Donzi 54 - Fresh Bottom and Winter Upgrades

Just came out of our winter storage building. We did a full bottom job this winter. Sanded everything down,
re-faired around the struts, pulled all the screens, serviced all the valves ,etc, etc. We still need to clean the boat and will buff/wax the freeboard and house sides.

We painted then added flexi-teek to the swim platform to match the cockpit deck and gunnels we did last year. We are still working on the davit. We took it down to parade rest. Complete power coat of everything. New boom cylinder, new wire and new directional valves. Will add pictures when complete. Pulled port shaft and fixed everything associated with seal issue and shaft log. Finished all the engine room paint and final touch-ups from Repower. Refinished the teak on the salon door, window frames and anchor pulpit. Also removed our raw water cooling tubes and welded in ports for zinc pencils. And a bunch of other little stuff.

Never found a smoking gun for the source. We ground it all out and glassed it all up better than new. Even pressed up the shaft log with air pressure to test for any other possible leaks. I think I covered this in my thread on the seal failure. I'm chalking the rust bleed and seal failure up to the most likely culprit which would be contamination in the shaft log and/or seal from the extensive work during the repower. It's really the only thing that made any sense. We also re-plumbed the seal cooling lines to eliminate the single crossover but I believe this is more window dressing than anything. The Stbd side never looked like anything other than brand new and it was all the same as the port side.

Thanks. Yes, she is better than new with an empty wallet to prove it.

We fabricated the heavy skid so I could move it around the yard. There are several buildings we choose from to store it in for the winter. My boat is but a tiny spec for the yard. Most of what we work in the yard is measured in thousands of tons so it's on a different scale all together.