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Salty 48

May 11, 2016 / tim lackey / Comments Off

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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

Waanderlust 3

May 11, 2016 / tim lackey / Comments Off

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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

Salty 47

May 10, 2016 / tim lackey / Comments Off

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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

Waanderlust 2

May 10, 2016 / tim lackey / Comments Off

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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

Waanderlust 1

May 9, 2016 / tim lackey / Comments Off

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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

Precision 10

May 6, 2016 / tim lackey / Comments Off

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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.

Total time billed on this job today: 2.5 hours

0600 Weather Observation:
42°, cloudy. Forecast for the day: decreasing clouds (so they say), high in the 60s. Dare we hope? It’s been a dismal week.

Precision 9

May 5, 2016 / tim lackey / Comments Off

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Thursday

It’d been a busy week filled with other (unrelated) complications that limited my time in the shop, but fortunately this project was winding down anyway, with only a few tasks remaining on the list before completion.

To begin, I painted the bottom with black bottom paint, removing the masking tape afterwards.

With a raw and miserable, and wet-ish, day outside, later on I moved the mast indoors next to the boat so I could get started on the work required. The two new halyards had arrived from the rigger, along with replacement lifelines, so I strung in the new halyards, using the messenger lines I’d installed when removing the old ones at the beginning of the project.

The old VHF cable to the masthead was shot, at least at the bottom end, so I prepared to run in a new one. I tried using the old cable to pull through the new, but the way the exit hole at the top of the mast was, the cable didn’t pull in cleanly, and the old cable parted from the tape I’d used to secure the two together, so instead I had to use a wire snake pushed down the mast to string a messenger line, which line I then used to pull through the new cable from top to bottom. Then, I made up the ends, completing that assembly.

All that remained was to rewire the masthead (by technical definition) located near the spreaders, but I’d do that next time.

Total time billed on this job today: 2.75 hours

0600 Weather Observation:
44°, clouds and drizzle. Forecast for the day: 44°, clouds and drizzle.

lh7

May 4, 2016 / tim lackey / Comments Off

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Wednesday

With the season around the corner, and the owner’s launch date a week or so hence, we made arrangements to get together and install the new sail track systems on both masts. Earlier, we’d done all the required measuring, obtaining the internal track size specifications and overall lengths for the two tracks, and the owner had subsequently ordered them. With the masts removed from their indoor storage shed by the boatyard, we could wrap up the installation. I took few pictures, unfortunately, remembering only at the end when the tracks were complete.

Along with the new track on the mizzen mast, the owner wanted to lower the gooseneck (and therefore the boom) for easier access from the cockpit. The boom height had been surprisingly (and, frankly, inconveniently/dangerously) high from a practical standpoint, making furling and covering the sail a real hassle, and with ample headroom beneath, there was no reason other than aesthetics (the mizzen boom height, as original, was sort of tied in with the main boom height so they looked visually level) not to lower the boom. Since the old mizzen sail was a rag in poor condition, and lacking battens, the owner wanted a new sail made anyway, so it was the perfect opportunity to move the boom height.

I started by removing the mizzen gooseneck, as its existing position was in the way of the track. Then, I had to use a Dremel tool to open up the mast slot a couple feet above the gooseneck, where the track would actually be installed; the existing slot was too short by half, and was open only on one side of the slot. I’d opened up part of a slot on the mainmast much earlier, in order to fit one of the old sail slides at the time, so I was already familiar with the process. Fortunately, the cutting went well and quickly, and we were soon able to install the track in accordance with the instructions. The installation went swimmingly, and afterwards, I reinstalled the gooseneck a foot or so lower, at a location we’d determined previously. We’d carefully measured the track so the track as provided was the exactly correct length.

Moving on to the mainmast, I also had to open up the second side of the existing track slot, as this one was open only on one side as well. With that complete, we installed the track, which went just as well as the smaller one on the mizzen mast. I didn’t have to remove the gooseneck in this case. Overall, the installation on both masts, including setup and opening the mast slots as needed, went much more quickly than I’d ever hoped, taking only about two hours.

I wrapped up my end of this project with a couple odds and ends, including restringing the top line of the main’s lazy jack system, which I’d rigged incorrectly the year before, and installing some new registration numbers on the bow for the owner.

Total time billed on this job today: 2.5 hours

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0600 Weather Observation:
45°, cloudy. Forecast for the days: clouds, maybe a shower, high in the low 50s or upper 40s

Precision 8

May 3, 2016 / tim lackey / Comments Off

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Tuesday

As the work list wound down, I turned to one of the last jobs: replacing the boottop. The original, made from vinyl tape, was in poor condition.

With a heat gun, I removed the old striping tape. This took a long time since the old tape was so scarred and damaged, and it wasn’t possible to release and pull large sections, so it required plenty of scraping with a putty knife. This also left behind quite a bit of adhesive.

I used solvent and elbow grease to remove the old adhesive left behind.

Afterwards, I applied a new stripe from 2″ vinyl striping tape, like the original.

With other commitments, I’d had a late start and there was only a bit of time left in the day, so I used it to prepare the bottom for painting, first masking off the waterline as needed.

The trailer had keel guides, which blocked most of the keel, so I removed them for painting access. I’d await the painting till next time.

Total time billed on this job today: 4.5 hours

0600 Weather Observation:
44°, cloudy. Forecast for the day: Mostly cloudy, high in the 50s

Precision 7

May 2, 2016 / tim lackey / Comments Off

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Monday

Back at work after a long weekend, I found various new supplies on hand that I’d ordered earlier, so I got started with what I thought would be the simplest task: installing the new 6″ light fixture in the forward cabin, which I’d ordered after finding that the original was rusted and inoperable. Double-checking, I powered up the boat’s circuits and used a meter again on the exposed wires, getting the appropriate reading, so I connected the wires from the light fixture, only to find that it didn’t work. It took a few moments for me to realize that (silly me) I’d assumed that the red wire coming off the light was positive, and the black negative. As it happened, the wiring convention on this fixture was backwards, which a simple glance at the way the wires ran through the switch would have revealed, but one becomes quite conditioned to normal wire colors and their supposed meanings.

With the wiring reversed, the light operated, and I secured it to the overhead with screws, as per the original. This fixture also hid the wiring passing through the deck to the mast lighting.

Next, I turned to the scuppers. All parts were now on hand, so I completed the installation by installing the screened cockpit fittings along with elbows and hose adapters so I could lead hoses the short distance to the transom outlets. I debated crossing the hoses but found that I could get short lengths on to keep the drainage as short and direct as possible. Before final installation, I cut off excess thread length from the cockpit fittings to keep the elbows as close to the cockpit as possible. I installed the cockpit fittings in beds of sealant in their newly-built recesses.

Afterwards, I installed the plastic access hatch with machine screws and sealant.

Before it slipped my mind, I went ahead and installed the knotmeter impeller in its new through hull–the impeller was removable from inside for cleaning, ostensibly. I’d left this out during initial through hull installation and until the sealant had had adequate cure time.

The new outboard motor bracket pad had arrived, and I installed it.

My new cover plate for the instrument installation was complete, the new paint having had several days’ cure time, so I installed it over the old openings with screws and sealant, centering the new instrument holes over the old ones for access within.

Now I installed the two new instruments, securing them with the supplied clamps from behind, and made up the final wiring connections–power and transducer cables in each case. I found I could run these wires through a space between the fiberglass bulkhead and the wooden interior of the bulkhead for a clean appearance.

During an earlier wiring session, I’d run wire blanks from the nearby fuse panel for these instruments, and now I made up the final connections and secured the excess transducer cables out of the way beneath the cockpit. The instruments tested operational.

To complete the installation, I installed a teak cover over the interior side of the instruments. I had to build the original plywood cover out slightly to clear the wiring leads at the back of the instruments, but otherwise it was a clean interior appearance with no exposed instrument wires.

To access the underside of the galley sink and its supply faucet, I had to cut an access hole from the cabin, which I did now that I had the new access port on hand.

The supply fitting on the portable water tank was broken, and lacked a dip tube/hose to actually draw water from the tank, so I replaced the fitting with a new one that I luckily happened to have on hand, and fitted in a flexible dip tube to the bottom of the tank. Then, I led a new supply hose between the tank and the sink faucet, and, to wrap up the work, installed the new plastic inspection port in the opening beneath the sink.

Total time billed on this job today: 5.75 hours

0600 Weather Observation:
41°, clouds and showers. Forecast for the day: showers and rain, 40s

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