Institute of Maritime History

It is Thursday morning (I think) and I am taking a few quiet moments to get set for the day. 

Starting off Monday afternoon with 400 Scouts, we have had 2000-3000 youth and adults go through the intro to Scuba area each day.  I am located in the Exhibits tent that they go through on the way out.

Topside sanding's done, so I broke out the paint this weekend.  It was only about 95 degrees-- why not?  I managed to get primer and 2 coats of Brightsides on the starboard side.  The port side and transom will have to wait a few weeks.

Here she is, taped and ready to go:ready for paint

And here she is after a coat of primer:primed

IMH board member David Johnson spoke recently at a TED event in Washington DC dedicated to the BP Deep Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Johnson had five minutes to represent the underwater archaeology community to the diverse audience of TEDxOilSpill as part of the session on conservation that included such notable speakers as Sylvia Earle, Susan Shaw and Carl Safina. You can watch the entire session below, David's comments are at about 2:04.

This weekend I decided to do some clean-up.  Perform a Pretty-ness on the boat.  Basically a motivational activity to keep my spirits up.

So I broke out the power-washer and went to town on the teak.  I can hear the collective gasp of all you old salts out there about destroying the precious teak!!  Don't worry-- I'll probably never do this again.  And I can't think of another way to scrape through 20+ years of pine-tree poo to actually get down to wood.

Here's the results:

Now that the spring archaeology projects are out of the way (specifically, the Roper's biennial haul and the much-touted Mount Vernon survey), I've gotten back to working on the Gypsy Blanca in earnest. 
This weekend was devoted to ripping out all the rotted hose that was connected to the deck scuppers.  Instead of draining over the side through thru-hull fittings at the waterline, all the rain from the deck was running into the bilge.  And of course, if she were in the water, the slightest roll or wave would was

We have the title to the boat!  So Gypsy is officially no longer abandoned.  We've decided to rename her, against many complaints from the "locals", who see this boat as a fixture of the marina-- as Dave likes to say, he's been here so long, he's no longer a "regular," he's furniture-- and the boat's been here far longer.  She'll soon be in the water, which will change the whole look of the boat-yard.

Now that March Madness is over (I'm talking about the annual spree of archaeology conferences-- what did you think I meant?) it's back to work on the boat.

The weather was warm enough to be comfortable, but not warm enough for fiberglass work.  That's ok-- there's plenty of sanding to do.  Here's a pic that shows the existing bottom paint, what's left of it.  The red color is the original gelcoat.bottompaintbefore

The weather has finally broken in Southern Maryland and it was warm enough this weekend to get some work done!

The ice in the bilges finally melted completely, letting me pump out all the water.  Unfortunately, two out of three old pumps didn't survive the winter ice.  The important engine-room pump made it, though!

BlizzardNo work on the boat this week-- you may have heard we had a touch of "wintry-mix" in these parts. I've gotten down to the point where things need to melt before I can go further.

So what does a boat restorer do when he's not restoring the boat? He thinks about restoring the boat!

snowonthebowThe beautiful weather last weekend made it an absolute joy to work on the boat... NOT! More like an scene from Ice Station Zebra. By Sunday morning, we had almost a foot of snow in the boatyard, with 2 foot drifts here and there. True to form, they're predicting a second foot-plus snowfall for this coming weekend. More fun!