Bedding with Butyl Tape

Scott and Brittany, aboard s/v Asante, rebedded their ports using a mixture of butyl rubber tape and 3M UV 4000 as a belt & suspenders approach to keeping out the rain.  Here's how they did it:

Leaks.  They are, quite possibly, one of the more (if not the most) annoying malady to befall the cruising sailboat.  If they are below the waterline, they can prove catastrophic (as in; your boat can sink).  If they are above, they can be madness inducing, teak-tweaking and gear-ruining.  Lucky for us the leaks we have had have always been topside, and - even luckier - their origins have always been obvious.  There are plenty of accounts of leaky boats who's sources are nothing short of a mystery.  It is not unusual to see water coming into, say, an aft hanging locker - only to trace it all the way to a poorly bedded cleat up on the bow days, weeks or months later.  Water, being what it is, has a way of migrating before entering the interior of the boat and playing detective in this regard has been known to cause some cursing.

Speaking of bedding (and, no, I am not talking about the new queen set that you found on overstock.com), the majority of topside leaks will come from poorly bedded deck hardware.  For those who have no idea what I am talking about, the art of "bedding" deck hardware is mounting and installing it to the deck.  Cleats, portholes, chainplates, stanchions..etc.  Don't be fooled though.  This is no small task!  There are literally hundreds of holes drilled into our deck for various pieces of hardware which means there are hundreds places that water can potentially enter our boat, so the job must be done with painstaking care.  Nothing will make you curse the previous owner of your boat more than discovering what a crap job he/she did bedding deck hardware and, for better or worse, the attention they paid to this crucial job is pretty indicative of the way they maintained their boat.

So far, our only leaks have come from our portholes (aka 'windows') in our cabin.  We need to re-bed about six out of fifteen.  I have mentioned before that being a full-time boat mommy has pretty much nixed my ability to help with boat work (dang!) but one thing I am still very, very good at is research.  When investigating the best bedding compound, I discovered (and kind of fell in love with - in a deep respect sort of way) "Maine Sail" of Compass Marine.  He is all sorts of awesome and his site is full of how to do a litany of boat projects the right way.  It was through him I learned the beauty of Butyl Tape.

Scott got to work removing our old porthole, and discovered that it was bedded with the dreaded silicone.  Silicone SUCKS.  Say it with me people, "silicone sucks" and, in our opinion, has no place bedding deck hardware.  After spending a few hours painstakingly scraping away all the silicone remnants, he epoxied the inside of the window cavity (so that if any water gets in, it's not absorbed by the core) applied the butyl tape around the edge of the porthole, and wedged it in.  He then - for good measure - applied some 3M 4000 UV to the outside casing of the porthole and put the thing back together.  Between the epoxy, butyl tape and 4000, we are 100% leak-free (and yes, it has been put to the test!)

Since we're far from experts, that's about as step by step as I want to go, but if you are curious about using butyl tape to bed your deck hardware the proper way*, please check out this article.

*There's more than one way to skin a cat and I am sure plenty of you have leak-free boats that swear by other products, but for us butyl tape is the way to go for bedding deck stuff from now on.

The role of butyl tape

Scrapey McScraperton.  This is the most annoying part of the job for sure.

So it helps to have a very good friend around for moral support.   Ben Affleck and Jake Gyllenhal in the Hiz-OUSE!

Applying some butyl.

Peek-a-boo! Clamping the porthole into place.

The outer edge of the window was sealed with some UV4000.

Tools of the trade.

Look, ma!! No leaks!

Baby on Board

Scott and Brittany aboard s/v Windtraveler are re-embarking on their cruising life, with a new boat, and a new baby!. Here's one of the things that results from that combination:

So this is what they call "baby proofing"

Baby-proofing.  It's a pretty big deal in a home and a huge deal on a boat.  The funny thing is that boats are actually pretty well "baby-proofed" by design;  all cupboards lock, there are very few (if any) outlets within reach, limited hard edges and corners (no coffee tables here), nothing heavy on walls/shelves that can fall on an unsuspecting child and few (if any) electrical chords running here there any everywhere like in a house.  There is, however, one very big way a boat is not "baby proof":  we are surrounded by water.  Kind of a biggie there.

The number one rule on our boat is "stay on the boat".  That might sound funny, but it is no joke. While we do have a number of safety features available in the event of a man overboard situation, we'd rather not use them.  Truth be told, getting someone out of the water on a good day is hard at best, on a bad day it can be almost impossible.  So, yeah, "stay on the boat" is rule numero uno.  Keeping our baby on the boat?  Well, I think it goes without saying that this is a top priority.

As such, we joined the ranks of thousands of boater parents who have come before us and installed lifeline netting which is the (unofficial) universal boat symbol for "Baby on Board" and the nautical equivalent of that famous car sign suctioned on rear windows across the country.  Installing this netting might seem like a pretty simple and straightforward job, which is exactly what we thought too.  Be warned:  this is NOT a simple and straightforward job.  It took Scott two full days to complete, one for each side, and it was way more work than Scott envisioned.  Not hard, just...laborious.

Securing the bottom line of the netting with double hitches to ensure it stays very tight.

Here are some detailed instructions on how to install this netting if you are curious.  We didn't use wire along the bottom as the instructions suggest, but 1/8th diameter dacron cord purchased in 50 foot increments at West Marine (we also used this cord to attach the netting along the top lifeline as well).  If we need to swap it out down the line we can, but this will work for now.  The final product is awesome and we now have a boat that Isla can cruise around on with a significantly lower risk of falling overboard.  And yes, she will be watched very closely any time she is on deck.

Zip ties helped to keep the netting even and taught in between sections.

The top of the netting, attached with dacron cord

Starboard side

This boat screams "Baby on Board" and we're okay with that!

So many of you have asked how we have "baby proofed" the boat for Isla; where she sleeps, eats, how she stays secure underway...etc.  I am working on a post to share all those details with you so hang tight!

Wine rack

What are the essential boating fluids? Well certainly wine is one of them. Over on s/v Windtraveler Scott and Brittany put some under-utilized space to a more noble use:

Project completion on a boat is all about prioritizing, right?  Well, we enjoy our vino.  As such, one fun project Scott did in-betwixt bigger projects while we were still in Ft. Lauderdale was to make a wine rack for our galley.  We have a wine "locker" to stow bottles in bulk, but I thought it might be nice to have a place to store open bottles where they'd be easily accessed and safe while underway.  I told Scott my idea and showed him where I thought it could be installed, and he immediately got to work designing the rack with some scrap wood, a couple of dowel rods and two brackets.  The next day, we had a custom-made wine rack that holds five bottles ready for action.  Man do I love being married to a handy man!

Scott's hole saws came in handy yet again!

Taking the measurements so it fits just-so.

Isla likes to help mommy and daddy on projects.

Dry fit and more measurements

The finished product! 
A couple of brackets, some press-fit dowel rods,
and some scrap wood and VOILA! Wine rack!

Simple solutions

Please welcome new contributors Scott and Brittany aboard s/v Windtraveler!  For their first contribution, they face up to a problem all blue-water cruisers must deal with - how to keep the anchor from flopping around up there on the bow in a seaway - and they find that a simple solution is the best...

Isn't it funny how sometimes the cheapest, simplest solution is often the most evasive?  When we put our new anchor on our boat, it became immediately apparent that we'd need a way to prevent it rocking side to side when we were underway.  Tying it off prevented any up/down and forward/back motion, but regardless of how much we tied and how tight we pulled, the side to side rocking could not be quelled.  It might not seem like a big deal to those of you who aren't boaters, but a 73 pound anchor rocking to and fro and banging against the bow roller over and over is not only dangerous, but would make a tremendous ruckus in our boat.  We needed a better way to secure it before we left.

Our first idea was to modify our bow roller to accomodate our specific anchor.  That seemed simple enough.  We called a local metal working company and after they presented us with a quote for over $2,500.00, the decision to go a different route was very easy.

It became comical, actually, how many people were putting their heads together on this thing.  Even guests here at the building we are docked behind came over to offer their two cents on how to rectify our issue.  With each new idea the solution snowballed into something more and more complex.  I'm all for brainstorming, but this was getting out of hand. One afternoon, when Scott and some of our friends were on the bow talking about new rollers, drilling contraptions into the deck, raising the windlass, the addition of a pulley system and god knows what else I said, "We need a block to fit around the top of the anchor, essentially wedging the anchor into the roller, and then we need a hole in the top of that block to lash it down to the roller".   The guys looked at me, looked at the roller, scratched their heads and after a pause replied, "That could work".

And it did.  The very next day Scott fabricated my solution with $25 bucks worth of parts, and a little modification of his own.  What we did was make a block out of pieces of starboard, with a slot down the middle for the anchor shank to fit in.  Scott made the block sightly larger than the bow roller, and then routed out the sides of the block (with the new router I got him for Christmas!) so that it fit in the roller exactly.  With the sides routed out (Scott's brilliant modification) the block will not slide fore or aft, and all I need to do is lash it down to the bowsprit with some line through the hole he drilled though the top.  Make sense?  I'm sure there are other solutions, but we think this will work for now.

It's strangely easy to overcomplicate things on a boat (we've done it time and time again).  But usually, there is a very simple solution for just about any problem.  You just need to clear the table, clear your head and find it - it might mean the difference between $25 and $2,500!

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