Getting to a Blank Canvas

Having gotten Northern down to her home in Olympia, we set about with the fun part: demolition.  The boat was still rigged with two fish holds: the main hold, under the midships, and a large steel hold aft.  We're going to have to wait to remove the aft hold until we can rebuild the deck it's taking up, but we are planning to live in what used to be the main hold, so out it came.

Eli took all of the painted plywood shell and insulation out himself because he is a beast.

Part of the plywood has been torn out, exposing the lovely "Pink Panther" insulation

The frame pieces also came out.  The old planks forming what we landlubbers would call the wall are, paradoxically, known as ceiling planks.  That large brace piece is called a knee and is carved from a single piece of branched lumber.

All the insulation is out now; those aluminum joists are unfortunately cemented into the floor (ahem. deck.) so we had to to saw them off at the base.

This is looking forward.  That bulkhead at the front is covered in steel, under which is a double sheet of plywood, four inches of insulation and a giant 1/4" steel tank.  We need there to be stairs there instead.

Looking up at what is not the ceiling but is instead 'the overhead', you're seeing the bottom of the deck planks and the deck beams.

It took many many many many many trips up the ladder, hoisting a garbage bucket on a rope, and dock carts to get all this debris off the boat.

By the way, have I showed you this ladder before?

It is a broken neck waiting to happen.

The forward bulkhead again, with all the steel plating removed.  To the left you can see they had removed a couple ceiling planks (remember, we're talking about the wall) to assess the inside of the hull.  Those suckers are over two inches of old growth fir.

On another day, Eli and I and Eli's buddy Ryker (one of the Five Horsemen of the Apocalypse) tackled the forward bulkhead.  Actually this is not entirely true.  Eli and Ryker drained the giant tank behind the bulkhead and said, "Here, Kate, you go destroy that wall!"  Two hours later I had removed approximately twelve square inches and was really irritated.  The guys gamely charged in and I think genuinely expected to have it done in 20 minutes.

Getting this bulkhead down took all three of us the better part of six hours, skillsaws, power drills, sledgehammers, crow bars and a lot (A LOT) of swearing.

But I felt better about myself.

Also it was very dusty.  Here Eli is jamming a crowbar behind the panel to start peeling it off.  After we peeled off the first layer we had to remove the 817, 435 screws they had placed into every. single. panel. to hold them on.  And then peel off that one.  Repeat, ad nauseum.

We got those two panels in the middle done!

Once they got a corner up, it was a two man effort to pry the piece forward enough to wedge another breaker bar in to pry the piece forward to wedge another breaker bar in to pry the piece forward....

One of the last to go.

We had to make ourselves steps to get out on the curve of the ceiling to remove the corners.  Ryker is taking off the starboard corner and I'm fighting with one of the inner plywood layers.

The final result.  We swear it is progress.  Also, I would have sworn I was not in this picture but thanks a lot Eli.

Two of our six industrial garbage bags of insulation and scraps, along with the five foot pile of large chunks and an entire gallon bucket (not pictured) of screws.  We are being ridiculous cheap savvy and saving all the usable hardware possible.  We paid for the stupid screws.

Right now, all of that junk is out of the hold and it's a big blank slate.  We've moved since doing this demo, and all of that rigamarole stalled out progress for about a month but we're back to it.  More to come!