This past winter seemed like the winter that would never end. Snow started to fall in November and continued on through into March, we even had 7 days of snow fall in April. In fact, this is the first year in a very long time that we had snow on the ground for all of February. Not only was it snowy it was cold, much colder than normal.
With the thaw-freeze cycle that began mid-March and continued through to mid-April the cover didn’t fare as well as I had hoped, it did its job, but it would have been nice to get more than one season out of it.
With the cold weather pushing into mid-April combined with the rain it was difficult to remove the cover. By the time it got warm, the rain stopped, and the ice on the cover melted it was late April giving me just 2 weeks to get the hull cleaned. Of course, the weekends for those 2 weeks I was off camping with the Venturer and Rover Scouts.
As you can see in the images above, I didn’t get the hull cleaned at the end of last season which means I had to do a lot of scrubbing. The first photo was taken before I started and the hull was dry. It’s difficult to see how dirty the hull was, when it got wet it became very apparent it was going to take a lot of scrubbing.
The second photo was taken after I went through one handled scrub pad. You can still see some of the dried lake grunge on the blue water line.
The third photo was taken after 2 more scrub pads were worn out, and a final cleaning with Power One cleaner which removed the stuff the scrub pad and Dawn couldn’t remove. Overall, I am quite pleased with the end results given the limited amount of time I had before launch day.
Toilet Removal
One of the items I placed on my to do list was the removal of the toilet. There are a number of reasons I wanted to remove the toilet. First of all, for a boat of this size there is no need for a toilet with a holding tank. Second having a holding tank introduces an extra cost of having it pumped out. The thought of something happening to the holding tank and having black water enter the bilge grosses me out. The third reason is I have no idea when (if ever) the toilet was last used. It is very likely that the rubber seals are dried out and cracked meaning it’s likely going to leak if used. Lastly, I think the toilet could dump directly into the lake, which other than being gross again violates a few environmental laws. Even if I am mistaken on the last part the cost of pumping out the holding tank is just too much so out it goes. I will replace it with a cassette toilet which I can easily empty in a land toilet.
With the toilet gone I definitely have some cleaning to do. It looks like that area hasn’t been cleaned in quite a while. I also have to clean up and secure the lake water intake hose, and the black water drain hose. While the lake water valve is closed, I want to be doubly safe so I will plug it with a bung and clamp it. I will also bung and clamp the drain hose just in case, more for any potential smell, although the holding tank is very clean which is why I think the toilet was never used.
