Soon as I bought Ben I started adding some custom touches for my personal comfort and entertainment.
Stuff like TV and radio antennas, extra lights and speakers were a snap to install: all it took was an electric drill, a few wood screws and a few minutes of my time.
Just think, I told myself, how easy and how much fun it is doing things on your own. And best of all everything worked like I'd planned.
Two years ago poor Ben's engine blowed-up real good, effectively turning my little guy into an emasculated barge. Rather than pay slip fees for a boat that wouldn't move, Ben got loaded onto his trailer and towed home to my driveway (where he remains to this day). Then I started working on my little houseboat to turn him around 360 degrees and get him "right" again.
Recently I noticed two strange things with Ben. When I'm onboard I can tell when it's raining outside because it starts raining inside ... soaking the side curtains and most every horizontal surface within minutes.
The other thing: when I went looking around the flybridge up top to find where the rain was coming in, I noticed soft spots on Ben's fiberglass "roof" that sagged under my weight.
Uh oh.
Mike the Mechanic explained that soft spots are caused by rain water seeping in and saturating the foam core under the fiberglass layers. Once water gets trapped inside the foam, dry rot starts destroying the core. As rot spreads it weakens and attacks critical structural elements that hold the boat together.
If not quickly arrested dry rot can ruin a boat that, from the outside, seems in otherwise perfect condition.
Where were all the leaks coming from? Ben stayed bone dry when he was at the marina ... but back then he was living "under cover" beneath the protection of a metal-roofed slip. The leaks were revealed soon as he was out in the open.
Uh oh.
Mike asked me, "Any idea where the water's coming in?"
Hmmm. Could be from the holes I'd drilled for all the extra stuff I wanted? Just a guess.
If I'd taken five minutes from my hurry to get the speakers jamming to Jimmy Buffet, I could've opened the big boat book and learned that the right way is NOT the way I'd been doing things.
The right way is more trouble and takes more time, but the right way prevents rot from ever starting because it keeps rain out in the first place.
I recently read an article by a marine surveyor who'd discovered core rot in an otherwise pristine cabin cruiser that would've cost more than the boat was worth to repair. In other words that $50,000 boat was lost.
Even though it looked perfect, and didn't seem to be in any danger of literally falling apart. And suddenly, permanently, sinking.
The idea that a boat that sparkles and looks factory-new on the outside could be a total floating wreck on the inside from nothing more significant than a pin-sized hole in its deck made my knees buckle. I had a hard time grasping that even the tiniest leak, even if it's unintentionally overlooked, can destroy the boat's integrity and make the vessel useless.
Man, I need to keep an eye out for pinhole leaks in the deck.
I spent two hours this morning patching the holes I already know about. Next time it rains I'll keep both eyes open and account for any leaks I missed ... and also check to see how the work I've already done is holding up in bad weather.
The Big Boat Book would've shown me very simply how to avoid leaks, and I'll know next time to consult The Book first ... before getting in a hurry, jumping in and doing things my way.
Because even one leak is too many to let slide, even if we're only talking about boats.
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