How I did some repairs to my 2006 Drammer Classic yacht myself

All in all, I spent about 4 hours happily fiddling with my boat.

BHPian Jeroen recently shared this with other enthusiasts:

The trip to the Lekkodagen was very successful except for two small setbacks. I broke the little stepladder in the cockpit and I noticed I had water inside a few places where I had not noticed any water/leaks before. Both a bummer.

The little stepladder is very handy. The aft cockpit is quite deep and it is well over half a meter to step up onto the sideboards. I broke it whilst getting Sirion ready to go, early Saturday morning when it was still dark.

The stepladder has these two brackets on it. They fit in counter brackets on the cockpit circumference. It's a very simple system, very reliable. But in the dark I moved the stepladder and did not attach it properly. Only one of the brackets was properly set. So when I stepped onto it, the whole ladder twisted and one of the brackets was ripped out.

Which was a bit of a pain, as I meant I could not use the ladder at all, during my two-day trip.

Also, when I was rummaging around some of the lockers and inspecting the bilges I noticed some water here and there. The worst one was in the port locker that keeps all my tools. That one drains into the port hull locker where I keep spare parts and all kinds of boaty things. Everything was soaking wet. Notice the throttle handle? Turned out the water came in there, due to a poor gasket.

So when I got back from my trip on Sunday late afternoon, I threw the stepladder and all of the wet tools in the back of my Jeep to fix at home.

I used wood glue to fix the step ladder.

And for good measure, I put an additional bracket on the side where the wood had been broken off.

When I got home I emptied out all the tools from their respective boxes, tool bags and so on. Dried them off with a towel and let them air a bit.

The next morning I had a good look at all my tools. I decided that I was going to replace all the wooden and carbon boxes and the canvas tool bags with plastic boxes. Some of the tools had a bit of rust, so I used some steel wool and WD40 to clean them.

I also went through all the tools and various other bits too. Some of the tools belonged to Ad, the previous owner. I had kept them, but really they were not very useful. So I sorted everything out.

All the tools I will keep

All the stuff I threw out

I went to my local DIY store and bought a bunch of nice plastic boxes with lids.

Pilled everything into the Jeep yestermorning:

When I got to Sirion I decided to do another thorough inspection of all bilges and lockers once again. So I started in the forward cabin.

Had to take all the bedding and mattresses out. But good news. When I bought Sirion there was a small puddle in the bilge of the bow thruster. It had dried up completely!

Further up front, we have our safe. Never used it, but its there, more importantly all dry too.

I also opened up the floorboards in the main cabin. You will have seen me pondering about the odd bit of water in the bilge of the main cabinet near the water boiler. So far it has remained dry. To date, I am not sure where that water came from.

I did have some more water, about one litre in the cabin bilge near the steering stand. Initially, I had one of the hoses of the toilet leaking, which I replaced (see earlier on in this thread). But I could not find out where this water is coming from. It appears to be clean water. So I put paper towels at various positions. If any leaks happen the wet paper towel might give me a better idea of where it's coming from.

Time to get going on fixing the leaky throttle handle in the rear cockpit!. Break out the tools!

Pretty simple. I just undid the four bolts holding the throttle to the side of the cockpit, cleaned it all and put sealant all around it.

Next, I pulled all the stuff from the various lockers and rearranged everything in my new boxes.

One large flat box will hold all our spare life jackets. Two of them hang permanently in the main cabin for daily use. But these are only used when we have more people on the boat.

Re-arranged all the spare parts. I have one box with engine parts and one box with various other bits and spares.

I also bought a couple of these simple water absorber thingies. Let's see how quickly they become saturated.

I also brushed and hosed down Sirion on the outside. Scrubbed her hull with a vinegar/water mixture. I have found that works well to remove all the spots she picks up on her hull.

All in all, I spend about 4 hours happily fiddling with my boat. Of course, this being a marina, I also spent some of those 4 hours chatting to various folks who came to say hello.

One of our neighbours has recently sold their house and moved permanently into a beautiful motor yacht. He is moored in our marina for the next few months, so I usually pop over to chat with him as well.

I might take Sirion out next week when my brother-in-law is visiting. If not end of the month there will be a 3-day trip to take Sirion back to her winter marina.

Jeroen

Read BHPian comments for more insights and information.