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Wednesday

Starting on the coachroof, I cut out the top skin in way of the mast step and removed the core beneath.  I had to expand my initial cut towards the stern as I found the damaged core extended further from the old wiring holes than my first cut allowed.

On the starboard sidedeck, I cut out a large section of the top skin, keeping clear of the coachroof and bulwarks to allow a sufficient flange of the original decks for tying in the new laminate later.  I had to extend a portion of the cut near the forward end in the inboard side to expose all of the damaged core and allow for its removal.  Other than a short section at the forward extreme of the cut, where the core was still sound, most of the remaining core was badly deteriorated (no surprise given the softness of the deck before).  I scraped and chiseled out all the old coring, and most of the core beneath the cut flanges as well.

On  the foredeck, I’d marked two small areas that had seemed slightly suspect:  one around the starboard forward stanchion, the other in way of the large hawse hole on the port side.  Now, I removed a small portion of the top skin at each location, revealing mildly water-damaged core material that I removed as needed.

Finally, I removed a large section of the port sidedeck, revealing core that had rotted almost to nonexistence throughout most of the area.  I removed the detritus, ensuring that there was sound core at the ends of my cutout.

Now I went around all the areas under repair, using various tools to ream out all of the remaining core bits from beneath the flanges on the edges, scraping these areas as clean as possible.

On the starboard sidedeck outboard of the coaming, I pulled away by hand a fiberglass patch that had been part of the previous repair to the stanchion base area, leaving a gaping raw hole that I’d repair anew and, one hoped, more effectively.

To tie in the eventual repairs with the existing deck laminate, I needed to prepare all the adjacent areas by grinding away the gelcoat and creating a tapered edge over which the new top skin would later be installed, and I spent the remainder of the day on this dirty chore.  At the same time, I ground out a few cracked or otherwise cosmetically-damaged areas that would require some fill work (there’d be more of this to come), along with the test holes I’d drilled in a few areas on the deck.

In the cockpit, I removed a fiberglass flange around an erstwhile icebox hatch ( there was no icebox beneath), opening up a large hole in the cockpit for later repair.  I’d initially thought that removing the flange would leave the inside portion of the hatch intact, but the entire assembly lifted out once I’d cut the flange at deck level.

Total time billed on this job today:  9 hours

0600 Weather Observation:  Mostly cloudy, snow showers, 32°.  Forecast for the day:  Sun and clouds, snow showers or squalls, temperature dropping through the 20s

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Tuesday

Before beginning the deck repair work, a few items remained for me to remove, starting with the mainmast chainplates.    Access was fair to most of these locations, but in the head, where two of the port chainplates were located, the sewage system hoses and a shelf in the cabinet made access tight.  I improved the access by removing the shelf, which was necessary for reasonable access to the aftermost chainplate bolts.  As I went, I removed obsolete wiring bundles from the head locker, and also from the hanging locker on the starboard side.  After a time, I successfully removed all the chainplates and put them aside for later assessment and possible refabrication.

I took a moment to cover the engine, which was partially disassembled, with a towel and some plastic sheeting to keep out debris and dust during the bulk of the deck project again.  Afterwards, I spent a few minutes in the cockpit removing  an access plate from the cockpit sole, along with a trim ring around the manual bilge pump and the cover plate over the engine controls–all to improve access for surface preparation, repairs (as needed), and eventual painting.

I went over the entire deck, sounding with a hammer and otherwise determining the condition of the decks and locating any areas requiring core repair.  Several of these areas were readily apparent, namely both sidedecks in way of the chainplates and the poop deck, and I marked the rough location of these areas for future cutting.  In other areas, I marked any isolated areas of suspect soundings–mainly small latent voids–and when I felt it was necessary I drilled 1/2″ holes into the core to determine its condition.  I was happy and a little surprised to find that other than the large areas on the sidedecks and poop deck,  most of the deck was sound as is, including the foredeck, coachroof, and cockpit areas.  I marked off some marginal areas around one or two stanchion bases and the large hawsehole on the foredeck for possible core removal.

At the poop deck, I removed a wooden frame from around the steering gear hatch, which exposed the coring within (all of which was badly rotted) and would make cutting and repair more straightforward.

The coachroof in way of the main mast step seemed sound, other than localized damage around some old wiring holes.  However, it appeared that the step had compressed the core material beneath, causing a slight depression, so I decided to remove the step and replace the core beneath with solid fiberglass.  Because of some corrosion at the mast base itself, the owner wanted to cut off a few inches of the mast to remove the bad area, and this might also lead to rebuilding or replacing the step with a higher version to help make up for the height difference–all to be determined over the course of the project.

To remove the step, I chipped out some filler material surrounding the four lag screws (hex head),  then easily removed the screws and the step itself.

I made a simple template to help me properly relocate the step later, using the forward hatch frame as my reference guide.

In the cockpit, I removed the mizzen step  just to clear the way for more effective surface preparation.

Now I was ready to get to work on taking apart the deck for repair, and I chose to begin at the poop deck.  Here, the damaged area ran around the entire stern of the boat, from the winch islands on both sides and across the poop deck.  Leaving an edge of the original deck in place, I used a saw to cut off the top skin, over half the stern at a time; the core was in such poor condition in post areas that the skin was easy to remove by hand once the cuts were complete.  With the skin removed, exposing the black, rotted core, I scraped out the old core material from the flat areas, and dug out what I could for now from beneath the cut edges.

With the port half de-cored, I moved over to the starboard side and repeated the process.  Here, the aftermost chainplate was still in place for the moment, awaiting eventual removal, but it was easy enough to work around for the moment.  At the forward corner of the new opening, just aft of the winch island and in way of the aftermost stanchion base location, the core (and/or a mass of solid fiberglass) was more heavily fused to the inner skin than anything I’d ever run across, the apparent result of a previous spot repair to this area that had been visible on the top skin, and this caused some damage to the bottom skin that I’d have to repair before installing new core.

With the bulk of the core scraped out from around both sides, and beneath the flanges to the extent possible for now, I cleaned up and disposed of the detritus.  I’d continue work on other areas of the deck next time.

Total time billed on this job today:  7.5 hours

0600 Weather Observation:  19°, light snow.  Forecast for the day:  A few inches of snow, then changing to rain and eventually warming to the 40s

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Friday

Working from above decks, I eased into the day with whatever hardware I could remove from the poop deck and around the lazarette (steering gear) hatch, starting with the hatch itself.  To ease access to and fro, I removed the steering wheel, padding the end of the exposed shaft with a rag to avoid painful contact with the raw end.

The lazarette hatch was in poor condition and would require some repair, and the piano hinge securing it was similarly poor, with rusted fasteners that eventually ceded to my removal demands; having the hatch out of the way eased access to the locker so I could remove the bolts securing the two center stern pulpit stanchions, along with a flagpole holder.  I also removed some old hardware from the seat area above the helm (there was no cover for this and I planned to build one later), and a few installations in the cockpit well, including the engine instrument panel (which I’d previously noticed was already disconnected).

Next, I returned to the port cockpit locker to remove the remaining hardware from this side, including the port-side pulpit base, a mooring cleat, and the three chainplates.  Two of the three chainplate locations here had already had their fiberglass sheathing removed at some point in the past, exposing the chainplates for relatively easy removal.  The forwardmost chainplate still had its fiberglass in place over the chainplate, but by removing the nuts and hammering through the bolts, I more or less easily pushed the light tabbing away, allowing me to then rip it mostly free by hand.  The chainplate beneath was corroded, and water ran out when I removed the fiberglass.  Later, I’d return and further clean up the old glass, but for now I had the chainplate free and that’s what mattered.

To ease access to the furthest reaches of this locker, I removed the exhaust hose from its outlet, and then a tailpiece fitting, all of which cleared the way for me to reach the nuts securing the final hardware above.  From there, it was relatively simple to remove whatever nuts I could from beneath and install vice-grips on the remainder so I could spin the fasteners off from above.

The starboard locker didn’t allow the same access, with the top of the quarterberth protruding, as well as some pumps and hoses at the aft end of the locker.  To begin, I removed the locker lid and hinges here as well, then removed a horrible rusted old electrical box from the space.  Then, I removed the final stanchion base, located just outboard and reachable from inside the locker.

Next, I turned to the coaming bolts.  I could reach most of the nuts while reaching into the locker from the cockpit, and did so.  The furthest bolt aft was out of reach, and since I wasn’t worried about salvaging the coamings, I thought nothing of grinding off the bolt head from outside and pushing through the stud; I also did this on a couple reluctant bolts in the winch island.

Afterwards, I easily pried the coaming away and removed it.  I was pleased that the coamings had been removable with so much less effort than I’d anticipated.

I removed the bolts from the forward two sets of chainplates on this side, with a fair bit of effort and contorting.  Unfortunately, I lost the center chainplate into the bilge somewhere when the last bolt, which I’d been fighting for some time (the holes in the chainplates and the knees themselves were small and held the bolts tightly), came free suddenly, and the chainplate dropped down out of the slot.  This was annoying, but of little matter since it was clear all six of these after chainplates would require replacement.  I couldn’t reach the aftermost chainplate from the cockpit and left it in place for the moment.

All that remained was the final pulpit base, a mooring cleat, and a couple small pieces of hardware on the starboard poop deck.  Access to this area from beneath was theoretically possible by crawling from the port locker and through a narrow-ish passage between the aft end of the cockpit and the steering gear locker, but after considering it for a time–it was late in the day after a long week–I declined to crawl in there.  Instead, I drilled out the fasteners for the remaining hardware from above, allowing me to remove all the hardware.  I’d deal with the final chainplate another time, and would worry about reinstalling the hardware and the access here when the time came.

With the extended hardware removal stage now complete–much of it had been a fight–I looked forward to getting on with the deck inspection and repairs starting next time.

Total time billed on this job today:  7.25 hours

0600 Weather Observation:  Partly clear, 20°.  Forecast for the day:  Sunny, 38°

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Thursday

Preparing to move aft into the cockpit and after deck areas, my first chore was to clean out the various equipment stored in the two cockpit lockers.  I added it to the pile I’d accumulated in the other shop.  The starboard cockpit locker, shown in the first photo, was shallow as the quarterberth extended into this area, and this feature would greatly compromise access to the after sidedeck and poop deck.  Access to other areas from the port locker, which was full-depth, was good.

First, though, I wanted to wrap up the work in the cabin and coachroof.  All that remained for now was the old teak handrails, which were through-bolted to the cabin trunk and, in the after four bolt locations, blind-bolted to a corresponding pair of short handrails in the main cabin.  Earlier, I’d removed any nuts from inside that I could, but had already run into several that spin the fasteners (hidden inside the top rail beneath bungs).  I was prepared to take whatever steps were required to attempt to remove the existing rails intact, as they were in fair condition if weathered and somewhat worn down by the ravages of time, but after talking it over with the owner we decided that there was no need to spend the time on a careful removal, as it made more sense to replace the rails in any event.

So rather than laboriously removing bungs and fighting with old and buried fasteners, I simply chiseled out the fasteners at each location, breaking free the handrails and exposing all the fasteners on both sides.  Not a pretty process, but efficient.  Then, I cut off the heads with a cutoff wheel, and pushed through the studs, completing the handrail removal in short order.  I pulled free the interior rails with the cut fasteners still installed and set these aside for possible re-use.

One of my tasks for later on was to inspect and address as necessary all the chainplates.  To gain better access to the starboard main chainplates, two sets of which were located inside the hanging locker, I removed the interior locker doors, which in the narrow passageway made access to the locker inconvenient.    I’d get to the chainplates in more details soon, but for the moment my goal was to finish all the hardware removal in the after part of the boat.

Ignoring for now the lack of access to the starboard side outboard and aft of the cockpit, I focused on the port side, starting with the winch island, on which was installed the sheet winch and, on this side, two cleats.  After easily removing the winch drum to expose the innards and the bolts securing the winch to the island, I prepared to remove the winch, only to discover that the design of the winch base and its mechanisms–along with the fact that someone had used hex-head bolts to secure the winch–limited access to some of the bolt heads, which wouldn’t allow a socket or wrench to fit the hex head.  The base was designed for flat head machine screws, with countersunk holes milled into the base, and it would have been possible to get a screwdriver or driver bit onto such fasteners, but the hex heads in three of the six locations did not allow for wrench access as is.

With the nuts removed, my first thought was to simply pry up the winch base, bolts and all, and deal with removing the bolts from the bases later.  However, the base was immobile when I attempted to pry beneath, stuck either because the bolts were corroded into the aluminum backing plate, or else with sealant (which would later prove to be the case).  Instead, I realized I could remove more of the winch housing to increase access to the bolt locations, a simple–if frustratingly unnecessary–matter of removing four Allen screws, after which I could remove center part of the winch.  This freed the two large gears, which were directly in the way of the fastener heads.  I lifted off one of the gears only to find that it contained loose roller bearings–who knew?  These scattered about, but fortunately I contained them all and despite my initial disbelief and annoyance, I found that reassembling them would be easier than I’d feared.  Never mind the poor design and installation that led to this requirement in the first place.  That’s a topic for an other time.  All that mattered right now was removing the hardware.

With the gear out of the way (I left the second gear in place, not wanting to tempt fate), I eventually managed–still with difficulty–to remove the remaining fasteners.  The winch base was still solidly adhered to the island, so before prying it off I reinstalled the gear and its bearings, and the housing to secure them back in place, before finally and with substantial effort with a flat bar managing to pull the winch free, along with a good chunk of the winch island beneath.  Apparently this winch was installed with an adhesive sealant.  These are among the reasons that something so seemingly simple as taking off a few screws can take such a long time on these old boats.  And here I was, thinking that by starting with the winch islands I’d be starting with the easiest thing.

Armed with my hard-won knowledge, I turned to the starboard winch island.  This time, everything went more easily, as I was prepared for what I needed to do.  While I still had to remove more of the winch innards than anyone would ever thing would be appropriate for such a basic task, this time I avoided removing the gears completely, but even so there was one bolt that I could only back out so far before the angle simply prohibited the head from passing by the gear above.  But it was loose enough that I could pry the winch off the island, including the single recalcitrant bolt, and on this side of the boat the winch didn’t seem to have the huge blob of adhesive beneath, so the base came off more easily and without undue damage to the boat.  Even so, this silliness with the winches took up the entire balance of the morning, when I’d expected it to take not even half that.

Before moving into the cockpit locker, I removed the locker lid hinges, setting aside for now the heavy locker lid and providing unfettered access to the space.  There was ample room in the locker to move around and reach most of the fasteners I needed to, though it was a long, narrow reach to the poop deck, which I discovered now was not accessible from the hatch in the middle of the deck (which provided access only to the sealed, watertight compartment containing the worm steering gear and its opening through the transom).

I removed whatever nuts I could:  all but one of the coaming bolts, and a few others, but had to resort to vice-grips on a number of the fasteners that spun when I tried to remove the nuts.  The coaming bolts were 2″ longer than they had to be, but fortunately in most cases I only had to break free the nuts before I could spin them off by hand.  The forwardmost chainplate was still embedded in the builder’s original fiberglass, but the after two were exposed, which was a plus.

After some time curled up in the locker, I was ready to return to deck to remove the fasteners I’d prepared,which finally freed the after stanchion base, an abandoned water tank fill, and most of the coaming bolts.

The original coamings were in poor condition, heavily weathered and blackened, and the owner chose replacement.  It looked to me like the coamings might be heavily bedded and adhered to the boat with sealant (or, worse, 5200), as I could see a continuous line of sealant along the entire top edge of the deck where it met the coaming.  So I was prepared for the worst in removal:  that is, that I might need to break them free piece by piece, something I’ve had to do before on other projects.  There were three bolts still in place through the top edge of the winch island, but fortunately these weren’t too tough to remove (one of the heads eventually spun off and broke free of the stud, which was good because I was getting nowhere with the nut).

With all the fasteners removed, I used a 5-in-1 tool to begin to slice and loosen the sealant bead.  Imagine my surprise when the coaming began to pop free with little resistance.  It didn’t take long for me to loosen the entire length and pop free the coaming in one piece:  a real bonus, not only because it took less effort than expected but also because it gave me the old coaming as a template for the new, all of which was at least a modicum of compensation for the difficulties earlier in the day.

With the coaming out of the way, and a little time left in the day, I removed the deck plates from the three after chainplate locations, and also a U-shaped bracket from the sidedeck.

Total time billed on this job today:  7.25 hours

0600 Weather Observation:  26°, clear.  Forecast for the day:  Sunny, 40°

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Wednesday

To start the day, I finished uninstalling the forward hatch, removing the two after hinges–the pair that was in use securing the hatch.  These were screwed through the deck and into the wooden bulkhead/mast support beam beneath.  From here, I continued aft on the coachroof, removing a pair of solar vents and two awkward crossbars above the companionway that previous owners had used to store a large dinghy.  The forward crossbar was secured to some wooden brackets that were epoxied to the deck, while the after, more substantial bracket was bolted through the cabin top.

Next, I removed the fiberglass sea hood, which was secured with screws around its perimeter and sealed to the deck with old sealant.  Removal posed no problem.  Afterwards, I removed the sliding companionway hatch, which required removing some small bronze slides at the aft end to allow the hatch to be lifted off.  Removing these hatches would make refinishing easier and allow access to the area hidden beneath.  This cleared the coachroof, other than the long teak handrails that I planned to remove later.

The mainmast chainplates had deck covers made from Tuffnol, which were heavily bedded in place.  To expose the slots and allow the deck work ahead, as well as service the chainplates, I removed these covers from both sides.

Working my way down the decks, I removed an old plastic waste deck plate after removing its hose beneath; the plastic was in poor condition and shattered upon removal.  This area of the deck, amidships on the port side, was one of the known areas requiring deck core replacement, and this was made abundantly clear by the condition of the core inside the waste fill hole.

As before, I removed the two remaining opening ports, one in the head, the opposite in the passageway to starboard.  The trim ring on the port aft unit was cracked through at one of the screw holes before removal.

I removed a pair of short jib tracks located near the coachroof, then the second pair of stanchion bases.  At the aft end of the cabin trunk, I removed the running lights and a pair of small jam cleats from the nearby coaming, along with all the dodger snaps and other hardware.

The four deadlights in the saloon were the generally typical type, with the lenses secured in an aluminum outer frame and an aluminum inner trim ring to clamp the whole assembly into place, with blind fasteners from the inside.  The exterior edges of the deadlights were all heavily caked in old sealant, largely silicone, creating a miserable appearance that probably did little for any leakage problems as well.

The inside condition of the frames was in generally good condition, though the starboard forward frame had a few areas of corrosion.

Most of the fasteners came out easily enough, and mainly appeared to be newer than original, since nearly all of them were Phillips head screws (other than four slotted ones in the starboard forward frame), and the six fasteners along the long top and bottom edges were self-tapping screws versus machine screws on the vertical edges.  In any event, the only fasteners than gave me any real trouble were, naturally, the old round-head slotted screws located at the two areas of worst corrosion on the starboard forward frame.  After some effort, I happily freed both screws, but I was quite concerned that the worst one, in the lower aft corner, might not come out at all.  As with the opening ports, I kept track of the fastener locations as I removed them from each deadlight.

With all the interior frames removed, I could remove the outer frames and lenses from on deck.  For now, I set these all aside for later attention, along with the other ports I’d removed.

Total time billed on this job today:  7 hours

0600 Weather Observation:  Light rain, 53°.  Forecast for the day:  Showers ending, clearing, high in the 50s but becoming colder

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Tuesday

With substantial deck work and eventual refinishing on the way, my first step was to remove deck hardware.  I began, as usual, at the stem and worked my way aft.  From inside the almost comfortably roomy chainlocker, I removed the nuts from the fasteners securing the manual anchor windlass above, along with those from the bow cleats.  Fortunately, these nuts came free without spinning the fasteners, even though the windlass bolts were a couple inches too long with lots of exposed thread.

Back on deck, I removed the windlass and cleats, along with the fasteners.    The chain stripper associated with the windlass was nearly completely rusted away.  The platform itself was in atrocious condition at the after end.

I removed the bow pulpit, which was bolted through the outward flange of the hull/deck joint and toerail, making the fasteners easy to access.  The central forward stanchion of the pulpit was secured into the bronze stem fitting at the end of the bow platform with a single bolt, and this was straightforward to remove.  I also removed the bow chocks, which I realized belatedly was unnecessary since they were on the rail and not in the way of deck work, along with an anchor hawse and some wooden blocking on the port side.

Removing the windlass highlighted the extremely poor condition of the wooden bow platform:  the after end was completely rotten and unsound, and compressed and flaked away easily under light (or no) pressure.  I’d been aware that the platform’s condition was sketchy, but hadn’t understood quite to what extent.  It was abysmal.  With the windlass and its bolts removed, I could have easily pulled away most of the after portion of the wood by hand had I so chosen, but I hoped to keep the platform as intact as possible to aid in templating a replacement later.

In order to remove the platform, I had to unhook the solid rod bobstay beneath, which opposed the rigging pressures from the headstay when attached to the bronze casting at the far end of the platform.  The top fitting was semi buried in a tight space between the two aluminum anchor rollers at the end, and I couldn’t easily access the cotter pin nor spin the clevis to aid in removal.  In hindsight I should have just unbolted the pair of anchor rollers to remove them and access the pin, but at the time I preferred the thought of doing this later at my leisure, wanting more to simply get the platform off the boat.  So I removed the pins from the lower end of the bobstay, freeing it from the stem and also freeing the platform for removal.  The downside to this was that the platform was end-heavy, with all the hardware at the outer end, and the long, heavy, unwieldy bobstay only made things worse.  In the end this complicated removal, but didn’t prevent it and didn’t create any undue problems.

From belowdecks, I attempted briefly to remove the nuts from the platform fasteners, but it was clear the fasteners were all spinning freely in the remnants of rotted wood above, so instead I decided to simply lift the platform off the fasteners–pretty simple given that the wood was so rotted.  Before removal, I took a few moments to make a quick template of the shape of the top of the platform, in case the platform disintegrated complely during removal.

It only took a little prying from beneath before I could lift the outer end of the platform and free it completely from the deck.  The platform was quite heavy with all the hardware at the end, and the nearly 4′ long rigid bobstay was a pain in the neck, but without real issue I got the platform safely onto the foredeck, where I could regroup before lifting it more effectively and getting it to the staging, then eventually to the shop floor.

There was a substantial block of epoxy surrounding one of the after fastener holes, indicating that someone had tried to effect a band-aid repair when the platform had begun to deteriorate; there was also a huge blob of sealant at the after port edge, at deck level, where someone had filled in rotting wood with whatever came close to hand.    In any event, I removed the detritus and later, after cleaning up the wood scraps and dust, I cut off the bolts above decks and pushed them through the holes.

Now, wanting the bobstay out of the way completely, I had to go ahead and remove the anchor rollers from the end of the platform so I could remove the cotter pin and hammer out the extremely tight clevis from the top fitting, finally freeing the bobstay.  I set this aside for later inspection, then completed the removal of the bronze stem casting, which would be reused later.  The aluminum anchor rollers were in poor condition and had exacerbated (along with the aluminum anchor windlass) the deterioration of the wooden platform.  In any event, the owner planned for a new, single roller in the new installation.

Continuing aft, I turned to the first set of lifeline stanchions, a mismatched pair with a non-angled base on the port side, causing the stanchion to lean outwards.  Belowdecks, I removed some trim panels from the forward cabin to gain access to the stanchion bolts, which I removed without incident.

The forward cabin had a set of deadlights facing forward, along with a pair of aluminum opening ports.  From inside, I removed cap nuts from the fasteners, then carefully removed the screws from the outside.  I always keep track of screw locations when removing ports and deadlights on boats like this, as I’ve found that the fasteners are often different lengths depending on position.  Once I’d removed the screws, I carefully pried off the opening port trim rings, which were well-sealed with what was likely the original bedding compound, a soft, oily, flexible material roughly comparable to a mix between window glazing compound, plumbers putty, and butyl.  Effective and good stuff,  the likes of which I’ve not seen in modern products.

With the trim rings off (the trim rings were inside on the deadlights, which had the glass set in the outer frame), I removed the ports and deadlights from the forward cabin.  I’d clean off the excess sealant later.

To round out the day, I removed two hatch hinge bases from the forward side of the forward hatch.

Total time billed on this job today:  7.25 hours

0600 Weather Observation:  30°, mostly cloudy.  Forecast for the day:  Increasing clouds, showers, then rain into and through the overnight, temperatures rising into the 50s

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Monday

Earlier, I’d moved Jasmine from my secondary work bay and into the main shop, where I planned to complete the bulk of the project.

To begin, I set up staging around the boat at deck height to allow good access to all deck areas.

Ready to get to work in earnest on this project, I spent a little time first thing perusing various notes and emails to refresh myself on the scope of the project and various jobs ahead.  The main focus of the job in the coming weeks would be the deck, which featured several areas with known or suspect core issues and all the usual shortfalls of boats of this age.  In addition, my work list included a revamped electrical system, chainplate work, particularly on the mizzen mast, and some other related projects, plus installing a Norvane wind vane.   In addition, I’d be subcontracting a fair bit of rigging work to ensure the masts and their standing and running rigging were in good shape.  The net result of the project was to ensure a sound and safe vessel by taking care of these known and suspected issues.

Before beginning any real work, I thoroughly documented the existing condition of the decks and hardware for future reference.  These photos represent the overall condition of things, but I had many others on hand to show specifics on installations and initial condition.

I’d soon begin work on hardware removal, but first I had to clean out the cabin, which contained various boat parts, some sails, and miscellaneous equipment.

I needed clear access to all areas of the boat in order to effect the work ahead, and didn’t want anything unnecessary left behind to minimize worries about project dust and the like, so over the course of the afternoon, I removed and stored these items elsewhere in the shop to make room, leaving the way clear to begin the deck work next time.

Total time billed on this job today:  5 hours

0600 Weather Observation:  20°, clear.  Forecast for the day:  Sunny, 40s