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The
Ever-Settling Waterline
This page was last updated on
7 October 2002.
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The Triton was originally
constructed with molded-in scribe lines to delineate the top and bottom borders
of the boottop, and, therefore, the general designed waterline. As most of
us know, the Triton tends to not only float somewhat lower than the design may
have called for, but also squat in the stern, typically burying the boottop at
least partially into the water, especially at the stern. This leads to
excess fouling on the boottop, paint failure, and, perhaps worst of all, it
looks terrible.
 Knowing
about this problem in advance, I decided to raise the waterline when I painted
the hull during the restoration project. I had little or no experience
with where Glissando actually floated--she was in the water for less than
24 hours during her tow from Chebeague Island, where we bought the boat, to
Falmouth, ME where we hauled out--and with not much gear on board, the mast
unstepped and lying on deck, and water entering the boat through a rotted
stuffing box hose, it was impossible to know where she floated. Not to
mention that that was hardly on our minds at the time. Other photos of the
original waterline can be found on the following pages of this site, among
others; clicking these links will open a new window.
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 Higher is better, in my book, so
when I painted I raised the level of the antifouling paint to the top boottop
scribe mark--about 2-3" higher than where she was originally painted--and
then struck a new boottop above this level. With the boat in the
relatively lightly-loaded trim of our first season,
in 2001, the new waterline level was great, and definitely was the right
move. The boat still tended to squat and the waterline at the stern was
lapping at the bottom of the new boottop--in other words, the entire boot would
have been submerged had we left the line as originally designed. I struck
the new boottop by eye within the confines of my building shed and was generally
pleased with the results, although the section beneath the counter wasn't quite
perfect--though it took a trained and critical eye to notice.
We did little cruising the first
year the boat was in the water after the project, and there was not a huge
amount of gear on board--most of the lockers were empty, for all intents and
purposes. I knew that the boat would settle further into the water if we
loaded her up for cruising. How much, was the question?
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 When
the boat went in the water in spring 2002, for her second season, she was
already more heavily loaded than at any point during the first season. I
had added three anchors, extra anchor chain, books, additional tools, spare
parts, and other gear while the boat was still at home in the backyard, and
immediately after she floated off the truck I could see that she was floating
much lower than the year before. Once the mast was stepped and I had
rigged things up, she floated level, fore and aft, but the waterline was now
just at the bottom of the boottop on the port side, and there was a slight list
to starboard, most likely caused by hardcover books stored in the new
bookshelves on that side. (Later, I shifted stores and removed this 1-2°
list.)
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 Throughout
the first couple months of the season, I loaded more and more cruising gear and
stores in preparation for our 2-month summer cruise. Most of this gear is
either permanent, or could be expected to be on board for just about any
cruise. Inexorably, the boat settled even deeper. By the time we
departed on the cruise, with full tanks, jerry jugs of fuel and water, food,
ice, stores, and all the other cruising gear, Glissando was floating
about 3" deeper than before--the boottop was entirely submerged
amidships. Obviously, the waterline would have to be painted higher in the
future.
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| During the cruise, I observed the
waterline continually, to try and figure out where it should be repainted.
It was at this time that I really began to notice that the boottop was
sagged--that is, lower in the middle and higher at each end. With
essentially full stores and no one on board, the boat floated so that the top of
the boot was just at the water's edge amidships, but the antifouling line was
just visible at both the bow and stern. So, in addition to needing to
raise the waterline, I also determined that the scribe marks as molded into the
hull were not an accurate representation and were not planar. While the
boottop should have a slight spring in it (slight, not excessive...if
your eye can see it it's too much), to my eye the true waterline--or the level
to which the antifouling paint is painted--should be flat and straight to
parallel the surface of the water. Ideally, on this size boat, there
should be 1-2" of antifouling showing above the fully loaded waterline all
around. This reduces proximity fouling of the boottop and also looks much
better. Additionally, no boottop paint, enamel, or liner polyurethane
paint is intended to constant submersion, and doing so will cause the paint to
fail. The Awlgrip on Glissando's boot began to form small bubbles
during the cruise from the constant submersion. Obviously, any boottop
should be high enough above the waterline to prevent this. During the
cruise, I took lots of photos of the boat, some for only the purpose of
recording the waterline at various times and intervals, for future reference
when restriking the line later. |
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By studying these photos, as well
as the images burned into my memory, I have begun to determine the
location of the new waterline. I will error on the side of caution and go
even higher than might be necessary, because as heavily loaded as the boat was
this time, it's likely (even probable) that she will be heavier in the future,
especially if we do any really long-term cruising. I can't imagine why we
would ever sail the boat in as lightly loaded a condition as she was the first
season, when we had hardly anything on board, so the risk of having a
ridiculously high waterline as a result is nil, as far as I'm concerned.
Yes, I'm picky about this.
The sunken waterline bugged me through the whole cruise. The boot and
waterline are one of the first things my eye is drawn to on any boat, and I tend
to be highly critical of what I see. It makes or breaks the look of a
boat, I think. It may be an indefinable quality for some, but I'd bet that
in a random test, given two boats that are identical in every single way--except
that one has a perfectly struck waterline and the other doesn't--a random test
subject person would be more inclined to pick the boat with the proper waterline
as the more attractive of the two.
Am I
obsessed? (Don't answer
that...I already know the answer!)
When the boat came out of the
water on October 2, 2002, I could for the first time get a close look at the
Awlgrip boottop, which, during the season, I had noticed becoming bubbled slightly
from overexposure to the water. There were a number of small
bubbles, mostly concentrated amidships on both sides but also beneath the
counter and, to a lesser extent, on the bow areas. There were also several
larger bubbles, up to about 3/16" diameter. As the boat dried out a
bit, the bubbles tended to shrink, but did not go away. There was no paint
failure, but certainly the Awlgrip wasn't impressed that it had been submerged
for much of the summer. Raising the waterline should eliminate this
problem. The photos below show the condition of the boottop and the
bubbles shortly after the boat was deposited in my backyard for the winter,
before I had scrubbed the bottom and hull to remove growth and dirt.
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