While we were in the process of buying Ostara four years ago, our surveyor friend Norm LeBlanc inserted himself into the cockpit locker and was confronted with the pair of ancient gate valves that were fitted to the cockpit drain thru-hulls. These, he told me, would have to go. Gate valves are all very well in your home’s water system but in a marine environment their mechanisms get jammed up with mollusks and mineral deposits in no time at all; this means you can’t close the damn things if you need to, so that you’d literally be in deep water if a hose should fail.

Being a sensible sort of sailor, I have taped or tied-tapered wooden plugs to all hoses below the waterline, so that they are ready to ram into a through-hull in case of disaster, but prevention is usually better than the cure when it comes to water and boats. A few weeks ago, I finally decided to heed Norm’s advice and replace those horrible gate valves. Actually, guilt made me do it; the insurance company had demanded a condition survey, as it does every few years for boats of a certain age, which meant Norm would be back. I knew I was in for a telling-off if the gate valves were still in place.

Anyone who owns or has owned an older boat knows that things which have been in situ for many years don’t want to come out easily. There’s a corollary to that rule; the things you do want to remove will be in the most awkward place possible. The gate valves and through-hulls were no exception. Lurking under the cockpit sole, they taunted me with their near-inaccessibility.  I had to climb into the cockpit locker, twist myself into a half-lying, half-kneeling position, extend both arms over my head, and I could just reach the further gate valve. This was extreme boat yoga.

Job #1 was to remove the old drain hoses. I was surprised at how easy it was. I suspect they were original equipment, installed in 1973 and forgotten about since. Over the years the wire-reinforced rubber compound had softened with age to the point where a blunt knife easily penetrated the walls. Yikes – this was all that was keeping the water on the outside of the boat….

Apart from stabbing myself a couple of times with the cut ends of the wire as I was wrestling them free, the hoses presented little in the way of a challenge and soon they were lying on the cockpit sole. I was expecting more of fight from the gate valves; but to my utter surprise they began to turn almost as soon as I put a pipe wrench on them. This was looking easy…what had I been worrying about? I managed about half a turn on each one before the wheels came up hard against the steering compartment half-bulkhead. It was time to try out my new angle grinder.

I am here to tell you that it is not easy to control a 4½-inch angle grinder one-handed, with vulnerable hoses and power cables running close by. Still, I managed to cut the wheels off with no major collateral damage, and before long the gate valve bodies had joined the drain hose in the scrap bucket.

So far, this had all been a lot easier than I’d expected. Now it was payback time. I was planning to install plastic/fiberglass composite Marelon valves and through-hulls, which meant the bronze through-hulls would have to come out so the new ones could go in. It quickly became apparent that the through-hulls were so attached to the boat that it would take major surgery to remove them. I was down to a choice between painstaking finesse and brute force. No prizes for guessing which won out.

Next morning, I arrived at the yard armed with my trusty Sawzall, ignoring the horrified stares of my neighbors. My wife climbed into the cockpit locker with a hammer. I stood outside the boat and made four cuts in each through-hull, as far as the flange, and then she knocked them loose with the hammer. It was all over in less than ten minutes. I had made some saw cuts in the ¾” thick laminate, but as I was planning to epoxy the new through-hulls in place anyway, that was no big deal.

From here on, it was all easy going. I enlarged the holes with my trusty Dremel to accommodate the new, slightly bigger through-hulls, gave the openings a good brushing of unthickened epoxy resin to plug up the saw cuts, then smeared a thick paste of epoxy and colloidal silica filler around the base and flange of the through-hulls. The trickiest part was finding a way to hold the fittings in place while the epoxy kicked. I found a piece of 2” x 1” pine that, with its tip swathed in a plastic bag, was ideal for bracing one side, and on the other side I used a jackstand to force a Ziploc bag filled with rags hard against the through-hull.  I’ve got a bit of excess epoxy to sand off, but all in all I’m pleased with the way it all turned out. I have no doubt that a yard would have charged several hundred dollars for that little job.



Next weekend’s jobs: finish the seacock installation and sand and paint the bottom. At least I won’t have to get the Sawzall involved. I’m getting kind of attached to the angle grinder, though…