It's Condensation

I've lived on a sailboat for about 20 years now. Brenda and I have lived together on a sailboat for about 14 of those 20 years. When Brenda and I first moved in together, I sold the boat I was living on and we purchased a boat of our very own together. Back then, we were basically broke and since Brenda was used to living on dry land in a huge house with some of her girly friends, we decided to purchase the biggest boat we could afford to ease her into the boating lifestyle and hopefully not freak her out with the lack of living space.

We bought a semi-custom 48' overall behemoth of a boat named Stargazer that was as close to a house as any sailboat I've ever been on. She was a good sturdy boat and had tons of space (for a boat). You could actually turn around and not bang your elbows on all 4 walls as you spun. It was palatial. The main salon had what I considered a dance floor because it was so huge (again for a boat). The dance floor was actually the size of a postage stamp, but since I was used to living on a boat who's dance floor was half the size of a postage stamp, it seemed huge.

Because we had purchased the biggest boat we could afford, we gave up some things in order to get all of that massive amount of real estate. It was a bare bones boat. She floated, the engine ran, she had sails (pretty worn out sails), 2 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms, a kitchen, and that was about it. There were no electronics, no working fridge, and even though it was quite possibly the slowest boat on record, I still raced every other boat on the water. It really was like a giant floating bathtub.

Right after we purchased and moved aboard our giant floating bathtub, we noticed how damp and musty the boat was. And we couldn't figure why. One day we decided to pull down the headliner to see if we could find some leaks and with the headliner came buckets full of water. The entire headliner had been holding gallons of water above our heads and slowly sending that water streaming down the walls and into the bilge. And with all of that trapped water was a flourishing garden of mold. We couldn't have grown the mold better if we fertilized it, pruned it, and sang to it every night before bed time.

Of course this was a problem. If there is one thing Brenda hates more than anything on a boat, it's mold. So, all of the headliner came out, bleach was purchased by the truckload, and she scrubbed and scrubbed until our mold farming days were over.

The other problem we had was that we couldn't figure out where all of the water came from. We pulled windows and re-sealed them, we re-caulked every fitting that went through the deck, and we even shot caulking onto things that obviously weren't part of the problem just to make ourselves feel better.

The re-sealing of every part of the boat seemed to help our water problem and with Brenda's vigilance with a spray bottle of bleach, the mold wasn't an issue anymore. But the water problem didn't fully go away. We would still find puddles of water pooled in places that water had no business being. Even after days and days of no rain, moisture was finding its way into our floating palace. Finally my conclusion was that it just had to be condensation. There was no other explanation. Boats are on the water, water is wet, and wet water was weeping down our walls...see the logic?

Brenda could never see my logic. Every time we would find a puddle of unwanted water or a damp wall that you would think should be dry, I would say “it's got to be condensation!” Brenda would roll her eyes at me and say, “there has got to be a leak somewhere that we haven't found! Now get out there and caulk something!”

I would of course go outside and shoot caulking onto some random thing to appease my lovely wife, but inside my brain, I was sure it was doing no good. And what do you know, it didn't do anything. Moisture was always a problem with that boat. Years later, I still swear that it was just the boat. Some boats are just more moisture prone than others. It was surely condensation.

Our current boat is actually the driest boat I've ever owned. Sure, leaks pop up now and then. It's a boat. We take care of them as soon as they are found and we go on our merry way. On really wet and rainy days, when a big pot of pasta is boiling on the stove, or when we've both taken really long hot showers, sure, condensation rears it's ugly head. But condensation isn't a problem that plagues us like it did on our first boat. We have much better ventilation, the hull is insulated, and we have an added 14 years of boat life under out belt that helps us better deal with the problem.

When we do find some random pool of water or damp area on the boat, my first assumption is always condensation. It could be denial and it could be that I am tired possibly having something else to fix on the boat, so I'll casually say to Brenda, “don't freak out, it's just a little condensation.” Even after 14 years of boat living, Brenda still rolls her eyes and still tells me to “get out the caulking gun and go caulk something!”

Yesterday the tides had turned. For the first time in 14 years, while Brenda was cleaning out a far out of reach storage cubby, trying to figure out what sort of trinket she could hide in there that would be out of my sight, she found a damp area with a teeny tiny pool of water in the bottom of it. Her first reaction was almost magical to me. After 14 years of training, she is finally catching on. She casually said, “it's a little wet in here. It must be condensation.” She is probably in denial and doesn't want to fix anything else too.

Our newest video is now up on Youtube as well. The link is down below.