The Cow

“It looks like a cow” says Irena, as I wrestled the sticky epoxy resin and matt onto the Styrofoam block. And indeed it did, but it wasn’t supposed to!

We were bent together over our temporary work table on the aft deck. I was trying unsuccessfully not to sweat into the pot of rapidly curing epoxy resin while laying fibreglass on a mould that was to be a homemade waterlock muffler for the new engine we had just installed. The idea of the technique I was using was to build a mold for the muffler out of Styrofoam, lay fibreglass in epoxy resin on the outside as a skin, and then later melt out the foam interior with gasoline. This was the second attempt. The first attempt, using polyester resin, has been a total failure when the resin dissolved the Styrofoam right through a protective layer of plastic film. The first attempted ended as a sticky lump of raw fibresglass/matt on the workbench beside a vastly mis-shappen foam mold. It looked like the second attempt was going to end the same way.

“Abort?” asked Irena, “Should we bail and save the mold?” It was clear the epoxy resin was dissolving the foam too, but less aggressively than the polyester resin had. But my carefully built mold was nevertheless melting away faster than I could apply the sticky mix of epoxy and fibreglass matt. Though it was still square-ish in shape, the surface of the foam block was shrinking away in uneven lumps and hollows. The sagging layers of uncured epoxy fibreglass hung like folds of excess skin on a barnyard animal. Even though we had again applied new layers of protective film, I guessed the mold was being attacked by some sort of solvent in the epoxy. We gave up. We abandoned it where it stood on the work bench, leaving the curing epoxy skin to cure on the mold, thinking this grotesque piece could still find a life as a living room ornament or something.

“We’ll give it a go again tomorrow, shall we?” Irena asked with way more optimism than I felt. “Okay”, I said out loud, thinking what a goof I am. So much for being the expert! Earlier I had been seeking to impress Irena with my knowledge of the technique for building fibreglass tanks for airplanes, but clearly I was no expert. I was also pretty discouraged. Not surprisingly then, next day, we didn’t go back to another attempt on the “cow” as we had ruefully begun to call our accidental sculpture. Instead I fought the fight for a new waterlock in the land of ‘fucknowlogy’ – the internet. My attempts to order a commercially made waterlock failed in a death struggle with the usual ill performing web platforms of crashing shopping carts and last minute apologies - after filling out pages of forms - “sorry we don’t deliver outside the USA.” And online waterlock mufflers were more expensive than the Queen’s jewels.

In the interim Irena had left me for her grandchildren in Canada, so I decided instead to move on to other things for a few days, like working to see just exactly how many more very cold beers I had in store. As is my bent, when things stop working, sometimes, so do I. Though I am often pleasantly surprised by how life propitiously offers salvation to my woes, this time, time passed slowly in the heat of Malaysia’s perpetual summer days.

All this time, the cow remained solidly atop the work bench, particularly because it was so thoroughly glued in place. Its two upward standing sections of 3 ½ inch fibreglass pipe were, I thought, reminiscent of a pair of splayed, blunt horns, and its square sides low to the table seemed like an animal about to charge. Nightly, over gin and tonics, I stared at it and it stared back, definantly. It seemed to be daring me, as if in a challenge of wills. Finally, one evening I wrestled it from the workbench and carried it roughly below. I shoved it into the engine compartment in the place where a more proper waterlock muffler might have sat. “Not bad” I reflected aloud “It’s actually a better size now, being smaller.” Its shrinking ways had made it a better fit around the various cables and hoses it had to dodge. The fibreglass pipes are no longer perfectly aligned, but, what the heck, that’s why we put the exhaust system together with flexible rubber hose. As for its wrinkles and folds, well.... look at me!

Next day, when nobody was about on the docks to mock us, I finished the layup with four more layers of cloth, and waited impatiently for her to cure. Then, with a bit of sand paper and white paint, her curves started to come out. I was getting a bit carried away, but I couldn’t resist painting on some black splotches. I put her away out of sight of prying eyes and went back to the challenge of sourcing hose, stainless steel fittings and other bits and bobs to finish the giant exhaust system.

Nearly a month went by. I found, bought and wrestled 34 feet of 3 ½ inch exhaust hose into the dark nether world of the boat’s bilge. I had shoved straight sections of fibreglass pipe into blind holes and built 65 degree elbows to negotiate impossible corners. For weeks I had begged the local Malaysian welding shop to finally build me an exhaust stern fitting and then managed to install it without dropping it in the sea even once, while hanging upside down from the swim grid, my forehead bobbing in and out of the harbour swill. Finally, one day, after tightening down the last of a bushel basket of hose clamps, I turned the starter key, held my breath and waited. The engine idled nicely, good news, but still I waited for the “bang” of an exploding exhaust gas muffler. But none came. Water started to flow in round spurts out the exhaust fitting, and I allowed myself a moment of hope. I rushed down below, tore open the engine room door and switched on the light. And there, in the shadow of the ticking Yanmar diesel, sat my darling waterlock muffler, her sides puffing easily, as she pushed out gallons of cooling water and clean exhaust gas. “Well I’ll be damned” I thought out loud, “I guess I’m more twisted than I thought.”