free any tabbing and cleats.  The flimsy shelves behind came out easily in a cloud of dust with my hand maul.  Then, I cut out the L-shaped bulkhead with the saw, just as I did on the port side before.  When I had it cut down so it was flush with the top of the settee, I removed the bulk of it, and then cut out the remaining settee and lower portion of the bulkhead, staying as close as I could to the hull.  As before, I removed the small plywood shelf that was along the hull beneath the deck as well.

The shelves behind the hanging locker after breaking off the thin plywood cosmetic panel that had been in place.

The hanging locker after I removed the plywood front, and beat the old plastic through hull (knotmeter) into submission. 

The hanging locker area after removal of the starboard after bulkhead and other junk.

The old cabin sole was already basically loose, with only some badly delaminated tabbing holding it in place, so I made a few select cuts through the sole with my saw, and pried nearly the whole thing up and out of the boat.  Only a small portion remains, just forward of the engine foundation.  This part was relatively well tabbed in place, and I left it for now since I was running out of saw blades.  The bilge was full of Styrofoam from the old icebox, and lots of other debris from other portions of the interior demolition--and lots of broken saw blades, too.  I even found a nice ball cap.  (not)

Because of the overall thickness of the Triton's hull, I wasn't too worried about the hull changing shape by removing the interior or bulkheads.  However, I thought it would be best to leave much of the forward bulkhead--the one at the aft end of the vee berth--in place for the time being, since the forward jackstands are in that general area (and the boat is leaning forward badly).  As I move forward with deck removal in the near future, I intend to install temporary braces across the top of the hull to ensure that the hull doesn't tend to bend inwards at all once the so-called "too of the box" (the deck) is removed.  Still, I wanted to remove part of the  bulkhead to open things up, free the mast beam, and free the coachroof for its pending removal.  So, with only a single saw blade remaining,  I cut the bulkhead along the bottom of the mast beam and straight across below at about the height of the underside of the sidedecks, and pried these sections out.  Then, I cut out a part of the inside section of the bulkhead, including the inner pair of oak compression posts.  I discovered one of them had some rot extending up into the post a couple inches, unsurprisingly.  It's interesting to note, though, that both bulkheads--and virtually all of the plywood I have removed so far--were dry and sound.

It seemed like a good place to call it quits--I was out of saw blades, I had accomplished a lot, and it was time to clean up.  After throwing any remaining large plywood bits into the cockpit, I swept all the loose debris down from the sides of the hull and into the bilge, and then swept this mess into a pile.  There was an inch of sludge in the bottom of the bilge, and I scraped this up with a scrap of Formica.  Then, I loaded the whole mess into a trash can.  The oily, greasy bilge requires more cleaning, but it is tolerable for now.  Soon, I'll fill it with Simple Green and water and let it soak for a while to loosen all the gunk inside.  Below are a few pictures of the interior after I cleaned out the debris.

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