After 2 days and you don’t want to know how much rum, we begin to calm down. On closer inspection, it looks like most of the damage is cosmetic. The scratches on the hull can be buffed out. The mold can be cleaned off with elbow grease (and a toothbrush and Fantastik). All the teak can be cleaned and oiled. The engine hasn’t been flooded. As bad as it seems, we decide to try and fix things.
After steam cleaning the inside and buffing the outside we feel much better. When we stroll into our local sail loft crying the blues after getting a quote for a new mast, our friendly sail maker asks, how tall was your mast? Turns out a friend of hers had an almost new mast just 3 inches shorter than ours. His boat sank in the hurricane so he won’t be needing the mast anymore. Excellent, we have a mast!
We do need to design new chainplates as the new mast has double lower shrouds when we had single. Not a problem, just design those and get them made. Of course getting anything made post hurricane will take 6 times as long as normal. While we’re at it, we take a look at the old chainplates. Ever seen serious metal fatigue? Neither had I. So we replace the old chainplates.
One job leads to another. The head needs to be replaced so we buy a new head. Of course it’s a different (and hopefully longer lasting) head so the footprint is different. Not a big deal, just have to cut a new opening for the hoses. Oh – wait – hoses. What is that odour? Why that’s the hoses. Sanitation hose is permeable, over time they develop an odour. Ok, let’s replace all the hoses. Add another job to the list. Follow the hoses and check the connections – hmmmm…. Being a boat from the great lakes area, Forbidden Planet is environmentally friendly, meaning we pump directly into a holding tank and not overboard. Time to change this. We want to install a diverter valve and add a thru hull. While examining the thru hulls we realize that they are the really really bad kind (gate valves) and they’re frozen in the opening position. Meaning that in an emergency we can’t close the hole through our hull. So we replace them all.
Are these not the most beautiful thru hulls you’ve ever seen?
And that’s the way our season goes. What started off as “OK, we’ll just get a new mast” turns into an almost total refit. Forbidden Planet isn’t a new boat, it was time.
And just when we thought the job list couldn’t get any longer…
we score….
A NEW ENGINE!!!!!