Graphics, Mast, Rudder, Teak, and Winch

An unexpected colorectal cancer diagnosis in April derailed most of my plans, but I did manage to do a few small projects. Thankfully, my cancer is early stage (stage 2a) and should hopefully be very treatable. I'm almost done with chemo and then will have radiation a few weeks later. Possible winter surgery. All this thanks to my first routine colonoscopy, grateful they changed the guidelines from 50 to 45 or I would have likely been much worse off!

First off, I ordered new name graphics for the sides to replace the transom name. I agonized over font choice before stumbling on the perfect one (my wife agreed!): the SpongeBob font. I ordered from SignSpecialist.com, who charges very reasonable prices for great product and even allows user-uploaded fonts, which was key because no place I could find had the SpongeBob font in their offering. I had used them a couple times before also. I honestly love the look.


I noticed my mast had a slight curve to it and decided to try to straighten it. Seeing what others had done, I decided to use a hydraulic car jack, and ratchet straps, but I needed a strong beam to brace against. I realized the trailer frame rail would be perfect! It worked!



I replaced the broken rudder pintle and trimmed off the awkward downward point that was caused by the fact that this rudder came from a reverse-transom boat (probably an O'Day 22), but the Windrose has a slightly traditional transom. I glassed up the cut portion and overall it looks a lot better.

I also got sick of the effort of sanding peeling varnish, so I decided to try Semco Teak Sealer since I had read that modern sealers are about the easiest maintenance, but should last a whole season in the northeast at least. It was easy to apply and looks great, though flat instead of gloss like the varnish.

Finally, maybe the biggest project was replacing the keel winch. The original was quite rusty, despite my cleaning it up a bit when I first got the boat, though my biggest concern was the fact that it lacked an automatic brake so it was possible to switch into free-spinning mode that could be dangerous with the keel up, allowing it to drop rapidly and potentially crack the trunk. Obviously, that would not be good. I chose to replace it with a worm-drive winch that can't free-spin and must be cranked in both direction. The challenge was that it couldn't be mounted like the original winch because the line would block the handle rotation. I decided the easiest way would be to add a pulley and relocate the winch. I found a 304 SS pulley rated for 880 lbs on Amazon and installed it with four stainless bolts, potting all the deck penetrations with epoxy as usual and adding a 3mm G10 backing plate bonded with epoxy to the bridge deck to further reinforce beyond just the fender washers.  I used a wood dowel stuck in a cork wedged into the top of the fiberglass tube the lift line goes through to align the pulley. Then I mounted the new winch off to the port side where the handle can be readily accessed without interference. As a bonus, the new winch is even rated for 2000 lbs vs 1200 lbs for the old one, though the whole keel only weighs about 600 lbs. The worm drive does take a lot of spins to get the keel up and down, but at least it can't drop suddenly from user-error.




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Keel Hauled

Image
Ever since launching and discovering the keel wouldn't lower all the way, I've been anxious to get the keel out of the boat. With it safely on the hard for the winter, and the weather still fairly warm, it was time. First, I jacked up the trailer and put it on jack stands to prevent sagging as I climbed aboard. Next, I used a bottle jack to lift the front of the boat and placed 4x4 blocks on top of the forward part of the bunks to raise the boat 4" off the trailer. I used a hi-lift jack to lift the transom and do the same at the aft end of the bunks. This was to allow enough clearance between the trailer and boat to get the keel out of the partial trunk of the boat. I put a jack gently under the forward edge of the keel, just barely touching, in an effort to remove load from the pivot bolt. Next, I climbed aboard, used a putty knife to scrape off the Stay Afloat wax I had sealed the pivot bolt with, and removed the nut with a socket and ratchet. A couple whacks with a hamm...
Read more

Chipping Away

Image
 It has been much too long since I posted, but I have been busy. First off, my fiancee and I got married over the winter! While that occupied much of my time, I did start on the keel work some weeks back also. I used a furniture dolly and rolling car jack to drag the keel over near my basement for easier access to my tools and compressor. Then came the hard part, grinding and chipping the rust off. I had gotten an estimate of $700 for sandblasting, and that was if I dropped it off and picked it up, but it was just not in the budget. I opted to try my angle grinder with various wheels: metal grinding disc, flap wheel, stripping disc. All worked to varying degrees, but I realized some of the rust was in layers, so I tried a hammer and cold-chisel. It worked well! Then I remembered I had a compressor and pneumatic chisel. Even better! Still, it took at least six hours of exhausting, messy work to get the keel down to solid cast iron. I finished off with a wire wheel on the angle grind...
Read more

M5 Loop

Image
My aunt came to visit from Missouri so I took her and my cousin's family out for a little harbor sail. Unfortunately, there was virtually no breeze so we motored. They all wanted to check out the sailing yacht  M5 , the largest single-masted sailing yacht in the world, so we did a loop around for a few photos, then returned to the inner harbor for the usual harbor tour loop. The fog came in thick and fast so we had to cut that short, but everyone said they really enjoyed seeing M5 . The first photo is my own, the rest were taken by my aunt.
Read more