The Vessel

Tenacious is a 36' Union cutter. My Dad purchased her 15 years ago after about 4 years of searching. She has since been refitted with an aluminum mast and a Perkins diesel. She is old and a little salty but strong, safe and beautiful.
History of the Union 36

2/25/2012
I cant believe we've been working on this boat for almost two months!
The tank is done! I know that there will be no shortage of experts and those with deeper pockets than I who will not hesitate to point out the faults in the path I chose to fix the tank but I work with what I have. I am reasonably sure that what I've done will hold together just fine but only time will tell. If I do have a problem I will be able to hook up 28 gallons of extra tanks I mounted in the stern hold in short order to get us to the next port.
I have no glassing experience so I did what I hope was overkill to make up for my less than artful glass work. The bottom baffles and sides of the old tank are still there, just heavily glassed over. The way they recomend you test for leaks is to pressure test your tank at 3-5psi. Well for me to do this I would have needed the top already glassed on. Thats a pretty crappy time to find out you still have a leak! So I filled it with water and let it sit overnight. And I still had a leak, two in fact. Apparently the blood must have rushed into my head and caused me to misslay some mat when I was hanging upside down to reach a back corner. But it all got fixed and I got to glass on the top. I covered the plywood with west system epoxy to seal it and tabbed it in with mat. I also plumbed in an extra inlet so that I can add fuel from my 28 gal day tanks with the flip of a valve and added a fuel gauge to take out the guess work as to when I should flip it. There was no room in the stern of the tank to mount the gauge sender so I'll still have about 7 gallons in the tank when it reads empty but it'll be a good safety.
I spent more than I thought I would, about $700 total. And I took a hell of a lot longer than I thought it would. If I had known I probably would have just stuck to day tanks but I'm glad its done. We have about 60 gallons in the bilge now and with the 28 gallons in the hold we wont be strapping a dozen jerry cans to the deck.

If I had know that I was going to glass the tank at this point I would have spent more time planning my cuts instead of just hacking away!

It all looks a little hillbilly but I'm proud of it anyway!

1/20/2012
It seems that every day my to do list gets longer instead of smaller, I long for the day when I check off something from the list and don’t write down two more. Anyway, here is a run down of what has gone on over the last two weeks.

One of the "before" pictures. We'll be sure to post them all once we're done. 



• Tore up the floor, table and seats to cut open water tank and glass the bottom, sealing out the leaks.
• Sanitized water tank and sealed off the portion in the bow. Lost about 15 gallons but it is impossible to get at to seal the pinholes in the bottom of the tank, and I still have over 100 gallons so we should be good.
• While we had everything tore out of the cabin we scrubbed the walls and bilge.
• Put it all back together, and it all still fit, no left over parts!
• Installed new water pump and all new lines.
• Installed new galley taps, shower head and tap.
• Resealed shower pan
• Pulled out galley stove, tore it into pieces, cleaned them all before putting it back together and reinstalling
• Installed new head pump and base plumbing. I cant believe they had the base here at Zaragosas Marine. I was wondering how I would tell Susan we would have to resort to a five gallon bucket in the head
• Lined the ice box with 2” Styrofoam.
• Installed hidden led rope lights in the main cabin.
• Painted inside the cabinets
• Cheated and hired someone to clean the bottom and install new zincs
• Spent a day getting the outboard to run. Just about threw out my shoulder yanking on that dam pull cord
• Cleaning, cleaning and more cleaning

This is some of the bigger stuff that I hope to move to the completed list over this next week.

• Open up diesel tank to clean it out and seal the leaks
• Run new fuel lines and install second water separator
• Change oil
• Clean injectors
• Need a motor mount nut
• Two more stainless clamps on my mickey moused packing hose
• Change packing
• Change salt water impeller
• Flush fresh water cooling system
• Find and fix problem with windlass
• Clean and inspect anchor chain and add 200’ of line
• Repair main sail
• Sew shade cover
• Tape on spreader boots
• Replace deck light
• Install running lights on bow
• Install manual whale bilge pump
• Install second bilge pump
• Install new vhf

That is just the stuff I want done before we sail out at the end of the month. Not on there is stuff like a new paint job, top and bottom, clean and oil all the teak, and sew new cushions dodger and sail covers. Just making the list wears me out. I think its time for a siesta.