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

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

I started off with more work on the ongoing varnish.  So I could continue the coaming varnish without worries about open doors or other shop work interfering, I moved the coamings into the other shop bay so I could do my varnish first thing each day.  I’d already moved the smaller swashboards to my little upstairs finishing room.

After setup and the usual sanding and cleanup as needed, I applied the 6th coat of varnish to both sides of the swashboards, and the third coat to the second (inboard) sides of the coamings.

Having decided with the owner to remove the offending part of the taffrail molding, which was preventing the stern pulpit from fitting correctly, I turned to this next.  First, however, while I was in the area I finished up the backstay chainplate installation, installing the new bolts I’d ordered.  I’d used the old ones to determine the lengths of the replacements, but these turned out to be a bit longer than actually necessary.  The topmost bolt galled before I tightened the nut fully–this happens rarely, but is unpleasant when it does–but fortunately I could cut off the bolt inside the nut and replace the whole assembly with a new one.  The horrible wonky orientation of these bolts is simply how it is:  I used the existing chainplate and existing holes in the knee.  I guess no one ever really saw this when the only access back there was through the miserable old vertical hatch in the cockpit.

It didn’t take long to cut off the raised molded area that had once been used to mount a stern light (what a silly thing to build into a deck mold), and otherwise prepare the area for patchwork above and below.

To patch this, I started with a couple pieces of prefabricated fiberglass from the scrap box.  I found an offcut of 1/4″ laminate that was basically a perfect fit for the base of the opening:  It even had the requisite curve/angle on the aft side to match the curve of the taffrail.  To fill the short vertical edge of the repair, I used a 1-1/4″ strip of 1/8″ laminate that I cut to fit.  I secured these to the back and undersides of the existing area with a thickened epoxy mixture, and some dabs of hot glue to hold things in place while the epoxy set up.  I filled in around the edges of the hole with more of the thickened mixture to smooth the whole area out flush with the edge of the ground, prepared areas of the adjacent deck and left this to cure for a couple hours.  This recreated the basic shape needed to fill the opening.

Sometime later, when the first application had cured to the green stage, I fine-tuned the shape a bit with a fillet at the bottom corner and some general smoothing of the first round, then installed two layers of structural fiberglass over the entire area, extending out onto the adjacent areas I’d prepared for this purpose.

During the rest of the day, I continued work on deck hardware, mostly with the stanchion bases.  With six total bases (three per side), I started by installing a flexible tape measure along the gunwale between the points of lifeline attachment on both the bow and stern pulpits (the bow rail was in place, and the attachment point of the stern rail was aligned with the front of the forward bases, which location I’d noted during the pulpit dry-fitting).  This gave me a measurement between the points of 24 feet, so I evenly located the stanchion bases six feet apart along this line, making a mark on the gunwale for each.  Not only would this spacing look right, but it also worked out well in terms of where the bases landed:  Clear of obstructions like the chainplates or space for genoa tracks.

With one side complete, I repeated the process on the opposite side, and afterwards I scrubbed the deck in way of each mounting location to remove the dirt and grime.

Once the cleaned areas dried, I masked over the deck at each location and, keeping the base 1/4″ or so away from the gunwale, marked and drilled/tapped the  bolt holes for the 5/16″ bolts required, and scribed the edges of the fitting on the tape.  I chose to do this for all six fittings now, since the day was growing late and I preferred to leave bedding and final installation for one fell swoop next time.

While I was in layout mode, I prepared the foredeck for the new mooring bit and marked and prepared its fastener locations in the usual way.  I still needed to fill the old holes left from the original mooring cleat.  Also, since this bit would span the built-in centerline reinforcement of the foredeck, which was a bit thicker than the rest of the deck and formed a protrusion on the underside, I built a fiberglass backing plate designed with this in mind, with a 1/2″ thick base cut to fit the bitt as needed, plus 1/4″ extensions epoxied on each edge, which would allow the backing to span the centerline reinforcement when installed.

Total time billed on this job today:  5.5 hours

0600 Weather Observation:  Clear, 35°.   Forecast for the day:   Mostly sunny, 60°

Tuesday

With six coats on the first (outboard) sides of the coamings, I gave them a day off to more fully cure before I considered turning them over to install the final coats on the inboard sides.  This reduced my varnish burden for the day to the companionway swashboards, to which I applied the 5th coat on each side.  In the cabin, I trimmed the bungs on the companionway, and dabbed on some varnish to blend in the plugs.

The owner and I had discussed the possibility of some sort of nonskid treatment to the varnished cockpit locker lids, and I’d attempted a couple different approaches to nonskid in varnish:  One using a packaged nonskid grit that proved not to work well at all; and another using kosher salt sprinkled into the wet varnish, which one was supposed to wash out later, leaving behind some sort of texture.  What sort of texture this might be was never determined by my  test, as rinsing the sample piece not only didn’t remove all the salt, but also revealed that the salt seemed to have affected the curing of the varnish beneath.  We both decided that for now, at least, it’d be better to leave the locker lids as they were rather than risk ruining them with some unsatisfactory treatment.  Something could always be done later.

This meant that, with six coats–my minimum threshold for new work–on the lids, I could think about installing them, which would be nice since it would fill in the large holes in the cockpit and give me more room to spread out my tools and supplies.

I’d purchased 36″ long piano hinges for these hatches, which was just slightly longer than the hatches themselves, so to start I had to remove one knuckle of length from each side of both hinges, to keep the bolt pattern centered.  This I did with a grinder and cutoff wheel, after which I could install the hinges on the hatches themselves down on the bench.  Then, I installed the hatches in the cockpit, though I found I didn’t have enough of the screws I needed, so I couldn’t fully install the hatches.  But with butyl tape sealant, and all the holes prepared, I installed enough screws on each side for now, and could easily fill in the remaining screws later when my new supplies arrived.

Next, I continued work on the bow pulpit, which I’d left before with a single screw to hold it roughly in position.  Before continuing, I had to remove from below some old backing plates and partially cut-off screws leftover from some old hardware installation:  These were in the way of the forward mounts for the pulpit.  Fortunately, I could pry off the old stuff without too much work.

To complete the pulpit layout, I installed masking tape on the deck in way of each base location, then, ensuring the forward mounts were equidistant from the bow, placed each base on deck, using a pencil as a convenient spacer between the edge of the base and the raised gunwale (or roughly 1/4″), and marked the screw holes for drilling and tapping.  With a single screw in place at each base to hold things in proper alignment, I cut the tape around each base, then removed the pulpit so I could peel off the tape within and finish readying all the fastener holes with tap and a small countersink at each hole; on the starboard aft base I drilled a hole through the deck at the center of the base to accommodate the newly-strung bowlight wire.

The backing plate material I needed for the pulpit installation was due for delivery later, and I’d made a cardboard pattern of the bases and the screw locations, so I decided to go ahead with the installation now and finish up the backing plates later.  This was possible since driving the screws through tapped holes in the deck would pull the pulpit tightly into position, allowing me to install the backing plates, washers, and nuts at my lavish leisure later.

I applied abundant sealant to the deck in way of the bases and, starting with the starboard aft base and its wire, installed the pulpit with sixteen 1/4-20 x 2″ screws, cleaning up the excess sealant afterwards.

Meanwhile, in and around all this, I finished up basic preparations to the small transom/counter paint touchups, and, using an old can of the 2-part polyurethane paint that had been applied to the hull during the incomplete refit 10 or so years before, dabbed on some hull color to blend the small repairs.  With two coats applied over a few hours, the repairs disappeared for the most part, certainly well enough given the tiny efforts expended for the work.  Never were these fastener and exhaust repairs intended to attain perfection, but were merely a stopgap measure for now.

While I was on the foredeck, I removed an existing bow mooring cleat, which needed to be removed to make way for a bronze mooring bitt the owner had attained.  The cleat was easy to remove, another surprise, so that made for quick work.  I’d move forward with the final bit installation details in the near future, once my backing plate material arrived.

I also installed with sealant and new bronze fasteners the cowl vent on its little raised foredeck platform.

The stern pulpit was not original to this specific boat, but was otherwise a generally good fit.  However,  when I laid it out on deck to prepare for installation, I found that the port aft base interfered with the molded round on the taffrail where the sternlight was originally installed.  I couldn’t move the pulpit forward at all to clear it, since then it would interfere with the new hatch opening and lid.

With a small tweak to port, the offending base could fit next to the molding, but this skewed the pulpit rather badly off center.

After discussions with the owner during our common postgame analysis session, we decided to cut away the silly round molded area on the taffrail and thus make room for the pulpit base in the correct location, so I’d add that to my list and take care of the repair and some temporary cosmetics over the coming days.

Meanwhile, my delivery arrived, and with time growing short in the day I immediately made up a set of fiberglass backing plates for the bow pulpit, using my template as a guide for the screw holes.  I found that these were slightly too wide, given the angle of the hull beneath the protruding fasteners, so I trimmed them slightly, the installed the backing plates at each pulpit base location with fender washers, lockwashers, and nuts to complete the installation just in time for the end of the day.

Total time billed on this job today:  6.25 hours

0600 Weather Observation:  Overcast, 45°.   Forecast for the day:   Mostly sunny, 62°