Sustainable Monday - Maintenance Tips & Clyde Ford's "Boat Green"

With the spring weather comes the outside projects we've been "itching" to do all winter: varnishing, oiling, painting, etc. Again, Clyde Ford provides some easy and useful tips for keeping our water's clean, while working upon our boats (both in and out of the water). Check out his book, Boat Green: 50 Steps Boaters Can Take to Save Our Waters. This week, I'm focusing upon the "dust" producing activities that often result from our boating projects.

Ford points out that the issue is keeping the residues out of the water from our sanding and/or scraping for our oiling, varnishing, painting, etc. projects. He recommends two ways to do this.

Ford really recommends doing as much "dust" making jobs when hauled out, if you can't, however, here is is first recommendation. The first recomendation is forming a "skirt" around the boat and the dock. To do this, tape a piece of plastic to the boat, bring it over to the dock, where it is weighed down. Then the particles can be gathered up (swept, vacuumed, etc.) and disposed of, rather than falling into the water (see his chapter titled "Skirt Your Boat" starting page 1530. A similar idea I saw a shipwright employ last supper would work for scraping a cap rail, for instance. The shipwright formed a "box" that part of the bottom can be taped to the side of the boat. The box sides could lip over the top of the cap rail. As the work progressed, the box could be slid up or down the rail, the shavings vacuumed out as needed. This is basically a similar idea as the "skirt," but on a smaller scale.

In any case, Ford recommends having a small "spill" kit ready to quickly absorb any small drips before they get larger.

The other small suggestion with big results is investing in a dustless sander. These are the sanders with their own bags to collect the dust from the job at hand (see his chapter "Use a Dustless Sander" starting on page 155). Ford relates the following success story:

Lake of the Ozarks, in central Missouri, is a 95-mile-long inland private lake owned by the Union Electric Company. More than 70,000 boats are docked around the lake, and there are two state parks. It is a zero-discharge lake, and the Lodge of the Four Seasons Marina allows no outside contractors or do-it-yourselfers. in 1995 the Marina invested in several thousand dollars in two dustless sanders. They soon realized huge savings, cutting 30% off the time eypically spent to prep a boat for a bottom job, saving boaters an average $205 on the cost of a bottom job, and reducing by 90% the labor involved in ground cleanup (Ford:1560.

Enjoy the spring projects. It is just great to be on and near the water this time of year (when isn't it?)

Blessed Be

Joel