Lackey Sailing | tim lackey

Wednesday

Now that the backing block was complete, there was nothing holding me back from completing the centerboard winch installation. I bolted it into place with 3-1/2″ bronze bolts from inside, adding butyl sealant and washers/nuts from outside to hold the winch in place securely.

The centerboard cable had been wrapped and secured around the pole that led from the centerboard trunk to the overhead, and now I used a small jack to push and support the centerboard itself (which had been drooping down slightly from the keel) into its trunk so I could unwrap the cable and lead it to the winch. I secured the bitter end of the cable within the winch drum, and then tightened the drum with the handle to take up the cable accordingly, completing the installation.

The new 13RH10 3-blade propeller was now on hand, so I installed it on the shaft.

Though there’d been no evidence originally (from when the boat arrived here) of debris screens over the cockpit scuppers, they’d clearly shown a propensity to clog with debris through their wide-open tops, so I installed simple screens over the openings to keep out large pieces of debris.

I’d purchased batteries for the boat earlier in the week, and now I installed them: a group 24 starter battery, and a group 27 house battery. All the wiring was already in place and awaiting the installation. Afterwards, I tested all the lighting aboard and everything I could for now.

Continuing the minor repair to the port coachroof edge, I sanded the epoxy from last time, preparing it for primer. After masking off, I applied a few coats of white epoxy-based primer to the area.

Total time billed on this job today: 2.5 hours

0600 Weather Observation:
40°, clear. Forecast for the day: mainly sunny, 60

< Back to Patience

Wednesday

The primer had cured overnight, and now I lightly sanded it with 220 grit paper to prepare it for the next steps, and to smooth the surface. Afterwards, I vacuumed and solvent-washed.

My next steps would include masking the actual stripes below the top line, and I chose to let the primer cure for another day before proceeding with overmasking. Although there was other work I could do on this boat not related to the boottop, it was a good chance to move forward a couple other projects I had going on outside at the shop, so I spent most of the day on those boats.

Total time billed on this job today: 1.25 hours

0600 Weather Observation:
40°, clear. Forecast for the day: mainly sunny, 60

< Back to Patience

Tuesday

I spent the first part of the day leveling the boat accurately from side to side, and cleaned up the lower part of the hull to prepare it for the layout work ahead for the new striping.

Afterwards, I set up my special 3D marking system to strike and mark the waterline (aka top of the bottom paint). At the stem, I used the existing paint line as my mark, as all indications suggested this was a good point. I had to use more guesswork at the stern, where there was not as clear an indication of the actual waterline. There was a light scum line on the rudder that helped, and I spent some time searching online for photos of other Laser 28s to help; there were few relevant photos that I could find that really showed me what I wanted to see, which was the stern quarters of a sistership out of the water, but after a while I got the idea, and made my mark at the aft side so I could set up the second cross beam. Ultimately, the chosen spot ended up 2-1/4″ above my best guess at the actual floating waterline, which corresponded to the height at the stem. This seemed to tie in with what limited information I could find online, and from the owner’s recollections.

With the beams set up and leveled at the final height, I strung a string between the two and, in my usual way, marked the waterline on both sides. Doing this on a boat with a suspect waterline is always a leap of faith, and here was no exception. Though I knew that the after part of the bottom paint on this boat was wonky, I was surprised to find that the new and level, planar line demarked by the red string was as much above the old line as it was and as far forward as this extended, even though the forward end was at the original starting point. But the new marks looked good when viewed properly, and created the correct shape for the new line at the aft end, where the flat aft sections of the boat exited the waterline plane. The idea of this exercise is for the lines to appear visually straight in profile. In this way, I made a series of tick marks on both sides of the hull to demark the new waterline.

Afterwards, I masked to the new marks, leaving the top edge of the tape at the marks to signify the eventual top edge of the bottom paint. But all the striping would occur above, and down to, this line.

The new striping scheme the owner requested would include two main stripes: a wider, lower stripe in one color, and a narrower, upper stripe in a different color, both to match a color scheme he had in mind. This boat had high topsides that offered plenty of room for striping options, and in addition to properly laying out the new striping, the new appearance would help lower the visual height of the topsides, which as of now were a sort of featureless white expanse. So with all this in mind, I laid out on a piece of paper my thoughts for the new striping as a mockup, which I then taped in place in a couple places on the hull so I could get a visual sense of how the new stripes worked. The overall height of the new scheme was 5″ from bottom to top, and would include two hull-color (white) bands to separate the stripes from each other and from the bottom paint as well.

From bottom to top, the mockup shows a 1″ white band; then a 2-1/2″ wide band (light blue); then a 3/4″ white band; and finally a 3/4″ top stripe (red). The tall topsides offered ample room for the overall height of this new boottop.

Satisfied with my mockup, I prepared to move on with the preparation and marking. After some thought, I decided to strike the topmost line (5″ above the waterline) and sand and prime the entire area beneath it all at once before doing the final striping. Although there were two hull color bands in the stripe, the lower one would have to be painted separately anyway, since the position of the waterline had changed and I’d sanded away the mess of the old boottop, and although the second hull color band could have worked as is, on balance I thought the process would work better–and the end result be better–if I didn’t try to tape and sand each line individually from the getgo. While this would eventually lead to an additional painting step, I thought that compromise was preferable and that sanding and priming the whole area en masse would be faster, easier, and more efficient in the end.

To this end, I moved my cross beams up the required 5″ at each end, leveling them in turn, and then I marked the new top edge of the boottop at this height, masking it off afterwards. While this looked foolishly high and wide by itself, remember that this is just the top edge, and that the area beneath would be filled with multiple stripes later.

With the whole boottop area now defined and masked, I sanded the area within as required, using 80-120 grit paper. The existing hull paint was generally in fair condition and suitable for use as a substrate in this case, so I made no attempt to remove it all, instead simply sanding the area till it was properly scuffed and prepared for the work ahead. Afterwards, I vacuumed and solvent washed the area. The stern quarters took a bit more work, as I had to clean up the old transition where the old bottom paint had been, and also remove a bit of additional bottom paint at the very stern and just above the newly-taped waterline, where I’d not removed enough during my early round of sanding the day before.

To round out the day, I applied a coat of white primer over the entire boottop area.

Total time billed on this job today: 8 hours

0600 Weather Observation:
40°, clear. Forecast for the day: Mainly sunny, high in the low 60s

< Back to Patience

Monday

Patience was back for another round of small-ish maintenance and upgrade projects. To begin, I’d moved the boat indoors a few days earlier.

With a short laundry list of jobs on the work list, including replacing some deck hardware, replacing the cabin sole, and patching an old through hull, I decided to start with arguably the most significant project: a new boottop and striping arrangement. The existing boottop was a length of 2″ vinyl tape just above the waterline, and was in poor condition. Additionally, the waterline was rather oddly arranged at the aft end, and I hoped to redo it more accurately.

A light scum line indicated the actual waterline, which over most of the boat looked to be mostly in a good position about 2″ below the top of the antifouling paint, so I made a couple reference marks for future reference. Then, I removed the old vinyl with a heat gun; the old material was scarred and scratched, and didn’t pull off cleanly.

The new plan called for a double stripe in two colors and spaced a bit above the top of the bottom paint, and with the condition of the paint and the position of the existing line at the aft I’d have to repaint that lower band in the hull color anyway (white), so to remove the rest of the adhesive I used a sander, cleaning off the remnants and preparing the lower part of the stripe area for new layout and paint. I also sanded down into the antifouling a bit to clean up that edge and give me a good taping area, and more substantially at the stern quarters where I thought the new lines might take rather a different path.

There’d be more sanding ahead as I started the layout for the new striping, which would take the top edge further up the hull than the original stripe (or my sanding line), but I’d get to that in due course and as needed. Meanwhile, I ordered various materials and hardware for the work ahead.

Total time billed on this job today: 4 hours

0600 Weather Observation:
40°, windy, cloudy. Forecast for the day: Mostly cloudy, windy, maybe a shower, high around 50

< Back to Salty

Wednesday

Now that the coupling was painted, I continued with the shaft installation. After inserting the shaft from outside, I installed the new coupling from inside the boat, then used a scrap of wood cut to 1-1/4″ width as a stand-in for the plastic sacrificial coupling that I’d eventually install between the shaft and transmission, but first I wanted to ensure that the shaft length was correct and as I specified, since the clearance with the rudder was so tight. I didn’t want to install the flexible coupling just yet since I needed to use the steel coupling to finish the engine alignment first.

Fortunately, the shaft length and clearance was correct.

Now I brought the couplings together inside the boat, and adjusted the engine as needed on its mounts to correct the initial alignment, which had the engine just a bit too far to port at the aft side. But overall, the engine position that I’d determined based on my plywood engine template was very close right from the start, and soon I could tighten all the mounting bolts to secure the engine in its final position.

Next, I pushed back the shaft and then installed it permanently using the plastic sacrificial and isolation coupling between the two steel flanges.

Down on the ground, I’d hoped to install the propeller, but I found to my dismay that I couldn’t seem to twist the very flat-pitched 3-blade prop onto the shaft and around the rudder. I tried various rudder positions and angles, to no avail, and with time running short on my available time on this day, I decided to approach it again another time. I thought the easiest way to increase clearance would be to remove the plastic coupling inside–the coupling that I’d only moments before labored to install with its eight bolts (sigh)–but this seemed far easier than removing the rudder. In any event, sometimes a fresh day makes all the difference, so I’d try anew a little later. Maybe I’d missed the one perfect angle where the prop would slide right on despite the rudder.

Total time billed on this job today: 2.75 hours

0600 Weather Observation:
32°, clear. Forecast for the day: Sunny, 60s

< Back to Waanderlust

Wednesday

The new spruce mast arrived early in the morning, brought down from the builder’s shop near Bar Harbor. We unloaded the mast using my gantry crane in the shop, and later I moved it outdoors to some sawhorses for short-term storage. The new spar looked terrific, and matched the old one in detail.

Total time billed on this job today: 1.5 hours

0600 Weather Observation:
32°, clear. Forecast for the day: Sunny, 60s

< Back to Salty

Tuesday

After a lengthy production delay, the new propeller shaft finally arrived, and I wasted no time checking the measurements to ensure it corresponded to my order.

I looked forward to installing the shaft soon, which would allow me to do the final engine alignment and secure the engine permanently, but first I wanted to paint the raw steel coupling, and over the course of the afternoon I applied primer and paint to the piece.

Total time billed on this job today: 0.5 hours

0600 Weather Observation:
32°, clear. Forecast for the day: sunny, high in the mid-60s

< Back to Waanderlust

Tuesday

The owner shipped me the original bronze worm-drive centerboard winch, which mounted to the bulkhead above the galley on the port side. While the exterior holes had been covered over by new paneling long before, the interior bolt holes and shaft hole were still in place to dictate the installation location.

Since part of the winch rested on the trim at the top edge of the bulkhead, I needed a block of corresponding thickness below to support the rest of the winch, so I cut an oversized blank from 3/4″ mahogany and, over two stages, scribed it to match the curvature of the trim, and narrowed the original blank to leave a consistent exposure on each side of the winch. For now, I left the length long for later sizing and trimming. I marked the location on the bulkhead with some pencil marks on tape.

Now I drilled through the cabin trunk from the inside, using the original winch shaft hole as a guide, penetrating the teak paneling on the exterior. I also drilled the four bolt holes to secure the winch. With the backing block held tightly in place in the right position, I marked the location of the large shaft hole from outside, so I could drill it in the backing block and then position the winch to mark and drill the final bolt holes as needed.

With the winch temporarily in place, I checked the fit of the handle, and marked the bottom of the mahogany backing block for its final dimension. Back inside at the bench, I cut off the excess length from the block and shaped and sanded it to prepare for varnish, several sprayed coats of which I applied throughout the remainder of the day.

To help protect the inside of the shaft hole from moisture, I coated it with a thickened epoxy mixture.

At the port after edge of the cabin trunk, over the past six years since the main exterior work had been completed (this project sat idle for many years between then and now), some cracking had formed where the plywood cabin trunk met the teak paneling at the cockpit bulkhead. This was an area that had been worked on sometime before the boat ever came my way, and I’d not done any additional work here, other than the usual sanding and surface prep before priming and painting. With extensive repair work going on elsewhere, the raised after portion of the coachroof was one of the areas that seemed sound and didn’t require resheathing, but in hindsight this seam should have been dealt with. That said, it took six years to manifest itself in this cracking, so there you are.

This is how this area looked in May 2010, at the very beginning of the project. Please feel free to review the original condition of this boat as well.

Regardless of the reasons behind it, I didn’t want to leave it as is. So I ground out and cleaned out the cracking as needed and filled the minor voids with a thickened epoxy mixture, which I left to cure in the hot sun. I wasn’t going to fully cure the potential ills of this junction, but this repair would keep out water and hopefully prevent a recurrence.

I found that one of the breaker switches on the panel in the galley had been broken off, so I replaced the breaker with a new one, a quick process. Meanwhile, I finalized prep work on a hull patch I’d made during the last work phase some months earlier, where I’d filled an old transducer hole in the bottom, and applied bottom paint over the epoxy repair.

Total time billed on this job today: 2.75 hours

0600 Weather Observation: 32°, clear. Forecast for the day: sunny, high in the mid-60s

< Back to Waanderlust

Monday

Over the past week or two, I’d removed the winter cover and framework, and reinstalled the lifelines. Now, with the boat open and available for work, I turned to some of the items on my very short list to finish up the project. With minimal work at hand, I saw no reason to move Waanderlust indoors, and would complete the project outside.

First on my task list was to install a new composting toilet. During the previous work phase on this project, I’d revamped the head compartment, creating a simple, clean, and open space for the new toilet. The owner selected Nature’s Head, and in due course I ordered the unit and unpacked it at the shop.

Installation in this case was pleasingly straightforward. The toilet was self-contained, perhaps the greatest advantage to composters, and there was ample room for it in the fairly large head compartment. Even better, there was already a cowl vent and quasi-Dorade box overhead, making for a convenient location for the required venting system for the toilet. To begin, I installed the supplied plastic hose connection flange over the opening in the overhead with screws and, to avoid any nuisance water that might enter the vent above, sealant.

Following the directions, I installed the toilet to the plywood floor with the supplied brackets, mounting it 1-1/2″ from the bulkhead (which allowed the lid to tip up and rest comfortably, and provided enough room to tip back the top part of the toilet for inspection and removal of the top for interior service).

There was a small 12V fan built into the side of the toilet, and to this housing I attached the supplied length of hose and ran it to the overhead vent.

The fan featured a one-prong power plug and harness, which allowed convenient disconnection for when the toilet required servicing or cleaning. I ran the harness along the bulkhead and into an adjacent compartment, where I’d eventually connect it to a wire pair leading aft to the batteries.

This completed the installation work for the toilet itself.

Since the little fan needed to run all the time for proper usage, I chose to lead the wires directly to an “always hot” terminal bar that I’d installed previously for the electric bilge pump. This terminal was powered whether or not the battery switch was turned on. I ran in a wire pair along a pre-existing wire route through the engine room, galley, and behind the port berth, and made up the connections at each end as required, incorporating a fuse at the hot end.

To cover the interior opening of the second cowl vent through the overhead, located at the forward end of the main cabin, I installed a metal vent screen.

In other news, my upholstery contractor had recently completed and installed new interior cushions for the boat, which looked terrific and really finished off the clean, bright interior.

Total time billed on this job today: 3.25 hours

0600 Weather Observation:
33°, clear. Forecast for the day: Mostly sunny, windy, high in the low 50s

< Back to Precision 23

Friday

The steaming light (officially called a masthead light regardless of position) on the mast near the spreaders required new wiring, or at least new wiring seemed prudent since it would be simple to do and the old wiring’s condition was unknown. I removed the light from the mast, noting the wire color conventions and placement of the terminals, then pulled in a new length of 14/2 wire, using the old wire to do the job.

Next, I made up the light end of the wires, installing new ring terminals to the light fixture and reinstalling the fixture to the front of the mast. Then, I stripped the wire ends at the bottom and temporarily hooked them to a battery so I could check the light’s operation: all good.

At the bottom end, I left enough wire slack and made up the end to the existing 2-prong plug, which mated with the one on deck. I double-checked the wiring conventions in each case to ensure that the plug polarity would be correct.

Now I put the mast back on deck, supporting it on the pulpits as it’d been upon arrival, and strung new wire lifelines through the stanchions. This completed my current task list, though the new cushions were still in production and would be ready in a couple weeks, probably.