7 years without any attention or maintenance

As introduction, I'm new to this forum, although I use to post fairly regular on PM, giving this site a try as I see so many old friends aboard.

Made an offer on an '81 CHB 34' aft cabin last week, survey will be done this coming week.* My question to all is this:* What can one expect the bottom of this boat to look like after 7 years sittin docked in a Monterey, CA*marina.* Boatyard indicates 2003 as last time it was out of the water, and I seriously doubt they had any type of diver service either.* Can one assume without regular*zinc replacement (and I don't know for fact the zincs haven't been replaced, just assuming worse case scenario) the prop is all eaten up from electrolysis?

2nd:* We've been on more of these CHBs than I care to count, and most of them in our price range had spongey decks, missing plugs, explosed fastners with resulting leaks inside.* Oddly enough, this boat showed almost no signs of any interior leaks, no missing plugs, no exposed fastners, not one, and I really looked.* Just lucky?

What can one expect the bottom of this boat to look like after 7 years sittin docked in a Monterey, CA marina.

If you are lucky the boat is old enough to have the better resin of bygone days and NOT have the pox.

Electrolisis is ez but not cheap to cure shaft, perhaps stuffing boxes , props and rudder will have her right wits a couple of boat bucks.

You can be sure it will be an adventure!

Rocky,Welcome. No such thing as luck. Reasons for everything.
To be sure you won't be able to SEE the bottom. And if you can I will want to know what antifouling system has been used.
I once told a surveyor that I really like CHBs. Especially the 34s. I was promptly told " Eric you don't want a CHB". I didn't press the issue but now I think it had something to do w the bulsa core decks and perhaps cabins too. I'd still love to have a CHB 34 but now I've got a ton of money dropped into another boat. I'm sure the CHBs weak links are very well known in the industry and any good surveyor should be tell you what you need to know * .. . for the usual fee of course. See if you can find some free specific CHB info yourself, look again and if it still looks good hire someone to really look good. Of course you can't afford to survey every boat you see. Boat buying can be a lark or like a bank not willing to risk a penny. And like chess * * * *.. it's your move.
There are several CHB owners and probably previous owners that will eventually weigh in here and give you opinions, advice, facts and references. We're actually good at all 4 here on Trawler Forum.
I just saw FFs post. What he means by "pox" is blisters if your new to boating. And if you are or aren't look in the archives on TF * *.. we've covered just about everything in our past as the fact that we have members w over 1000 posts should indicate that we have.


Eric Henning


-- Edited by nomadwilly on Saturday 12th of June 2010 01:29:18 PM

Thank you both or the response and the welcome. Wish I could have heard from CHB folks, maybe it was a dumb question. Thanks again.

Rocky, I'm a CHB bloke, and have one of 1975 vintage. You actually might find it not too bad underneath. Sure, it will be all barnacled up, especially the running gear - ie prop shaft, prop, rudder and associated mounts and brackets. However, that can be ground off easily and even the zincs may not be totally exhausted. Why do I say that? Because hopefully, if it has been sitting there that long, it probably has not been connected continuously to shore power, (at least not with an el cheapo charger), and all electrics except perhaps the automatic bilge pump, turned off and non-operational. If so, (and one hopes so), then stray current may not have done too much to it, especially if not too close to badly grounded boats on shore power. As to the question of osmosis (pox or blisters), FF may well be right. Mine has some, but they have not changed in 10 yrs, so we leave them alone. Hopefully, once cleaned down, the hull may not be too bad either. That being so, if the condition of it is otherwise as good as you indicate, then you may well have stumbled on a wee gem of a buy there. Get a survey and good luck.

Peter,
Well.....unfortunately this CHB has been a liveaboard for these sellers and obviously its been plugged into shorepower all this time, and they have the typical electrical devices most liveaboards would have.* They purchased it in 2003 and used alot the first year.* Being former sailboaters, found the trawler style too slow and according to the logbook stopped taking it out at the end of 2003, and got into motorcycles.* (BTW fuels tanks were replaced in 2003).

Regarding blisters.* I asked the seller if when he had it out of the water in 2003 if there were any blisters, and he said no there weren't any.* My question to you and others is this; can a boat develop blisters at any time?* If you're blister free in 2003, can blisters develop at any time.* I guess my question is, at some point in a vessel's life, if its been blister free for years and years, can you assume it will stay that way.* Also, do blisters occur more often in salt water than fresh water?

Rocky

There is a CHB owners website at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CHB/* You'll find lots of information there.* We recently purchased a '79 CHB 34 after looking at a lot that were as you describe.*
There are good ones out there but they are hard to find.

Doug Beech
CHB 34 currently "Santa Fe"
Victoria BC

Thanks Doug. Am familiar with the CHB yahoo group, although I seem to struggle getting around in it, for some reason. We are hoping this CHB turns out to be a lucky find for us, as it somewhat found us (long story). It has literally served as a dock queen for these sellers, as they are so busy riding bikes; we were shocked at the condition of the decks, as I said originally, no missing plugs, no exposed fasteners, no spongeyness and very little water damage inside. Electronics are all 2003 models, but I've certainly see older in our looking around. Have a great surveyor, so we'll see.

Rocky, the hull should still essentially be blister free. If they were right about it when out in 2003. But don't worry if they missed a few small ones - that's nearly as good as none, because if small, they are of no consequence, and will not enlarge now after 20 yrs in the water. Reason being this is a phenomenon caused when there has been unevenness in the resin penetration/dispersal within the matrix of the fibreglass causing pockets of high concentration of osmotically active chemicals which then draw water in to dilute it. These pockets of high solute concentration will tend to show fairly early in the hull's life, not later. I think again, being an osmotic effect, it would tend to be worse in fresh water in this case, whereas hull growth is worse in salt water. If this proves the case, and if they have had good current leak protection, the fact they have lived aboard may not be a bad thing, as it means it will have been kept warm and well aired, and of course leaks acted upon, even if they were not that fussy in keeping the decks and paintwork up to scratch. A lot of that is purely cosmetic as long as water was not getting in behind. With a bit of luck they even turned the engine over even if not actually run, once in a while.
And for those who, noting the time, wonder what the heck I'm doing answering posts at this ungodly hour - ie 0420am in Australia, it's because I got up to watch the F1 Grand Prix, then decided, what the hell, I may as well stay up and watch the Aussie/Germany World Cup match.

Peter,
Thank you for the explanation on blistering, will hope for the best. One more thing. There is a pretty heavy dripping in the stuffing box, infact, not quite a stream of water, but definitely more than an occasional drip every 10-15 seconds. Seller tried to indicate this was normal. My research shows that the ocasional drip every 10-15 seconds is normal, but this pretty heavy dripping I'm thinking IS NOT. Is this a big ticket item to repair? Is it just an adjustment?

You are correct. It can be as minor as tightning the stuffing box nut, to requiring repacking, to having a pitted shaft that is eating up the stuffing and needs replacing. You just have to try each in order, or pull the shaft.

Last summer ('09) we purchased an older boat (not a CHB) that also had not been used since 2003. My understanding was that the boat (a 32' Ennos Sapphire) had spent some of its solitary confinement on the hard but much of its time was spent at a dock where the engine was occasionally fired up. The previous owner had purchased an RV and as he said, you just can't do justice to both.The mechanical inspection showed that we had some relatively minor issues such as a worn turbo, bad glow plug and shot alternator plus a water pump leak (just the seal) but that was about it for the "marine" side of things.
Where we found our challenges was with the domestic systems. The hot water heater (12 gallon Raritan with 110V & engine heat) was badly corroded, the Norcold Fridge warmed everything up, and the kerosene stove was a disaster. And the vent for the holding tank was plugged - yup, we found that one the hard way.


The best advice of course is to have good out of water and mechanical surveys done.

Keith, first thanks for you comments. Second, can a surveyor tell whether the shaft is pitted? Or does it have to be removed first.

Conrad: Sounds like you did okay with your dock queen. Seller indicated hot water heater is new. Seller admits salon heater no longer works and its been installed in the cabinet under the helm seat. In complete agreement on out of the water survey. Conrad....so how'd the hull look after sittin in the water so long?

Yes, I think we did very well with our purchase. The seller, although he hadn't used her for a number of years was very*conscientious and had hauled and bottom painted her before we set eyes on her so she looked pretty good. The overall shape of her hull and decks was also very good for her age (1981) I thought.

One point I should make that tripped us up a bit was that we assumed that the hull survey would cover the domestic systems; it did not, other than to state that they "looked *okay". Use the sea trial to ensure everything domestic (and boat systems of course) works.

Wish this seller had been so conscientous regarding regular bottomjobs. Sellers seem quite proud of their domestics, as said hot water heater is new, frig is not original, they put in a new one a few years back, Magic Chef looks original though.

Thanks everyone for chiming in, I so appreciate your comments and advice.

Rocky wrote:

...can a surveyor tell whether the shaft is pitted? Or does it have to be removed first.

Click to expand...

The pitting/crevice corrosion will occur inside the shaft log.* So there is probably no way to get visibility for that without either pulling the shaft or removing the shaft log extension in the engine room and the packing gland.

Whether or not a surveyor checks out the boat's systems will depend on the surveyor.* For our initial pre-purchase survey we hired two surveyors, one for the "boat" and one for the engines and generator.* Some surveyors can, or say they can, do both but it's been my experience so far that they tend to specialize.

The order we did all this in was to check out the* boat ourselves first thing in the morning.* Outside of chartering, my wife and I had virtually no experience with this type of boat, so I compiled a check-list of everything I could think of to check--- run every system, turn on every light and appliance, run the stove and oven, operate the anchor windlass, etc.* In addition to my wife and I going throough our check list,* we had paid to have an extremely experienced friend who's been in the marine business for well over 30 years to accompany us to California to check out the boat.* He was very familiar with this type of boat but he didn't care whether we bought it or not so he was totally objective.* Where I couldn't tell if an electrical panel or component might be iffy unless it was actually on fire, our friend could look at the same things and say whether they were good, bad, or indifferent.

After going over the whole boat against our checklist and running all the systems ourselves except the main engines we did the sea trial in San Francisico Bay accompanied by the seller's broker.* When we got to the yard where the boat would be hauled the engine surveyor arrived and spent some two hours going over and running the engines and generator, taking oil samples, etc.

Then the hull surveyor showed up.* He did half his survey with the boat in the water, and he, too, checked, tested, and ran every system on the boat, from the fresh water system to nav lights to steering.* Even operated the toilets.* He opened every compartment, no matter how small or insignificant, and operated every seacock (there are twelve of them on our boat).* Then the boat was hauled and he did his out-of-water inspection of the hull and running gear.* His portion of the survey took the rest of the day and into the early evening.

So.... you can hire a surveyor who will give the boat a sort of "once-over" and let you know a lot of generalities or you can hire one who will go over the boat with a fine-tooth comb.* For an insurance survey, I want the former.* For a pre-purchase survey, I'd want the latter.



*


-- Edited by Marin on Sunday 13th of June 2010 08:26:20 PM

Marin,
Appreciate you sharing your boat buying experience. If you purchased this boat in the SF Bay area, may I inquire as to who your surveyor was? We will be using Steve Wedlock from Alameda, who comes highly recommended to us. We came close to purchasing a boat in 2008 in So Cal and had an incredibly good surveyor who performed much as you described, checking literally every compartment. We didn't end up purchasing that vessel, but what we learned that day from our surveyor was worth every penny we paid. And, as luck would have it, the buyers that came along after us, bought our survey for 50% of what we'd paid for it, so it ended well for us. Just wasn't our boat. Thanks again for your comments.

It was twelve years ago so I have no idea who the engine and hull surveyors were. We have the original hull survey report up on the boat and I assume it has the surveyor's name on it but we won't be up there until next weekend. I'll try to check the name then if there is one.

No problem, was really just curious. Our survey on this boat will happen this Wednesday, so will see what happens. Thanks again.

Heavy dripping is likely an indication that it has already been adjusted as fully as it can, so you need to add a ring of stuffing, or remove what is there and add 3 rings. None of which is a big job.

Hi Rocky - back on deck now - slept in after watching the soccer to 0600 - we lost - heavily. Anyway, as to your stuffing box drip. See if it can be tweaked up to at least a slow 1 drip every 30 secs type rate, if not a re-pack is always worthwhile first. Why do I say that? Mine is older than yours, yet 2 yrs ago when an insurance survey indicated a new stuffing box sleeve was needed the engineer muttered about the pitted shaft, so we went with new shaft as well - and muffler, while he was down there, as that was corroded, being metal, (have synthetic one now), and honestly, when I later inspected the old shaft, the pitting was mininal. As well, it was more to do with where the shaft bonding brush arm rubbed than where it went through the packing material. I realised I spent a lot of money for nothing really, other than a certain peace of mind maybe, but it was expensive peace of mind. When doing up old boats, the old adage is especially appropriate...."if it ain't broke don't fix it."
Oh yes, one other thing.* If you do repack - or go for new shaft and then re-pack, get that teflon impregnated new stuff, whatever it's called put in.* It's great - made mine almost dripless now.


-- Edited by Peter B on Sunday 13th of June 2010 10:30:11 PM

Keith you may be right on the money with this as I remember the seller making the statement he'd made numerous adjustments and ended up with this steady dripping and simply finished off with "they're suppose to drip like this."

I agree Peter, if it aint broke, don't fix it. Obviously something is going to have to be done, repacking at the very least. Big ticket item like a new shaft might prove a deal breaker for us. What does a yard charged for repacking, or is this something most do themselves?

It's not rocket science to repack the gland yourself, although I've never done it so I'm repeating what I've heard many people say. It can even be done with the boat in the water although I don't think I'd have the courage to try this myself.

Our packing glands are packed with flax, which is what they were packed with when we got the boat. Our yard prefers this to some of the newer materials. Let me put that another way--- they feel that flax does just as good a job as the newer materials. Our shafts have been repacked only once in the twelve years we've owned the boat, and that was prompted by having one shaft out to be trued and one shaft replaced rather than a problem with shaft logs dripping. But the glands run dead cold and almost never drip while running and never drip while stationary. And that's with flax.

But the newer packing materials like Gore are very good, so if they're available and the cost is not an issue you can't go wrong by using them.

The main cost of having a yard re-pack the gland is labor. It's an easy job but using the reliable "double the estimate' rule, figure two hours for the job if the person doing the work doesn't have to travel a long time to get to the boat. I don't know what hourly labor rates are like in your area--- around here they're in the $80-$100 range.

You will then need to trial-and-error the final adjustment. Run the boat a bit, stop, check the shaft log temperature, back off the adjustment nuts if it's running too hot or tighten them up if it's dripping too much, run the boat some more, check the temperature, adjust the nuts, etc. This you can do yourself if you have the right tools. There's no need to drag a mechanic around with you for a few cruises.

-- Edited by Marin on Sunday 13th of June 2010 11:57:54 PM

Marin, thank you and from what you've said it doesn't appear to be a big deal at all, nor hugely expensive. This was really the only "in my face" issue I noticed on this boat. Of course, thats not to say the surveyor won't find something, but it certainly eases my mind on that steady stream of dripping.

Repacking in the water is no big deal.

The preperation is the hard part as you must know the size of the packing to purchase it in advance.

The modern packing costs a bit more , but is worth it.

Flax and tefflon can get embedded chunks of shaft material , which will score the shaft.

When working properly flax must drip underway , and unfortuniatly it will then drip when stopped , unless you have a remote grease fitting , usually a small cup and long hose, and remember to actually use it after every run.

Or have a great bilge pump/alarm setup.

FF wrote:When working properly flax must drip underway , and unfortuniatly it will then drip when stopped

Click to expand...

Not true.* Our boat's shaft logs have never dripped when the shafts are not turning, and the drip underway is minimal, perhaps one drip every three or four minutes if that.* Yet the shaft logs run dead cold and when we have had the (stainless) shafts pulled for truing or replacing, they were spotless where they ran through the cutless bearings--- no scoring, no pitting, nothing.* This is with flax packing.

*

Marin wrote:

It's not rocket science to repack the gland yourself, although I've never done it so I'm repeating what I've heard many people say. It can even be done with the boat in the water although I don't think I'd have the courage to try this myself.

Click to expand...

I have done it with the boat in the water, its not bad at all.*

*

troy994719 wrote:


Marin wrote:

It's not rocket science to repack the gland yourself, although I've never done it so I'm repeating what I've heard many people say. It can even be done with the boat in the water although I don't think I'd have the courage to try this myself.

Click to expand...

I have done it with the boat in the water, its not bad at all.*

*



You just can't panic when you see the water start to come in.* Have the rings cut to size and get after it.* You will be surprised*as to how little water does come in.

It's no biggie, just don't panic. If you're really paranoid, pack some modeling clay around the outside where the shaft enters the boat.

If survey goes well and no big deal breakers are revealed, our plan was ...since it was at the boat yard already hauled out for inspection purposes, we'd just have the yard put a bottom job on it, since we know its obviously going to need it and why wait and pay another haul out fee. Wouldn't it be easy then to just do the repacking at that point?