110 Cookson Lane | Whitefield, ME 04353 | 207-232-7600 | tim@lackeysailing.com
Over two or three days during the past week, I'd attended to some minor work on the rudder before I prepared to reinstall it. The leading edge featured a small crack, and I took advantage of the improved access to the area to repair this area, reaming out the crack, filling it, and reinforcing with two layers of fiberglass before smoothing and fairing it as needed to complete the repair.
With that work complete this morning, I decided to work on reinstalling the rudder, to get it off the floor and back where it belonged. I ordered some Delrin to use as a small bearing at the base of the rudderpost, against the bronze rudder shoe, and spent some time cleaning up the stuffing box and bronze shoe to prepare for reinstallation.
Once I'd cleaned up the inside surface of the stuffing box where the packing rested, I installed a new band of graphite packing and reinstalled the stuffing box with its new length of hose and clamps before raising the rudder enough for the rudderpost to extend just beyond the cockpit sole for now while I awaited the Delrin required before final installation of the bronze shoe.
Later, I returned to the cockpit locker lids for some final details. The original lids featured small lips that helped prevent water ingress beneath the surface of the lids, and I wanted to recreate this detail. To that end, I milled 1/8" x 1/4" strips of fiberglass to rough length, and secured them to the edges of the hatches with epoxy adhesive, clamping and taping them in place while the adhesive cured.
Total Time on This Job Today: 4 hours
