The Great Spartite Flood and other adventures of the self-reliant sailor

Every couple of weeks from May to October I pull on the mismatched top and bottom of an old wet suit, strap a scuba tank to my back, cinch a weight belt around my waist and jump off the side of my boat. I spend the next 45 minutes or so rubbing every inch of the boat’s bottom and appendages with a Scotchbrite pad (that is well worn so it’s not too abrasive) to remove any slime that might have grown on the purposely thin coat of antifouling paint. Then I use a folded sheet of 1,500-grit wet sandpaper to touch up a few spots that aren’t as slick as I like them. Finally I take some coarse sandpaper to remove that latest outbreak of corrosion on the saildrive unit, a victim of chronic electrolysis. I like doing all of this, even though the water temperature is often around 50 degrees, which means numb feet.

There are plenty of divers around who would gladly do this chore for a reasonable fee. It’s not that I don’t trust them to do it right. On second thought, it is that I don’t trust them. Cleaning the bottom is too important to be left to someone who doesn’t have an emotional attachment to that shapely underbody. (My son has passed that test and is allowed to perform the bottom-cleaning ritual on alternate weeks; he is, of course, thrilled by the opportunity.)

My problem is that when it comes to boats, I’m a compulsive do-it-myselfer. Years ago I embraced the ethic of the self-reliant sailor, and wasn’t able to stop at being able to hand, reef and steer and unplug the head.

I used to derive the same enjoyment painting bottoms as I now find polishing them underwater. That was in a primitive time before there were rules about where the poison we put on our bottoms ended up and Tyvek suits and respirators were unheard of; the paint flew. I may have put my health at risk, but when I was finished I was in no danger of having algae grow on my body or a barnacle attach to my leg. The boat bottom was pretty well covered too.

It seems I had a certain talent for bottom painting. Before I turned the job over to professionals, I had perfected a technique using a cheap airless sprayer that yielded bottoms so smooth they rarely needed the 1,500-grit touchup underwater.

I regret not being as adept at other do-it-myself projects. I have three friends who have built boats, and I’ve never stopped envying their skills. Not as blessed, I belong to the just-do-it-whatever-it-takes school. Which means I get it done, but the results might not be pretty.

This applies even to electronics, a category of boat work that, to put it gently, is not my strong suit. When I joined the military, tests revealed an aptitude for electronics so low that it cast doubt on my ability to operate a light switch.

Needless to say, the army didn’t assign me to a key role in missile defense. But as a yacht owner I cheerfully undertook the installation of sophisticated electronic instruments. I took a lot of satisfaction in getting the hole in the bulkhead in the right size and the right place. After that, it was uncharted waters all the way. Literally, because schematic diagrams were baffling to me. I proceeded with the wiring and put my faith in trial and error. I would try various connective possibilities until the instrument came to life and produced data that seemed more or less reasonable. It was a victory to get to that point without frying something.

Speaking of which, my frustration over having to run the engine to charge batteries frequently during long-distance races got me into a do-it-myself project to beef up the boat’s supply of juice by rigging up a daisy chain of numerous connected batteries. At some point in the project, I confused positive and negative amid a spray of sparks and cloud of smoke. The smoke billowed out of the companionway so impressively that my slip neighbor was moved to grab a fire extinguisher from his boat and report for fire-fighting duty. I was able to calm him before he pulled the trigger by saying something like, “Don’t worry, this happens all the time.”

In spite of such misadventures, there are only few DIM projects I regret taking on. One of them lives in infamy as the Great Spartite Flood.

Spartite is a terrific product that creates a perfect mast wedge system. You mix up a chemical cocktail and pour it into the mast collar. The stuff forms around the mast and hardens to hold it in exactly the position you want and stops leaking around the mast for good measure.

I was happily pouring away when my assistant yelled from below that the modeling clay dam that keeps the syrupy liquid from flowing into the boat was breached. Appalled, we examined the developing disaster—it meant the mast wedge would be compromised and when the liquid hardened it would be fused to whatever it touched as it dripped into the boat—and then in a eureka moment decided that the perfect solution would be to jam a piece of five-eighths inch, three-strand dock line into the space around the mast. We did it and then exchanged high-fives to celebrate a brilliant move: The rope seal not only stanched the flow, it looked really yachty.

We felt good about that until haul-out time, when the yard reported the mast wouldn’t budge. The Spartite had saturated the rope, giving it the consistency of stainless steel and locking the mast in the boat. I’m not to going to reveal the number of billable boatyard hours that were spent removing the rope with chisels, hammers and probably a Sawzall.

Not all my DIM efforts have been so disastrous. I’m pleased to say I’ve successfully installed winches, rope clutches and turning blocks, rebedded hatches, fixed leaks, replumbed a head system, repaired sails, bled diesel fuel lines and made any number of handsome splices.

It’s true that as my boats have become larger and more complex, more boat work is being done by professionals. Let’s say I’m doing my part to support the boat maintenance economy.

But I have no plans to farm out the bottom cleaning, an exercise I regard as emblematic of the ethos of the self-sufficient sailor. Besides, it’s something I can do without setting the boat on fire or gluing the mast in place.