Tortuga was hauled over to Bass Harbor Boat on October 2nd.  The night of September 30th it rained quite hard.  Since I knew it was going to rain I closed up the canvas over the aft end of the cockpit, but didn't otherwise cover the cabin house.  After the rain, it was clear that the cabin house roof leaked like a sieve.  I climbed up there and took a close look.  That inspection revealed lots of places where the paint was cracked and the underlying canvas rotted.  So, while I was waiting for the engine to be removed, I decided to strip the old canvas off the house roof.

The first step in removing the canvas was to take the hand rails, nameboards and running lights off.  The hand rails were pretty easy since there were attached by screws from below.  The name boards and running lights were a bit more involved to remove because they were mounted on stand-offs and half of the mounting screws were under the running lights.  In addition, all the screws were countersunk and the holes were filled with some sort of very gummy caulk that was quite difficult to get out of the screw slots.  Nevertheless, I managed to remove the wood and started stripping the canvas.

I started at the aft, port end of the house where I had peeled some of the paint off.  Despite the paint coming off easily there, it took about an hour and a half to remove 3 square feet of canvas.  I quit that day thinking that getting the canvas off would be a much bigger task than I had intially thought.  The next day I returned with a utility knife, a 4" steel putty knife and a hammer.  I first cut through the canvas from the aft end of the house to the forward end along the port side trim and about 18" in from the trim.  I then hammered the putty knife under the aft edge of the canvas and started pulling it off.  The first 2-3 feet came off with considerable difficulty.  Then while I was standing on the roof, pulling on the canvas strip, about 4 feet came up all at once.  After that the rest of the strip came off with only moderate effort.  In order to make my task easier, I used the utility knife to cut the canvas into approximately 12" wide strips, which came up relatively easily.  By easily, I mean that it only took me about three more hours to pull the rest of the canvas off the house top.

After removing the canvas, I was pleased to find only two small areas of rot.  The areas of rot were only about 1-2 square inches each and only penetrated about 1/4" or so into the old growth Douglas Fir tongue and groove boards the house top is made from.  I discovered several spots where holes had been drilled through the house top and "patched" with a bit of putty.  I could see through the wood at pretty much all of those "repairs", which explained a lot of the leaks.  When I pulled the canvas off, the top layer of very brittle white paint mostly flaked off.  That revealed tan paint that was well adheared to the canvas.

October 14, 07 - Since I last added to this page I have removed the trim around the edge of the house.  That was quite a task because the last person to recanvas the cabin top used copious amounts of brown polysulfide caulk under the trim pieces.  I was only able to get six pieces of trim off in one piece.  Fortunately those pieces were the arced for and aft facia boards and the 4 corner pieces.  Everything else came off in pieces.  Once the trim was off, I spent a couple of hours pulling the 200 or so copper ring nails that had been used to attach the canvas to the house top.  Once the last of the canvas was off, it was clear that there was considerable rot around the edges of the cabin house.  That rot was limited to the outer inch or so of the planks on the port and starboard sides.  So I decided to replace those planks.  They came up relatively easily, leaving the most of the very rusty finish nails they had been attached with behind.  I used my vice grips to pull the nails.  The planks I was replacing were 7/8" tongue and groove Douglas Fir.  Needless to say, I couldn't find any doug fir T&G at all here in Maine.  I was able to get some very nice 5/4 douglas fir decking, which I planed to 7/8" thickness and then used my table saw to make into T&G.  The new planks went on nicely with stainless ring nails.  I then planed a round chamfer onto the outer edge.  Once the new planks were in place, I filled the holes in the house top with thickened epoxy and sanded the surface smooth.

Today, I got ambitious. So I stretched the new canvas onto the house top.  I used the copper ring nails I had removed to hold it in place.  After the canvas was on, I put the first coat of paint on it.  I used a semi-gloss exterior grade alkyd paint tinted China White.  The canvas really soaked up the paint.  I ended up using nearly an entire gallon on the 8'x10' cabin top.

The picture above shows the new canvas after I put the first coat of paint on it.  It will likely take a couple more coats before it is finished.  Incidentally, those are the wires for the running lights sticking up out of the house top.

After I painted the canvas, I made up the new trim pieces from some of the Douglas Fir I purchased to repair the house top.  I will be putting it on after I finish painting the house top.

October 18, 07 - I have gotten quite a bit done since the 14th.  As shown in the picture below, I now have the trim back on.  There are 12 pieces of trim all together.  There is vertical trim all around the house that has its top flush with the top of the house, there is horizontil trim that is on the top of the house and there are 4 corner pieces at the forward corners of the house.  I was able to save the vertical trim for both the forward and aft ends of the house.  I also saved the horizontil trim for the forward and aft ends of the house as well as the 4 corner pieces.  I made up new trim from douglas fir for the sides of the house.  I also replaced the galvanized screws that originally held the vertical trim pieces on with bronze screws.  Today I put the 4th coat of paint on the canvas and then installed the horizontil trim on top of the house.

I still have a couple of spots to shape with the plane and sand paper.  I also have to install about 80 bungs, trim them and paint the trim.  After I finish that I will reinstall the nameboards, handrails and running lights.

Oct. 26, 07 - Since my last update we have had a bit of rainy weather which kept me from working on the cabin top.  In addition, haulout day for my other boat arrived.  I spent two good days working on that boat getting it ready to haul and then hauling it and bringing it home.  After that I got back to working on the Tortuga.  I bunged all the screw holes with mahogany or fir bungs as appropriate.  All the bungs were set in varnish.  While I was waiting for the varnish holding the bungs in to cure, I installed the nameboards and cabin top hand rails, which I had revarnished in the shop.  When the varnish was fully cured I sanded the bungs flush, filled imperfections in the old and new wood, sanded all the trim and then, today, put the first coat of paint on the trim.

It looks like the trim will need about three coats of paint.  I also have to put the side lights and aft light back on.  All three lights are solid bronze.  They were lacquered, but the finish was in poor shape so I stripped it off.  I am still polishing the lights and will lacquer then again before I put them back on.  The mounting board for the aft light is not on the boat yet because the original bronze light had been replaced with a modern light.  While digging through a box of stuff that came with the boat I found the original aft light.  I had to modify the mounting board for that light to accommodate the original light.  I still have about 3-4 coats of varnish to go on the new piece of mahogany I added to the light board.