It has been just over a year since we began the Gyrfalcon Restoration. There were many times when we thought we would never get to the point of actually living on board. We recently put together a talk for the Classic Yacht Association (PNW fleet) annual meeting. While preparing the talk, we were both amazed at how much had been accomplished in the last year. Many thanks go to Lake Union Boat Repair and OnShore Painting for their incredible artistry. Here are some of the photographs from our talk.

As a way to think about the project, here is a graph:

When we began the project, we had more Sense than Money. As you can see from the graph, the two are now about equal – and we never had a lick of Sense.

The State of the Triton

Wen we bought the Triton (before she became the Gyrfalcon) she was in pretty sad shape. There were vinyl headliners in all the staterooms

One of our first tasks was to remove all the headliners to see what was hiding above them. The answer was mold, mildew and lots of flaking paint.

One of the first big projects was to disinfect and remove the old paint. Jorge started that project in October in the bow of the boat, and has just about reached the stern. There were a number of structures on the boat that didn’t speak to us, so we began the Destruction Phase.

Destruction

Nancy says her favorite part of any project is the destruction. She was in seventh heaven over this project. Here are a few highlights:

The bed in the master state room needed a lot of work. After the destruction, we had a new bed frame built (to fit our mattress) with side tables, storage, cubbies and a bookshelf at the head of the bed.

DECK WORK

The main reason we had so much mildew belowdecks was because the deck leaked. One of the major projects during the year was deck repair. First there was a clean line routed between each individual plank. After the caulking was checked and repaired, Sikaflex adhesive was applied between each plank. After the Sikaflex was allowed to cure, the deck was planed, sanded and primer applied. One of the last projects will be the top coat on the decks.

Sikaflex only comes in small tubes for use in caulking guns:

We used quite lot more than a single tube. As a matter of fact, we seriously considered buying stock in the Sikaflex Corporation because of the amounts we purchased.

ELECTRICAL

As part of the change from 32 to 24 volt dc, we replaced all the old house batteries:

The  batteries (both old and new) went in or out of the engine room through a hatch in the floor of the galley.

Midway through the project, we decided to replace all the wiring in the boat. It had spent over 70 years in a salt environment and a lot of it was sketchy. It was an expensive decision, but one that will make us sleep a whole lot better over the years.

Here is some of the original wiring

We think we made the right choice to pull all the old wiring out. We bought a little wire for replacement

Enough for now. In the next post, we’ll cover some more systems that have been updated/repaired/replaced. It’s been a long trip.