Friday
With the project at an end, and great weather that had continued for several weeks–and looked to continue more or less going forward–it was time to move Lively Heels back outdoors, where her owner could take care of his annual commissioning tasks before the boat was picked up here in a couple more weeks.
Total time billed on this job today: 1.5 hours
0600 Weather Observation: 35°, mostly cloudy. Forecast for the day: Sunny and windy, 56°
Thursday
With the extra materials I needed, I finished up work on the laptop desk for the pilothouse. With a short 3/8″ screw, I secured the rubber clamp beneath the table, and with a 1-1/4″ (70mm) M6 knurled screw to replace the original screw, the clamp became easy enough to install and remove without tools. This concept worked, but left the desk at a slight forward angle.
To allow the desk to sit more level, and be better supported by the console at the forward edge, I milled a strip of cherry 1″ wide on the short end, with a bottom angled to match that of the console. I secured this to the front edge of the desk with screws. This helped, but to further enhance it, I added some flexible rubber beneath the wooden support, which not only raised the desk just a bit, but cushioned and stabilized the desk against the console. With the cushioned wheel clamp in place, one could turn the wheel just slightly till the action essentially forced the desk more firmly into position, creating a pretty decent platform that was easy to install and remove, and satisfied the core job description.
My main complaint was that the wheel clamp was a bit harder to install than I would have liked, since the longest knurled hand fastener I could find was only just long enough to allow the clamp to spread open without removing the screw completely. A different type of hand screw might be available that could give the extra length desired.
If nothing else, this sort of Beta version, using the existing desk, could serve as a way to refine the concept going forward. While the owner and I discussed building from scratch, ultimately he decided that it was worth using the existing, modified table to see whether any refinements were necessary.
With work wrapped up, and a transport date only a few weeks hence, I unloaded my tools, lighting, and the like from the boat and cleaned things up before making other final preparations to move her outdoors in the immediate future, so the owner could finish his pre-launch chores.
Total time billed on this job today: 1.5 hours
0600 Weather Observation: 30°, snow shower. Forecast for the day: Snow and rain showers, then cloudy, windy, 42°
Thursday
Now that the backing plates were ready for installation, I could finish up the main halyard winch and cleat on the cabintop.
I continued with a third coat of varnish on the anchor platform block.
Next, I installed the stanchions in their bases. Each required two #8 screws to secure it through the base and into holes tapped in the stanchions.
I was still awaiting the cover plate I’d ordered for the backtstay chainplate, but the sealant securing the four main chainplates was cured now and I could trim and clean up around these bases.
Total time billed on this job today: 1.75 hours
0600 Weather Observation: 30°, snow shower. Forecast for the day: Snow and rain showers, then cloudy, windy, 42°
Wednesday
To install the anchor roller, I needed a spacer block to equal the height of the molded gunwale and small stem platform, on which block the end of the anchor roller would be supported and through which it would be bolted to the deck. With a piece of sipo cut slightly larger than I needed, I marked the rubrail height and trimmed the thickness down accordingly. Then, I scribed the curved shape at the end of the stem and cut this out so the block would follow the contours. After some additional test-fits and adjustments, trimming to final size, and rounding over the exposed corners, I ended up with the block I needed.
I held the block back enough from the stem that there’d be room for air and water to pass in front of it, then marked and drilled the three holes required for the anchor roller. Afterwards, I marked the deck with tape for future positioning and for eventual installation.
After final preparations, I applied a sealer coat of varnish to all sides of the block. By late in the day, the thinned coat had cured sufficiently for me to install a second coat all over as well.
While laying out the anchor roller, I also determined the locations for the bow chocks, and afterwards I installed these with new bronze fasteners.
The main halyard winch and its cleat required backing plates, which I made up from some 1/4″ fiberglass. Since these would be highly exposed in the main cabin, I painted them to match, applying two coats over the course of the day. Final installation of the hardware would come later, once the backing plates were ready.
For now, though, I could install the turning block at the forward end of the coachroof, using three #10 machine screws. The two holes at the center of the sheave were too close for anything but the silly little standard #10 washers, which are barely larger than the nut, if at all.
Armed with some genoa foot-length measurements from the owner, I confirmed the position of the genoa tracks, more or less as I’d laid out; the sheet leads would be somewhat aft of the lengths, so I left plenty of track for that while allowing room forward as well, for reefed or smaller sails.
I held the forward end of the track far enough aft of the stanchion base to allow cars to be installed or removed from that end (there was plenty of room at the aft end), then dry-installed the track along the gunwale, curving it in place to follow the shape of the deck. With three drilled-and-tapped fasteners holding the shape, I drilled out the remaining holes, then, with the track removed, finished the tapping and other preparations. Then, I installed the track in a bed of sealant, remembering to slide on the lead car before I installed the removable end stops.
On the starboard side, I positioned the track accordingly, 4″ aft of the stanchion base, and laid out the curve dry in the same way. In marking and drilling the remaining holes, I also had to slide the plastic end caps in place so I could drill their fastener holes. These little caps, which slide around the leg of the T-shaped track, are often tight fits with the track installed, so with some issues getting the cap in place at the aft end I first loosened the temporary screw there, to no avail, then removed it completely so I could fit in the end stop. An apparent molding error in the plastic piece meant that it simply wouldn’t go, so I trimmed it a bit with a knife and finally slipped it over the end of the track.
Here I made a stupid mistake. Happy to have the end cap finally in place after cursing its ill-fitting cheapness, I drilled the remaining bolt holes (the ones between the three screws holding the track in place)–except I’d removed the after screw to fit the end cap, and had forgotten to reinstall it, so the track was running straight from the central screw, rather than curved along the rail. This meant that the holes aft of center were in the wrong place, further outboard than they should have been. Since I’d been drilling from bow to stern, I hadn’t noticed the mistake till the last hole. This displeased me.
The only thing for it was to fill the mistaken holes with epoxy, which I did immediately, then set some heat lamps in place to cook the epoxy during lunch break. Fortunately, the track would hide most of these filled holes, but a couple at the aft end would require touch-up. Also fortunately, at least this was in an area of the deck slated for future refinishing rather than one that I’d just refinished. So the errors in my ways would be expunged during the next phase of the project. In any event, I deducted time from the day to make up for the foolish mistake.
Later, with the epoxy cured enough to move on, I repositioned the track properly and redrilled the after holes, then finished the installation with sealant, nuts, and washers. Only the after couple holes were visible (just) once the track was in place, and I planned to touch them up with some of the old deck paint on hand from the former refinishing project a decade before.
The owner had, during the previous summer, installed new stainless steel rubrail around most of the hull, but small sections at the quarters required rail installation, along with the transom. The transom piece, which was curved to fit, had come from another boat, while the side pieces were new and required trimming to fit.
Dry-fitting each side in turn, I determined where to cut the rubrail, then installed the trim pieces afterwards to finish up the perimeter of the hull.
Total time billed on this job today: 6 hours (after time subtracted)
0600 Weather Observation: 40°, mostly cloudy. Forecast for the day: Clouds, showers, and eventually rain, 54°
Tuesday
In the cockpit, I finished up with the installation of the starboard sheet winch.
Just aft, I installed a cleat for the roller furling line on a little pad that was already drilled for the cleat base (shown before cleanup).
I spent a good portion of the day working on the various installations on the poop deck, starting with the mooring cleats. Using old holes leftover from their previous installation, I installed these on each side with new fasteners and backing plates.
Next, I installed the stern chocks and a flagpole socket on the taffrail.
Since I was in the area, I remembered to bed and permanently install a through hull fitting for the bilge pump the owner had dry-installed on the starboard counter.
Now that the taffrail modification/repair was complete I could proceed with the final layout and installation of the stern pulpit. I started by centering the pulpit and getting the two aft bases where I wanted them, then secured each with a single screw for now through newly-tapped holes. Once the center of the pulpit was temporarily secured, I could lay out and mark the two forward bases, then remove the pulpit and drill, tap, and prepare all the fastener holes.
Afterwards, I installed the pulpit fully with new fasteners, sealant, and fiberglass backing plates, along with the plastic spacers I’d made for the forward bases. It would have been easier to install the forward bases before the locker lids were in place as I’d originally planned, but so goes the flow of a project; as it was, it was somewhat challenging to reach around the lids and under the deck to hold the fasteners and tighten the nuts below, but possible, if messier and slower than I’d like.
On the cabintop, I laid out for a main halyard winch, cleat, and turning block, following the owner’s chosen configuration. This part of the deck had not been previously repaired, and around the still-open bolt holes leftover from another hardware installation (where I planned to install the cleat), and a little bit forward, I found dark core when I overbored the fastener locations to fill with epoxy. The core was partly stained at the after winch holes, but clean at the forward holes. Further forward, where I prepared the holes for the cheek block, I found clean, good core.
In any event, after preparing all the future fastener locations with a 1/2″ bit, and masking the adjacent areas, I filled all the holes with a thickened epoxy mixture, leaving it to cure before continuing.
With new 48″ genoa tracks now on hand, I began to plan their installation. First, I had to clean up the decks on each side to give a reasonable bonding surface.
The tracks would be mounted outboard, near the gunwale, and the only lingering question was their fore and aft placement. On several sisterships I worked on previously, I’d installed identical 4′ tracks generally towards the forward end of the space between the center and after stanchions on each side, which placement worked well and afforded enough adjustment room for the typical genoa size of 120%-140%. Three iterations are shown below.
I proposed a similar location for Lyra, with the track aligned roughly as shown, but for the moment it was late in the day and I awaited input from the owner before I proceeded.
Total time billed on this job today: 6.5 hours
0600 Weather Observation: 32°, clear. Forecast for the day: Sunny, windy, 67°
Monday
Looking to wrap up some loose ends and small jobs, I spent what ended up being the full morning working on a few tasks.
The owner had in the past used a stock laptop lap desk propped in the pilothouse between the dash and the helm, and sought a better, more stable solution as a sometime table for computer work. With the little stock desk on hand, I thought the first way to accomplish the goal might be to use the existing table and find a way to secure it to the helm, so after some searching I found a padded round clamp, designed for hanging pipes, that fit the helm and could be bolted to the underside of the table.
When I ordered the parts initially, I’d also ordered a couple different screws to use to secure the clamp, wanting to replace the stock screw with something easy to use by hand. The ones I ordered didn’t work as I’d hoped, and in any event I found that the clamping screw was a metric thread (the thorough specs hadn’t indicated thread size for this screw), so now I could order something that I hoped would work now that I’d experienced the reality. The metal on the clamp itself was not stainless steel–not available that I could find–but for this use I didn’t think it would pose a problem, and would be cheap and simple to replace in the future should it be required.
The clamp looked like it would work, and to secure it to the underside of the desk I drilled and countersunk a hole for a short 3/8″ flathead machine screw, which unfortunately I didn’t have on hand, so final installation and testing of the new clamp would have to wait till that arrived. I thought the concept seemed proven, and with perhaps a bit of additional bracing at the forward end, where the deck rested on the dash, this simple and quick solution might do the job. More on this in the near future.
Meanwhile, back at the forward deck box I prepared and installed, at some and unexpected length, a strip of neoprene rubber off the back side of the lid, draping over the hinge and opening to provide more protection against nuisance water. I had a couple false starts before I eventually landed on a method that worked for installing the rubber. I also added extra gasket material to the back side of the box rim, which, in addition to the gasket on the lid itself, helped the hinge side of the box compress the gasket better: I’d found that this side wasn’t compressing as much as I’d hoped because of the design of the hinge.
Anyway, in the usual way a simple little job in concept, through the wonders of boat reality, turned into a longer-than-expected process. In and around this, the canvas contractor stopped by to do the next stage of fitting for the new canvas covers for the skylight and the windlass, so the final products would be ready soon.
To hold open the lid on the deck box, I’d considered a fancy gas strut, but this became expensive and complicated with a stainless steel strut and various end fittings required to make it work, so eventually the owner and I decided on a basic system to prop open the lid as needed: Something like the rods seen on some cars to hold open the hood. For this, I made up a version using stainless steel rod and a stainless steel universal joint. To secure this to the lid, I drilled out a recess with a 1/2″ bit and epoxied in a 1/4-28 nut to match the threads on the end of the ball fitting. I intentionally epoxied the nut to the threads as well since I didn’t want the stem to rotate during use–only the ball end as intended. To hold the rod in place when not in use, I installed a basic clamp further down the lid.
Later, once the epoxy had cured, I could showcase how the rod worked and stored.
A final loose end I’d been meaning to tie up for months was a little cover plate to hide the hole in the head bulkhead left after the removal of the controls for the now-defunct electric treatment system.
Total time billed on this job today: 4 hours
0600 Weather Observation: Clear, 30°. Forecast for the day: Sunny, 62°
Monday
Over the weekend, I finished up the varnish on the coamings with the sixth coat on the inboard sides, leaving them ready for installation now that there’d been two full days to allow the varnish to fully cure..
After spending the morning on another project, I got to work installing the coamings. This was relatively straightforward since I’d already fitted them, but now I had to mark and drill the cabin sides for the screws that would secure the return blocks at the forward end. Once that was done, I applied butyl tape to the mating surfaces to keep water out of the screw holes, and installed the coamings with screws and finish washers to allow them to remain removable for easy maintenance going forward.
Once both sides were in place, I turned to the winch stands and winches, which the owner had preassembled, so now it was just a matter of laying out and installing the bronze winch bases with four bolts. As I started the layout, I found that there were old sealant-filled screw holes already in place in the deck right about where I’d been planning to place the bases anyway, so this made the placement decision easy.
With the base held in place with two bolts through the existing deck holes, I marked, drilled, and countersunk from the inside a pair of boltholes to secure the upper edge of the stands in place, then finished the installation permanently with sealant at the deck and bronze bolts all around (hex bolts at the deck mount, flathead machine screws through the coamings). I had enough time before the end of the day to finish up the port winch; the starboard winch should go quickly next time.
Meanwhile, I continued work on the small taffrail modification/repair. After a light sanding of the second round of fairing compound, I deemed the fairing work complete, and to finish off the patch for now I applied a couple coats of 2-part white primer for protection and a semblance of cosmetics till the rest of the deck could be properly painted.
Total time billed on this job today: 2.75 hours
0600 Weather Observation: 30°, clear. Forecast for the day: Sunny, 62°
Friday
In a short work session before I had to leave for an appointment, I started with another round of sanding and varnish (5) on the coamings.
After sanding the first round of fairing compound on the taffrail, but before applying a second round to fine-tune the area, I test-fit the stern pulpit once more. This fit much better now without the offending molding in the way, and I took the opportunity to measure for, and prepare, a set of slim wedges for beneath the forward legs of the pulpit. The pulpit bases were welded, and these two didn’t match the contours of the short sidedecks in the area, so the wedges would make up for that. Satisfied with the basic wedges, I set them aside for further trimming to better match the pulpit bases before installation.
With that done for now, I applied another light coat of fairing filler as necessary on the taffrail repair.
To round out the morning’s work, I installed the mooring bit on the foredeck. Most of the prepwork was done, but I had to drill the holes through the new backing plate to accommodate the bolts from above. I’d used some of the epoxy leftover from the taffrail to fill the old bolt holes left from the old cleat, and since the base of the mooring bit was hollow, I could install it right over the top of the uncured epoxy, applying sealant around the bearing surfaces at the edges and screw locations. I secured the bitt from below with the backing plate, fender washers, lockwashers, and nuts.
Total time billed on this job today: 2 hours
0600 Weather Observation: Mostly cloudy, 37°. Forecast for the day: Rain and snow, 38°
Thursday
After a light sanding and cleanup, I applied the 4th coat of varnish to the inboard faces of the coamings.
I sanded clean and flush the repair to the taffrail modification, then applied a first round of epoxy fairing compound to fill the fiberglass texture and start to bring the repair to its final contours.
After sanding away any squeezed-out excess epoxy from the backing plate I’d made for the mooring bit on the foredeck, and test-fitting the backing plate to ensure it worked as intended (it did), I painted it with the same gray locker paint, since at least for now the chainlocker area, where this was located, was wide open to the forward cabin.
I spent the remainder of the day on hardware duty, mainly the stanchion bases (6). With the fastener holes and deck areas already prepared, for each base in turn I applied sealant, installed three fasteners partway and one fastener most of the way so I could align the stainless steel backing plates that came along with the stanchion bases, then fully tightened the fasteners from above and installing nuts and washers below before cleaning up the excess sealant on deck.
Next, I laid out and installed the spinnaker pole chocks on the port side, choosing the position as needed to best suit the storage of the pole (as far outboard as possible) while ensuring that the bases landed in convenient areas both above and belowdecks. I had to clean off some old sealant from the bottoms of the chocks. Once I had the basic position determined, I masked off the deck at each end and, following my usual installation steps, prepared the decks and fastener holes then installed the bases with sealant and new fasteners.
At the stem, I needed to arrange the position of an anchor roller and the bow chocks. The anchor roller would require a spacer beneath, to make up the height between the deck and the molded stem platform, and I’d work on that soon, but for now it looked like the roller (on the port side by request) and bow chocks would fit well enough together and in logical orientation. These installations would come soon.
Meanwhile, to finish off the chainplate installations, I applied heavy beads of sealant in the slot and around the base of the four main chainplates, than squished a cover plate into the heavy sealant, which pressed the sealant into the recesses of the coverplate and surrounded the chainplate, as well as securing the covers in place (no need for screws). Later, after the sealant cured, I could come back and remove the excess. These covers were the closest fit for this particular size chainplate, but the slots were still larger than the chainplates by a bit. I chose them since the original tiny bronze cover plates would no longer fit, since the new chainplates were thicker than the originals. I forgot to order a cover for the backstay, so I’d get back to that later.
In the cockpit, I finished up the installation of the locker lids, now that I had a new supply of screws on hand.
Total time billed on this job today: 6.75 hours
0600 Weather Observation: Clear, 30°. Forecast for the day: Mostly sunny, 55°
Wednesday
Wrapping up some project loose ends, I started by filling the reservoir in the windlass with gear oil, now that the gasket sealant on the motor had had ample cure time. This complete, I tested the motor and raised the anchor back on deck.
I finished up the forward deck box installation with the lid, which I installed so the box opened from the port side. Once I aligned the lid where it needed to go and marked the ends of the hinge, installation was straightforward. I was thinking of adding some sort of rubber flap to the hinge side of the lid, which seemed more exposed and susceptible to leakage than I would have liked. Also under consideration were various simple means of securing the lid when raised, to be determined as of this writing.
To secure the lid, as with the after box, I installed simple hooks and bungee cords.
A final small task remained in the cabin: The owner requested some simple latches to hold the table-cum-berth filler in place in its lowered position, so that it couldn’t slide out unexpectedly. I installed stainless steel barrel bolts on the underside of the table, which latched to mortised holes in each adjacent support.
A few minor items remained on the list, none of which were time-critical, and with the major items complete I planned to move the boat outdoors in the next week or so to allow the owner time for final pre-launch preparations, engine commissioning, and so forth before the boat departed in early May.
Total time billed on this job today: 1.25 hours
0600 Weather Observation: Clear, 35°. Forecast for the day: Mostly sunny, 60°