Woody Bits

 The weekend started out with a short list of things to accomplish.  Primarily finishing the attachment of the various parts from last weekend and all of the cleats and blocks.  I began by employing the Willing First mate (WFM) to ratchet on some nuts in the cabin while I held the bolt from the topside.  The rest of the day was spent on home projects that all consumed time but I did finish up the day back on the boat and sanded down the thru hull patches I had epoxied and 6 spots on the rudder that were ground, filled and sanded.  I also sanded down the last 10 inches of the boom where the varnish had failed; as this was the part of the boom that is outside the mainsail cover.  I applied a coat of varnish but the color will never match the amber hue of the rest of the boom.

I have now decided to paint this tip of the boom with the off white deck paint and actually make it contrast on purpose.  I have seen this done to the tips of masts on gaff rigged boats and I believe I have seen the tip of the booms done as well but can't be certain.  It could be considered a safety feature.  A streak of white that you see out of the corner of your eye before the swinging boom hits you up side the head on an unexpected jibe.

I assembled the blocks and cleats with butyl.  Not sure if that will work out the best.  As time goes on it works it's way out the sides and requires re-tightening of the screws.  As a matter of fact all of the hardware I have mounted in butyl has required re-tightening as it settles in.  Not sure if it is the heat just making the butyl relax more as there is no load on the hardware.  I test fitted and the gap under the block is much greater than under the winch pads.  I decided to make bases for the blocks out of the resin impregnated plastic board I have.  4 pads were made and all the edges eased over on the router table and sanded smooth.  They will remain unpainted as I am having a hard time getting paint to stick to this stuff.  It must take some special primer.  The other bases (stanchion) that I made from the same material and painted have all flaked off under the least amount of pressure.

The bases I screwed to the bottom of the blocks and got ready again for the install, first dry fitting everything.  Then I bedded these in 5200.  This stuff is messy to work with but is the absolute best for this kind of mounting.  I may re-bed the cleat, thus my choice to use butyl, but do not plan on re-bedding the block and base.  I do not want any water getting in and sitting between these two pieces of wood and rotting from the inside out.

Since I had the half used tube of 5200 out I also set the thru hull for the tri-data transducer in the hole that was already prepared in the spring.  The 5200 takes 3-7 days to really set up.  The rest of the day was spent cleaning out the boat to get ready for the sanding of all the interior wood that I did not remove.  I plan on spending 2 weeks doing this before I start to varnish the interior.  I have not spent any money on the boat after my blow out last month but it is getting close to shopping time again.  More hardware.

Remounting

This past weekend I continued the remounting of old and new hardware on the boat.  30 new holes were drilled, filled and tapped for the hardware.  I mounted the two new primary self tailing winches on their existing SS bases.  I made new pads to make up for the lack of teak decking removed.  I remounted the teak winch bases for the secondary winches (spinnaker) and then mounted the winches on the bases.  I remounted the two halyard winches, light duty aluminum Lewmar 7 winches on the cabin top.  I used the existing, reconditioned SS backing plates with new bolts and acorn nuts for a clean appearance inside the cabin.

I installed, almost, the two new rope clutches.  I made new backing plates out of aluminum but would like to find some SS to match the winch plates so I haven't tightened them down yet.  I installed the two line organizer that were existing and used the existing SS back plates (reconditioned).  I still have to tighten them down and need a second person for that.


















I will wrap that up and continue on with the mounting of cleats and cleat bases (all wood).  These should have Silicone Bronze fasteners but I may just use SS which is more readily available.  I still need to attached the chain port on the bow. The hole is cut and sealed but I want to try and sand blast off the cheap chrome plating first.

The list gets a little shorter but is still impressive as to all the little things that have to get done.  I have started to make lists for the week as goals so as not to get bogged down in the size of the work left to do.  Just what I can accomplish this week.

Internal Non-Combustion

This week I had scheduled to change the oil and oil filter in the Yanmar and change the oil in the gear case.  Proper procedure is to run the motor for a while to warm up the oils to make them easier to extract through the dip stick hole.  There is a drain plug at the bottom of the oil pan as one would expect but no one has ever been able to get to it with the motor installed and lived to tell about it.  The designer of this little system is the one that should have the title of Dip Stick.

With everything set up to go.  The bucket of cooling water filled, new oil, filter, rags etc.  I go to warm up the engine.  No Go.  It ran perfectly two weeks ago but I can not get it to fire this time.  I drain some of the fuel off at the fuel filter.  It is clear but smell very rubbery.   Hmm.... Could one of the fuel lines, that are actually used race car SS jacketed lines, be bad or inappropriate for diesel.  This would mean draining all 6 gallons and replacing all the lines and connectors.  Bad Deal.

I investigated the fuel lines over the next couple of days and found out they were fine for diesel.  Something else must be a miss.  I knew that it must either be bad fuel or air in the line for a diesel not to start.  The fuel seemed fine so it must be air in the line.  I attempted again and started to re-bleed the lines as before.  Everything had clear fuel at each bleed point until the final high pressure line.  Here I could get no fuel at all.  I took that line completely off and cranked over the motor from inside the cabin at the engine compartment by hitting the starter with a fully extended boat hook.  The RFM was not available and it is good to know I can do this if required out on the water single handed.  After a few starts I was getting fuel.  It seemed more like a blockage than air but it is hard to tell.  I tightened everything up and she started up fine.  The injector may need replacing at some point if this keeps up.

I let the motor run for 10 minutes and then sucked all the oil out and changed the filter with a minimum amount of spills and mess.  Restarted the motor and engaged the gear box as well to circulate all the new oil.  No leaks and everything ran fine.  My set up for running cooling water has worked perfectly and will be helpful in the future if I have to winterize with antifreeze.

In other news, I am finishing a pair of new oars in a mahogany stain with varnish for the dinghy.  I purchased leather oar wraps and stops to give them a more authentic look.  That project will fill some spare time over the next 10 days.

Back at it

Finally back to some boat bits.  A combination of oppressive humidity and out of town travel.  Although there was not much activity on the boat, I spent a lot of money for the boat.  More money than I have ever spent for the boat in one month.  The big culprit was two new Lewmar CST16 self tailing winches.  The boat originally came with 6 winches.  Two on the cabin top for halyards (old light weight Lewmars) Two for the Jib (SS Barient 16's) and two (really old Bronze)  set up further back in the cockpit for spinnaker trimming I think.  I decided to replace the most important (jib) sheet winches with new self tailing winches to make single handing easier.  The lightweight Lewmars I will reinstall on the cabin top for the halyards to reduce the weight up high and the backing plates are nice SS which can be seen inside the cabin.  The older Barients will move back to the Spinnaker mounts and the old Bronze will be retired.  The old Lewmars and Barients have all been serviced, cleaned and greased and function fine but are non tailing winches.  One of the older bronze winches may be re-purposed as a horizontal manual anchor rope gypsy on the foredeck.  The new winches on sale at Defender also came with two free Lewmar winch handles which was a nice bonus.

In addition I also purchased two double rope clutches (Lewmar), a new Hella Bora fan for the cabin,  a set of unfinished wood oars for the dingy and a new manual fuel gauge.  I have a short list now of things to purchase but they are all expensive items such as batteries (350), 3 halyards and a topping lift (600), depth speed instrument (450) 4 more turnbuckles (200) bottom paint (250), blocks, cars, etc (300) and all the other stuff I haven't thought of.  So I am trying to spread these purchases out over the next three months so I can get myself a tiller pilot for Christmas (450).

The two main winch pedestals are made of SS and need a lot of cleaning and polishing before I could reinstall them.  One of the bases also covers/protects the fuel vent.  I have installed another new one as the old one was destroyed on take put.  the new one I had modified because the threads were too short for the deck thickness.  Since I had removed all of the teak deck they also needed a 3/8" base to sit right on the deck.  This was all sorted out and drilled and cut.  This weekend I will drill, pot and tap the holes and mount them with the winches.  The two rear winch mounts are made of wood but also require a 3/8" base plate for mounting.  These I still have to make before the installation this weekend.  I would also like to drill, pot and tap for the cabin top winches and the line clutches and line organizers if I can source all the mounting screws and bolts before then.

The fuel gauge was something I had always planed on doing and before I finished the fuel tank installation and finalized the plumbing it was time to put it in.  The only issue was a baffle that ran half way through the tank that prevented the arm from swing through it's full 180 degree arc.  I offset the dial as far to one side as I could and then bent the arm down so it would clear.  This should give me an accurate reading when the tank is low on fuel and pretty close to accurate when it is full.  There is just over 5 gallons in there and it reads just over half full (9 gallon tank).