"Capt. JG" wrote in
easolutions:

Nothing removes water faster than a guy with a bucket and the proper
motivation. LOL




People are always horrified when they saw my powerboats come out of the
water on the trailer streaming water out of the table tennis drain cocks
I always installed in them. In 40 years I never had a boat sink because
of them being screwed in where the transom plugs I could never remember
to insert before launching were to go.

I met a guy with a better idea at the ramp one day. He said they wanted
to much for these autodraining gadgets. So, he installed a toilet tank
valve seat (without the overflow tube) into his transom over where the
old drain used to go. On the outside of the BIG hole was a standard
flexible rubber toilet flush flapper that fit through the hole as it
should, suspended by the two ears it would sit on inside your toilet
tank. The only difference being the end of these ears had nylon washers
forced over them so the flapper couldn't fly off and get lost while she
was on a plane and the hole was WIDE OPEN to the sea.

If the water wasn't so deep he couldn't start the engine and drive the
nearly-full runabout away from the dock, he said he could empty the hull
in less than 1% the time it would have taken the little hole with the
plug removed. The boat simply.......well............FLUSHED!

Come off the plane, a tiny bit of water splashed into the stern to seat
the flapper and she was ready to fish. Take off again, and whatever was
in the boat....FLUSHED out the back....EVEN THAT CRAP THAT ALWAYS
PLUGGED THE LITTLE PLUG HOLE!

Oh, one slight modification to the flapper. The hollow center of the
tapered part that floats until your toilet tank had emptied before it
dropped to close it had been filled with bathtub caulk to keep it from
floating up and STAYING OPEN, which wouldn't be good. His flapper was
quite heavy with the caulk-filled bullet plug. "It always lays open
when we're underway at any speed", he told me.

To clean the fish crap out of the bilge, you used a stick to hold the
flapper open to "fill" the boat with enough water to wash the deck.
Then, you simply took her for a spin to FLUSH. It looked really clean
to me!

Can you imagine the shame of anyone on a yachtie dock spotting such a
rig out of a toilet. They'd be horrified! Those come from WALMART!

"IanM" wrote in message
...
Dave wrote:
On Sun, 28 Dec 2008 21:46:06 +0000, IanM said:

So why do many professionals dry dock their vessels only every third
year? Obviously you've never encountered modern antifoulings. What are
you still using Wilma? Rendered mutton fat, quicklime and chilli powder
I suppose.

I don't think Neal can afford the good stuff.
It doesn't work as well if the mutton fat and chilli powder was
'previously owned'.

Ian
--
"Quality is like oats. If you’re satisfied with
oats that have been through the horse one
time, you can buy them cheaper." Anon. (19th C )




I actually tried habanera on my Cal 20. As far as I could tell, it made no
difference. LOL

--
"j" ganz @@
www.sailnow.com

"Dave" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 28 Dec 2008 15:55:54 -0500, "Wilbur Hubbard"
said:

There is NEVER
any real need to scrape barnacles provided you re-new your anti-fouling
annually.

I recommend that you scrape together enough nickels for a multi-season
paint, Neal.


I definitely need to haul my boat, but it's working on three seasons with
very little bottom growth. I'd have to look, but I believe it was Trinidad.

--
"j" ganz @@
www.sailnow.com

"Dave" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 28 Dec 2008 16:06:02 -0800 (PST), Frogwatch

said:

Hubbard is an idiot who seems to know nothing about boats.

Aw, c'mon, David. Neal reads lots of boating magazines. Besides, he's an
expert in defending jaywalking cases.


LOL Was he sober?

--
"j" ganz @@
www.sailnow.com

"David L. Martel" wrote in message
...
Wilbur,

Reread the man's post. He isn't a negligent boater though perhaps his
kid is. Your answer to his query was quite rude.



My intention wasn't to pick on the man, per se. It was to enlighten folks
who happen to share the same lax attitude as to the sorry state of yachtsmen
maintaining their vessels. When a vessel gets to the state where barnacles
are growing all over the bottom and have to be scraped off with a heavy-duty
custom-made scraper it's an indication of a lapse in judgment or a lazy,
negligent attitude. Since when it is rude to attempt to correct gross
misconceptions?

Scraping barnacles can be likened to picking nits out of your hair. The fact
that you are picking nits out of your hair indicates you didn't pay enough
attention to your personal hygiene. Scraping barnacles indicates you didn't
pay enough attention to your boat. You let the horse out of the barn so now
you're gonna keep cleaning the stall in lieu of getting the horse back in?

One should be ashamed to admit this sloth. One should not go seeking advice
about it on Usenet while acting like it is par for the course because it is
NOT par for the course. It is stupid and lubberly.

Wilbur Hubbard

On Sun, 28 Dec 2008 14:49:26 +0000, Larry wrote:

Bruce In Bangkok wrote in
:

Although, on second thought, he did say "sharp steel blade". I assumed
about 1/16th flat stuff for the blade, unsharpened. No need to sharpen
it like a razor.
Cheers,


My visualization was of something resembling steel claws or pointy steel
teeth to dig into the barnacle pile to gouge them loose....(c;]

It always amazes me how people think of a boat hull as some kind of
really strong, nearly indestructable material you can scratch but can't
break. I think of them as more like a thick eggshell you can nearly
poke your finger through if you poke it in just the right place.
Reality is something in between there, I suspect, much more fragile than
the average passenger would like to know about.....headed out of the
harbor into the Atlantic.

The CORA (Charleston Offshore Racing Association) insists everyone have
a big diaphram manual bilge pump so my buddy Joe asked if I would
install one for him. I showed up with my little battery-powered drill
motor with a hole saw the appropriate size for the fitting to go in a
line of fittings about 6" below the toerail. "How are you going to put
a hole in it with that?", he quipped. I picked my spot, pressed the
center bit of the hole saw where I thought it should go and pulled the
trigger. 30 seconds later, I backed the thin little plug out of the saw
and handed it to him. "It's only this thick.", I mused. "There ain't
much to 'em.", I continued as his mouth hung open. "Hold this in the
hole until I get the nut on the inside, will ya?", as he was staring
through the big hole I'd just punched into his plastic boat. The hull
couldn't have been more than 3/8" thick, maybe 4 layers of mat at the
most. Those Whales can move quite a bit of water...probably more if
you're in a panic watching it get lower and lower in the ocean.


Some time ago there was a long drawn out discussion on rec.boats
started by someone who had visited a boat show and leaned against a
Bayliner. The hull flexed......

Older boats (like mine) built before people discovered just how strong
fiberglass really is are 1 inch thick at the rail and get thicker as
you go down.

Regarding moving water out of a boat. A friend once commented that he
had only been seasick once. They were bring a dragger down from Nova
Scotia and got in some bad weather and the garboard came loose. He
said he was bailing with a bushel basket and puking at the same time.
I said, "kind of hard to do that isn't it?" He replied, "not when
you're as scared as I was!"
Cheers,

Bruce
(bruceinbangkokatgmaildotcom)

On Sun, 28 Dec 2008 12:08:25 -0800 (PST), Two meter troll
wrote:

On Dec 27, 6:53*pm, Brian Whatcott wrote:
My *kid, home for Christmas, had me weld up a barnacle scraper.
A long wood handle with a sharp steel blade. Does this seem like a
good idea to you? * If not, how? and with what?

Thanks for clueing me in.

Brian W

why do you "need" a barnical scraper?

I dont think ive ever heard of one.

Never been to sea? It's "barnacle" by the way.
Cheers,

Bruce
(bruceinbangkokatgmaildotcom)

Wilbur,

My intention wasn't to pick on the man, per se.

But that's exactly what you did when you wrote, "Here we go again!
Another negligent boater who ask for assistance on a topic that lends
credence to my observation that few sailors have any pride these
days."

You owe the OP an apology for your poorly worded or thoughtless attack on
him. He has not neglected his boat, which seems to be what you accuse him of
doing.

Dave M.

On Sun, 28 Dec 2008 21:46:06 +0000, IanM
wrote:

Wilbur Hubbard wrote:
"Brian Whatcott" wrote in message
...
My kid, home for Christmas, had me weld up a barnacle scraper.
A long wood handle with a sharp steel blade. Does this seem like a
good idea to you? If not, how? and with what?

Thanks for clueing me in.

Brian W


Duh! Ever hear of applying bottom paint in a timely manner? There is NEVER
any real need to scrape barnacles provided you re-new your anti-fouling
annually.

So why do many professionals dry dock their vessels only every third
year? Obviously you've never encountered modern antifoulings. What are
you still using Wilma? Rendered mutton fat, quicklime and chilli powder
I suppose.

Nope, you are wrong.

Read the directions and you'll see that nearly all post TBT paints are
"self-cleaning" or some similar description. If you don't sail about a
bit you will get growth. Thus, if your yellow banana boat is tied to
a stump and never moves you WILL need to scrape and paint every year.
Move once in a while and you get three years, or more.

Cheers,

Bruce
(bruceinbangkokatgmaildotcom)

On Dec 28, 9:02 pm, "David L. Martel" wrote:
Wilbur,

My intention wasn't to pick on the man, per se.

But that's exactly what you did when you wrote, "Here we go again!
Another negligent boater who ask for assistance on a topic that lends
credence to my observation that few sailors have any pride these
days."

You owe the OP an apology for your poorly worded or thoughtless attack on
him. He has not neglected his boat, which seems to be what you accuse him of
doing.

Dave M.

I've never seen Hubbard post anything of use to anybody and I doubt he
knows anything about boats. His assertion that only lubbers go more
than a year without hauling is so bizarre and out of touch with
reality, even in the tropics that I doubt he knows anything at all on
the subject.
I keep my boat in an extreme fouling area of Florida and I get 3 years
between hauling although I do scrub the bottom a few times between.
If you use her a lot you minimize fouling too. Several coats of good
hard paint applied well should last AT LEAST two years under extreme
conditions. The prop will need to be cleaned every month.
Using a long handled scraper is very common and the best tool is a
straight bladed garden edger similar to a garden hoe but it has a
straight blade. You can get one at Lowes or Home Depot. It is very
useful for standing in shallow water to reach your keel or for
reaching your prop from the dock.
Where I sail, I often hit bottom due to constantly shifting bars so I
often get patches of my hull with no anti-fouling and this tool has
enough mass that one can easily remove barnacles when this happens.
It has been my experience over several years that anything Hubbard
posts is pure nonsense so you should mostly ignore him except when he
tries to give bad advice.