The Battle of the Bilge is now an extended campaign
Or maybe a very short one 🏳️🏳️🏳️
Today I began the Battle of the Bilge. In case you missed it: we’re trying to sell E’s 30’ sailboat and to increase its charm I’m trying to clean its stinking bilge. I’m still debating whether this will be an extended campaign or if I am going to shortly wave the white flag.
It was raining this morning as I pulled into the boatyard. I had my supplies: empty five gallon buckets, rubber gloves, work clothes ready to get grubby, and a cup of liquid courage: fresh 7-Eleven coffee.
The loose plan was to pump the water out of the bilge (into the five gallon buckets), wipe as much oil and grime out as possible using oil-only absorbent cloths, then use Dawn and some elbow grease and a little water, maybe rinse and repeat, until clean.
The problems started when I couldn’t open a five gallon bucket.
The buckets I used were empty hydraulic fluid buckets and they weren’t ever made to be opened because they had a pour spout. I fought one until I got angry and winded, then sat down and thought about how foolish it felt to not be able to open a bucket, then made my way to the hardware store to buy a bucket. Because I wasn’t being set back by a bucket.
One of the perks of being married to a farmer-engineer is that I’ve come to realize that with most dirty, scrappy projects, the question isn’t whether or not you’ll need to go to a supply store — it’s how many times.
I got myself a bucket. And when I got back to the boat I decided, just for kicks, to try the bucket I brought one more time. Voila. What do you know.
This accomplished, I reached for the manual bilge pump — and discovered that it was not going to do me a lot of good today. Its hose had cracked. So I set back out for West Marine.
I really can’t fathom why but I bought the smaller of the two manual bilge pumps available. Maybe it’s because the big one looked too big? But when I once again got back to the shipyard, climbed up the ladder, descended into the cabin, cut the zip tie and assembled the bilge pump, its reach was comically short. If the end of the hose was in the bucket, the end of the pump just barely made it to the floor of the cabin, let alone the bottom of the bilge 18 inches below that.
Back to the raft.
After leveling up to a 36” bilge pump, it was time for lunch. I had packed a picnic, but ventured inside the river house for use of the microwave. I had a leftover burger, watermelon, and potato chips.
Thus fortified, I returned to the boat and pumped two gallons of the nastiest water out of the bilge.
Under the bilge water, I found two of the nastiest oil-only rags.
I started attempting to wipe down the walls of the bilge with more oil-only rags, but pretty immediately jumped to the conclusion that this was a pointless endeavor. I think I knew this after my assessment trip last week, but thought that maybe if I just applied myself and a bit of time, I could work something out. Part of me, now safely at home, showered, and fed, still wants to believe this.
The bilge is not just one thing. The bilge is the nooks and crannies that remain of the bilge after you put a prop shaft, water and fuel lines, a diesel engine, and a mast through it, plus several dividing compartments. Did I mention the diesel engine sitting on top of the whole thing? Which has a crumbling (likely asbestos, let’s not talk about it, I wore a face mask while I took it off) engine cover adding awful gunk to it all?
Deep breath.
I started reading a project management book this week as part of my let’s-get-hired scheme. It has already mentioned the holy program management trinity: scope, budget, and schedule. You can’t expand one without expanding another. You can’t cut one without cutting another. Pick your poison.
The current scope of the project is to have a clean bilge that pumps non-oily water so that we have a better chance of selling the boat. With the current budget and tools, the schedule is looking awfully long. Could I figure out a way to get into all the nooks and crannies? To scrape up all the sludge? Maybe. I’m going to need a long sturdy brush and lots and lots of five gallon buckets.
The ideal picture that came to my mind for how to do this was the set-up they have at the dentist, where the tech holds a water-sprayer in one hand and the suction tube in the other, rinsing off your teeth and sucking the water up in one go. The version I’m trying to do at the moment more closely resembles the age when they gave you a Dixie cup and made you rinse and spit, only if instead of the sink you had to spit back into the Dixie cup and carefully lower it down ten feet from the deck of a sailboat to the ground and cart it home with you. Oh and what you are trying to clean up with this thimbleful of water is 10+ years of brackish sludge.
Maybe it wasn’t the best metaphor.
As I see it, there are two options. Either I slowly but surely clean out the bilge with a toothbrush and some hope, essentially, or we list the boat for sale at a discount and make the bilge somebody else’s problem. And I haven’t quite decided.
I stuffed oil-only rags at the bottom-most part of each bilge compartment to soak up oil in the interim, returned the ladder to the house, and began the trek home.
The best part of my day was when I was checking out at West Marine. Today I wore jeans, tennis shoes, and one of E’s work T-shirts that says ‘Engineering & Testing,’ and the fellow at the checkout asked if maybe the company I worked for had a Pro account, for a discount. LOL.
Tomorrow should be back to the farm, if the boss tells me when. Until then.
