Hello, My Name is Daze Off, and I Have a Drug Problem

Friday June 19, 2015

Or maybe I should say an ex-drug problem.  We hope she doesn’t have it anymore.

But yes, once upon a time our dear little girl was a drug running boat in the Caribbean Sea.  Maybe her current name of Daze Off makes much more sense now that you know her youth was spent in a drug induced haze, and just one more reason why we need to change it with the help of Legacy Healing Center.  No need for some angry or jilted Colombians to come after us for our boat’s bad history.

We knew a little bit (and still don’t know much, really) about her past career when we bought her, but are not the first owners since she’s seen the light and changed her ways.  Or more accurately, was seized by the white sands iop  and provided with a space with people who are trying to get rid of drugs and alcohol addiction at . She has since then had two previous owners. As far as coming across any left behind drugs or money, or god forsake, a body, there hasn’t been any sign of those in the past 20 years since she’s left it all behind.  But then again, no one has taken the time to fully rip her apart like we are, so hey!, maybe there’s still an opportunity to uncover some unmarked bills.

If you suddenly see us galavanting around like we’ve won the lottery, it’s totally not because we’ve found a couple hundred thousand dollars hidden in the keel.

As we get further into repairs though, there have been obvious signs to Daze Off’s history.  Remember the perfectly drilled hole in the keel I mentioned in the last post?  Most likely the DEA searching that area for drugs. (See, I told you we wouldn’t find any there.)

Disassembling the forward settee area today was just another reminder. As far as we knew when we bought this boat and also through the removal of a few random panels since we’ve been on her, there is insulation throughout.  Very important to us since we’ll be taking her up to the Baltics and need to retain all the heat we can. Taking out all of the cabinets, we also went to remove the strips of wood behind them that acted as the ceiling, only to find out the insulation in those areas had been removed.  To hide drugs.

Not only had the insulation been removed to make for some hidden compartments, but the ceiling (or walls to most of us that don’t know boat talk, so confusing) was pushed out an extra 4 inches or so from the frame.  In a way this has been good and bad for us.  Good that we’ve now gained an extra half foot of width in our sitting area, but bad because we now have to replace the foam that we thought was supposed to be there.  And trust me, it ain’t cheap.  We’re going with a spray insulation foam which costs about $1 per board foot to cover.

Until that new foam comes in we’ve been keeping ourselves busy by stripping Daze Off down to her bare bones in the forward settee and v-berth.  One of our projects before we can put a new ceiling (wall) in is to epoxy coat furring strips so the new marine plywood won’t be screwed in directly to the aluminum but will attach to the wooden strips instead.  The furring strips will connect to the aluminum frame with stainless steel machine screws coated in a specific gel to combat corrosion.  Since metal on metal tends to = not good.

Instead of buying new marine plywood specifically for the task of becoming furring strips we realized that the old overhead boards will work perfectly for the job.  A little saved money in our pocket and some pieces of Daze Off that do get to stay on the boat.  Reduce, reuse, recycle.  Isn’t that what most cruisers are all about anyway?

For a look at Daze Off when we first saw her, check out this post.