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The entire interior and wooden internal structure of the boat will be removed for this project.

Rudder | Deck Hardware | Through Hulls/Seacocks | Stem Casting | Engine Beds

Rudder Removal

Removing the rudder turned out to be easy.  I got into it one afternoon when I was walking by and wandering about; the warped, twisted rudder caught my eye, and I decided then and there to remove it.  I'd  been eyeing it on and off for a while, and it looked like it would be pretty easy to undo the bolts--the only tricky part of rudder removal on a Triton, usually.

First, I removed the  four bolts holding the pair of pintles onto the rudder.  These bolts were newer than original, and appeared to be modern stainless steel.   They came out easily, and this allowed the rudder to partially drop, exposing the four bolts/lags/drift pins that secure the shaft to the rudder.  In this case, the heads of these bolts were in good shape, and easily grabbed with a wrench (this was not the case with Glissando's rudder some years ago...).  Therefore, it made removing the blade of the rudder extremely straight forward, as I could undo each of these lags in turn, easily allowing the rudder to slip down and eventually off the shaft completely.  The shaft then essentially fell out of the boat as a separate unit.

Next, I turned my attention to the gudgeons on the keel deadwood.  The lower gudgeon was secured with three regular hex-head bolts--a newer than original configuration--and came off easily.  However, the upper gudgeon was secured with what appeared to be the original peened bronze pins--no heads or nuts to grab.  I ended up drilling them out, which was, of course, harder than it had to be. 

I set the rudder aside to keep as a pattern; the rudder itself is junk, as it is warped and twisted, and the rudder post had hidden a number of splits and cracks in the milled cove at the leading edge of the rudder.  Later, I'll clean up the pintles and gudgeons and see what sort of condition the bronze is in.

Hardware and Assorted

I removed the stainless steel half-oval molding that covers the hull-deck joint.  It was secured with slotted screws on 6" centers, and the screws all came out with minimal fuss.  Removing the molding exposed the seam between hull and deck, which became the ultimate cut line when I removed the deck a few weeks later.

July 2, 2003

Later, after I sawed the deck off the boat, I set the various pieces aside for later attention.  Various bits of deck hardware remained in place, all of which needed to be removed before ultimately disposing of the deck pieces in the trash.  With some spare time one day, I gathered the sidedeck pieces and spent a couple hours removing four pieces of genoa track, four stanchion bases, flagpole socket, and other small bronze pieces (strap eyes and such).

Once all these pieces of hardware were removed, I sawed the deck pieces into manageable sizes and, since trash day was the next day, carted them to the road's edge for pickup--all the sidedeck pieces, with the exception of one section of the foredeck that was buried in the collection of debris still stored in the inverted cabin trunk next to the boat.  

I have the world's best trash pickup, by the way...so far, they've taken everything I've ever set out--all the various bits of wood and fiberglass that I had thus far removed from the Daysailor (and also from past projects).  They've also taken all the remnants of my old kitchen cabinets, construction debris, and even broken-up concrete from when I was building a bathroom on the lower level.  To be as fair as possible, I try to distribute the large debris over a period of several weeks.  To that end, it will take most of the summer to dispose of all the Daysailor deck and interior debris.

Through Hulls and Seacocks

During an earlier stage of demolition, I discovered that the large head  discharge seacock--the only true seacock on the boat--was fiberglassed in place.  In addition, there was no actual through hull fitting installed--just a fiberglass tube inserted in the hull.

Click here to read an earlier writeup on this seacock.

Later, armed with a long, sharp screwdriver, I managed to finally pry the seacock loose.  I discovered that the fiberglass through hull tube extended about 1/2" up into the body of the seacock.  The seacock itself had been bedded in fiberglass and secured to a wooden backer block with four bronze lagscrews.

Other through hulls on board featured only short fiberglass tubes, as was common practice in the day.  During demolition, I had opportunity to saw through most of the tubes to free the lousy old hoses.  A depthsounder transducer had been installed inside the hanging locker in the head and came out easily with a few soft taps with my hand maul.  The hull in this area is about 3/4" in thickness.

The casting was held in place with three long bronze bolts and one bronze lag screw.  I had trouble getting one of the bolts undone, but finally prevailed.  Getting this particular casting off with the deck in place would have proved virtually impossible, I think, given the tight access to the nuts inside the chain locker and the difficulty in extracting the bolts (which feature bugle heads and slotted ends on the outside, making turning them difficult).  Anyway, I got it off.  The wooden knee inside the stem was in good condition, and will likely stay in place, in part because removing it would be difficult.

With a new carbide-tipped heavy duty blade in my reciprocating saw, I made short work of the tabbing securing the fiberglass engine foundation in place.  With all surrounding obstructions long since removed, this was an easy job, though the thick fiberglass was slow to cut.  The amount of tabbing used to secure the engine beds is ridiculous--something like 3/8" of heavily resin-rich mat.  And poorly installed, too--though it stuck well and worked for over 40 years, but there was a decided lack of care and craftsmanship in its execution.