Boat Sailing in Fair Weather and Foul, 6th ed.

by A. J. Kenealy

If the yacht is a small one—a knockabout or a 30-footer—and she has wintered afloat, the first thing is to haul her out and prepare to clean her hull of barnacles and grass, of which a goodly crop is sure to have grown on her below the water-line. Start in with scrubbing brushes, sand and canvas and use plenty of elbow grease until she is thoroughly cleaned and all rough places smoothed with pumice stone. Use plenty of fresh water, with a flannel cloth as a final application to her hull. Then leave her until she is thoroughly dry. Carefully examine her seams for leaks, calking where necessary.

When your boat is out of water open her wide to the fresh air. Rig up a windsail, and let the healthful breezes circulate through her interior. If she has hatches or skylights, lift them off; if portholes, unscrew them and give the wind a chance to blow all close impurities away. Rig the pump and relieve her of all malodorous bilge water, the most nauseating and offensive evil that is met with by mariners. Take up the cabin flooring. If the ballast consists of pig iron, rout it out, clean off the rust, and before replacing give it a good coat of coal tar, applied hot. Clean the limbers and flush them with plenty of water, using a bristly broom to remove the dirt. Splash the water about lavishly, and then pump it out dry. If there happens to be a cooking stove below, as there generally is in a vessel of any size, light a roaring fire and do your best to kill all fungoid germs or spores that may have gathered in damp places during the winter. Examine the ceiling for leaks.

Should, through imprudent oversight, any bedding, matting, carpet, or clothing, have been left in the boat since last season, take them out and have them cleansed and dried. If mold and mildew have attacked them, destroy without compunction, and resolve to take better care next time.

After thoroughly cleansing the craft inside from the eyes of her to right aft with soap and hot water, you can paint her cabin, if you deem she needs it, using enamel paint if you are willing to go to a little extra expense, or, at any rate, if not, using a generous quantity of spar varnish with the oil and dryers you mix your white lead with. This dries good and hard and is easily cleansed with warm water, soap and a sponge, and is far more durable and satisfactory than paint mixed in the ordinary manner. Two coats should be given.

The next process is to clean the deck of the coat of varnish with which it was doubtless covered when the yacht was prepared for the winter. To accomplish this in the most efficacious manner, procure from a ship chandler a sufficient quantity of one of the many preparations of caustic soda, with which the market is well equipped. Dissolve it in an iron bucket in hot water, mixing it strong enough to act as a powerful detergent. These preparations vary in power, so it will be well to experiment on a section of the deck with a sample and then add more soda or more water as required.

After sundown apply plentifully to the deck with a mop, rubbing the mixture well into the planks. Next morning before sunrise arm yourself with a good hard deck-scrubber, and set to work in earnest, using plenty of hot water and scrubbing the deck planks (fore and aft, mind you, always, and never athwart-ship) until every particle of the old varnish and every speck and stain is removed. If the detergent is allowed to remain on the deck while the sun is shining, it is bound to eat into the planks and burn them.

The next operation is the painting of the boat inside and out. There are many excellent compositions for coating the hull below the water-line, but if you do not care to experiment with them, use the recipe given in the chapter on "Useful Hints and Recipes." Choose a clear, dry day and apply the paint. For above the water-line use pure white lead of the best quality reduced to the proper consistency with equal parts of raw and boiled linseed oil and copal varnish. Add a dash of dryers and a few drops of blue paint, strain and apply.

Personally, I prefer to varnish the deck of a small craft, though I am quite willing to acknowledge the superior beauty of a spotless deck white as a hound's tooth. The friends of a yachtsman often wear boots with ugly nails in them, both on soles and heels, and these are apt to play havoc with the spick and span appearance of a deck innocent of varnish. After cleaning the decks thoroughly let them dry well. Wait for a sunny morning and a northwesterly wind, when the air is comparatively free from moisture. Get your can of spar varnish out, and after sweeping the decks and dusting them thoroughly with a feather-duster, apply with a regular varnish brush of convenient size. It is advisable to pour out the varnish into a shallow jar, a marmalade pot for instance, in small quantities as required, as varnish loses its virtue rapidly by exposure to sun and air. It is expedient, therefore, that the varnish can, or bottle, should never be left uncorked. The varnishing process should not be undertaken until the last thing, after the boat has been cleaned and painted inside and out, spars and blocks scraped and polished, standing rigging set up, running rigging rove and sails bent. Two thin coats of varnish will be ample for the decks and spars, as well as all the hardwood fittings and trimmings of the yacht inside and out.

Should the varnish be too thick to flow freely from the brush, don't thin it with oil or spirits of turpentine unless you wish to dim its luster and deprive it of much of its preservative quality. Simply place the varnish can in a bucket of hot water, and let it remain there until it gets warm, when you will experience no difficulty in applying it to advantage. Another hint worth taking is never to buy cheap and inferior varnish. The best is none too good.

These suggestions may appear superfluous to a professional yachtsman, who, if he happens to read this yarn, might feel tempted to observe: "Why, every darned chump knows that!" As a matter of fact, amateurs as a rule are not familiar with these little "wrinkles," which are in many cases tricks of the trade. This yarn is spun for amateurs only, and not for the edification or instruction of veteran professionals. About half a century ago, when I first became a boat owner, I should have been delighted to get the fruits of a practical man's ripe experience.