Dorade Vent Grilles.

On early Freeports, pre-1980, there was flex hose running from the cabin-top dorade vents to deliver air down into the engine room area. In many cases, bilge blowers were also fitted, under the cockpit, for air extraction from the same area. The hose from the dorade to the engine room was hidden behind cabinetry over the berth area. It was a good system which kept the engine compartment and and bilge well ventilated but, around 1980 as Islander looked for ways to cut costs, the blowers, vent hoses and cabinetry were eliminated. The dorade vents were retained but were left open directly into the cabin! 

A teak trim ring was installed where the dorade comes through the head liner to address the cosmetic problem of holes in the cabin roof but there was no way to control airflow through it, other than rotating the dorade away from the apparent wind!

Even with the dorades rotated away from the obvious wind direction there was still a draft! Also, naturally, the wind clocks round when we are at the slip and so periodic adjustment of the dorade was an ongoing chore to avoid those unwanted drafts. While this direct airflow into the cabin was a nice feature in hot weather, it most definitely wasn't good when the temperature dropped and was particularly irritating with the vent over the Admiral's side of the Pullman berth!

What to do? The answer was very simple and inexpensive.....once we found a suitable adjustable vent grille. 

4 inch Sea Dog Butterfly Vent Grille

While mooching around the West Marine on-line store we saw an ideal solution. Made by Sea Dog, these chromed brass vent grilles were perfect. With one of our WM discount slips we got them for less than $3 each! What a deal.

Vent Grill open.

Vent Grille closed.

Who would have thought that  a couple of such small parts would have such an impact on cabin comfort? The grilles aren't completely airtight and with them closed and the dorade facing into the wind there was still a hint of air coming through, but with the dorade rotated away from the wind the grilles stop the drafts completely.

LED Courtesy Lights

During the pre-purchase inspection we had discovered that the courtesy lights were all original and only one was working. We threw in some new bulbs but only used them occasionally after we saw the big current draw they generated. On top of whatever else we had turned on they were a major power hog! We finally got around to doing something about them, deciding to go with LED's. We are slowly converting all the cabin lighting to LED.

Ammeter showing approximately 4 amp draw with all eight courtesy lights on using original incandescent bulbs.

After a lot of surfing over all the usual suspect marine sites we couldn't see any suitable LED replacements that combined the right features with the right price....yes, we are cheap! There are plenty of good lights available but the prices are crazy. So, we started looking further afield for sites that specialised in LED's for all applications, household, marine, auto etc., etc. After a bit of browsing we found some powerful, twin LED license plate lamps at Super Bright LED's that seemed to fit the bill at less than $6 a copy! Compared to the offerings on the marine sites they were a steal. We bought a dozen, planning to use the extras inside the hanging lockers.

Compact and inexpensive, twin LED license plate lamp. 20 lumen (approx 15 Watt equivalent) with just 40 Milliamp draw.

By far the hardest and most time consuming part of the job was removing the face plates from the original units. They had all been screwed 'uphill' in their various locations and there was only about 4 inches between the cabin sole and the bottom face of the cabinetry where they were located so a specially modified cross-head bit in a miniature ratchet and some painful wrist action was needed to undo them! It seems likely the units were mounted before the furniture was installed during manufacture without thought of maintenance....a situation we have seen in numerous other areas of the boat.

Once the old lights were out the new ones went in without a problem except that, after testing the first one, we determined that they were too bright to face directly outward. We flipped that one and installed the rest facing inward and got quite a nice result with the light reflected back from the furniture. The pics below were taken with varying levels of background light, from moderate to pitch black.

But by far the most impressive result of the whole exercise can be seen in the final picture at left. All eight courtesy lights plus the florescent light over the sink.......barely 2 amps........enough said!

Head - Woodwork Varnish

Next up in our head rehab project was the re-finishing of the all the teak. Although the vanity, bench, lockers and all the trim looked fair from a few feet away, up close they were very shabby having been originally oiled from the factory but very infrequently, if ever, thereafter. 

There were a lot of dings, scratches and stains all over the place. The worst areas were the shower bench, the fiddle strips along the front of the vanity counter and the trim strip on the divider between the  stool and the shower bench. 

The hand-hold on the bulkhead and the fiddle above the stool were also really rough. They looked like they had been used by an infant crocodile as a teething aid!   

Sometime in the past the USCG documentation numbers had been stuck to the anchor locker bulkhead using self adhesive vinyl numbers 'sealed' with a couple of coats of  some sort of lacquer. Not the best location and no way were they permanent as required.  In the photo they don't look too bad but up close it was ugly! The numbers had lifted in several spots, the lacquer looked as if was wiped on with a rag and had yellowed with age. They had to go. The USCG compliant alternative we decided on will appear in a future post.

Although we had good results with re-oiling the interior of the vanity in the head, as part of our head-liner repair project, we felt that varnish was the way to go for the exterior of the vanity and the rest of the wood in the head as it would be getting wet on a regular basis. So, we were faced with a lot of cleaning, masking, sanding, filling, varnishing and sealing! Our only previous experience with varnish was with a two part product that we used on the cockpit table project detailed in a previous post. That product, Bristol Finish, gave good results but disappointed us due to what we felt was excessively long curing time. This time we decided to try something different and settled on Cetol Marine Natural Teak base with a top seal coat of Cetol Marine Gloss.

        


We used three, wet on wet, coats of the Marine Natural Teak base followed by a  little flatting with 320 grit Sandblaster pads and a single coat of the Marine Gloss to finish.

But first.....we had to clean all the wood using the WM one-step cleaner/brightener that did such a good job for us inside the vanity. After cleaning we taped the edges of everything so that we wouldn't scuff the gelcoat on the hull liner while we were sanding. The taping was a much bigger challenge than we had anticipated.....tight corners, compound curves and hidden edges all conspired to make it very time consuming.

After sanding with 180 followed by 220 production paper, another lengthy step, we wiped over with acetone and a tack rag and then started to apply the Cetol. We started with the foam 'brushes' we had used previously but changed to 'real' brushes after the first coat. The foam did a fair job on the larger areas   but wasn't as versatile as a good quality 1" brush when it came to the louvres and tricky corners on the trim strips.

When the sun was shining we could open the forward hatch and get good natural light. When the weather changed and we had to rely on artificial light it was really easy to miss spots in the shadows....which we did many times! (Looks like a trip to the Barber is in order, huh!) The repeated brush cleaning was a major PITA and we used a lot more acetone and cleaner but we felt the results were better.

Removing all the locker doors made things a bit easier but then we had a space problem!

Pretty soon the whole salon and galley had pieces and parts in varying stages of completion!

The louvres were a real challenge, trying to get good coverage without a lot of drips and sags. Fortunately, one crew member had the necessary patience and tenacity for the job!

After getting some sags and runs in the first coat on the door, applied while it was still hung, we got smart and took it off. Working on flat surfaces in good light made things much easier.

We totally underestimated the sheer time it would take do this job. Disregarding the time to actually coat and re-coat what is, in reality, just a few square feet of wood, the preparation alone took us around 45 hours spread over a week and a half. After a couple of weeks of back and forth to the boat every day we took a little break before going back to the grind.

Getting back on track, we persevered with the seemingly endless coating process....so we can now relate to the folk that paint the Golden Gate Bridge!

Looking back into the hanging locker area showing some of the weird shadow and light conditions that caused us to have several do-overs! 

Finally!!!!.....we got to pull all the tape off.....but even that was an epic. After sitting in place for almost three  weeks it had taken root and, despite us running round all the edges with an Exacto knife, it still lifted the edge of the varnish in several places as we peeled it back....more do-overs! We should have listened to the advice that we remove the tape while the coating is still green. But it was done. From start to finish was a full month!

We learned a lot on this project and when we get to the galley and companionway areas things should go a little faster and easier....at least we hope so! The next few pics show the results of our efforts. We will never get a job in a furniture restoration shop but things look pretty good and should hold up for the duration.