Northern Yacht Restoration |

110 Cookson Lane | Whitefield, ME 04353 | 207-232-7600 | tim@lackeysailing.com

Ashantee | Tuesday, April 14, 2015

After some office time finding and ordering a few things for some of the last items on the project list, I continued work in the cockpit. To complete the shore power receptacle, I found that it was easier to remove it to connect the wires in the back, after which I reinstalled the piece. Then, I installed the original bronze cockpit locker hasps with new fasteners and sealant.

Then, I reinstalled a plastic cockpit shower housing and reconnected its hose.

Next, I installed the cockpit coamings, now for the final time. I applied brown-colored sealant behind the coamings, concentrating on the fastener locations and a bead along the top edge where the coaming met the sidedeck. This squeezed out nicely along the top edge when I tightened the bolts.

Inside the cockpit lockers, I installed nuts and washers on the machine screws where possible; the nature of the inside area didn't leave room for nuts in a couple instances, but that posed no problem since the machine screws were tapped into the fiberglass as well.

Afterwards, I installed the after coaming in the same way, including a pair of screws through the side coamings into its ends to secure the assemblies together. Then, I cleaned up the excess sealant, and, at the coaming ends, masked off and applied some cosmetic sealant where the coamings overlapped the decks to fill small gaps in those areas. I left the masking tape here in place till the sealant cured in a day or two.

Finally, I bunged the screw holes. I'd leave the coamings for a few days to allow all the sealant to cure before I started the final varnish work with an additional 4 or more coats to come.

I turned to the new handrails: two longer pieces for the forward part of the coachroof and a shorter pair for the doghouse. I planned to bolt these through the cabin top on each side, which was generally straightforward; bolting from the top side would be stronger than screws from beneath, plus it would allow me to install them alone.

On the port side, however, there were two bulkheads (those on either side of the head compartment) that I needed to clear with the handrail bolts. So from inside, I made some measurements from the nearby ports so I could transfer and locate the bulkheads' footprints from above and thereby align the handrails as required to avoid them.

After boring 1/2" counterbores and 1/4" pilot holes through the handrails as needed, I applied a strip of 2" tape along the edge of the nonskid, giving me a clean line for alignment of the side of the handrail, and adjusted the long rail as needed to avoid my masking tape marks over the bulkheads. There was really only one position that worked to avoid both, so once I'd found that I started at the aft end of the rail and drilled and tapped the deck for a 1/4" machine screw and secured the first hole temporarily. Working forward, one base at a time, I curved the rail according to the tape line, and drilled and tapped the deck to accept the fasteners, till I'd reached the end. This was just a dry fit.

I repeated the process on the doghouse, though this rail section was shorter and there were no bulkheads to worry about beneath.

The good news was that the deck in these areas was solid fiberglass, outboard of the transition between core and glass, so final installation wouldn't require the additional steps of core isolation. I didn't have long-enough screws on hand, but ordered them so I could finalize the installation shortly. I'd mirror the installation with the two handrails on the starboard side next time.

Total Time Billed on This Job Today: 7.25 Hours