Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Dingy Lift, Winches, Ventilation

We finally finished the Birkhead Wilderness Classic Orienteering Championship.  I was the event director and I've been working full time on it until last week.  My goal is to get Prestissimo into the water by mid April and start sailing north in early May.

Wednesday, March 21, 2012
I'm always amazed at how a simple job can turn into a major hassle so easily.  So I'm back working on the dingy lift ring.  I had some stainless straps at home and I bent them to the right diameter and drilled some holes to pop rivet them to the radar mast.  I got the right size rivets and my rivet gun.  I put the ring up and it fit perfectly.  I got the first hole drilled and right away the rivet gun broke.  Damn are those stainless rivets strong.  So now the rivet gun was stuck to the rivet in the mast.  I had to cut it off.  I borrowed a rivet gun from Kenny and it was brutally difficult to squeeze the rivet gun to get the rivet to "pop", but I finally got them all in, and the lifting ring looks really good and strong.  All the loading is in sheer instead of tension the way the previous fitting was.

Here is a job that went smoothly.  Replacing all the winches.  I took them home last trip and cleaned and greased them.  I also shortened the screws that were projecting into the plastic bearing race on the main sheet winch.  I just finished putting them all back together on the boat.  The only problem was I didn't remember what angle the self tailer was supposed to be at.  I went through a bunch of  old pictures and found enough to get the angles worked out.  When I was going through the pictures I thought one was of  Steve at Schooner Creek, but it couldn't have been him and then I realized it was actually me.

Thursday, March 22, 2012
An absolutely killer day.  I wet sanded the keel, took a break and then did the bottom of the hull.  I kept thinking I would stop and finish on Friday, but figured I wouldn't be able to move on Friday, and it would set painting back a day, so I took breaks and continued on.  I got it all done.

Friday, March 23, 2012
Painting day.  I did some touch-up sanding while waiting for everything to dry out, and then got the tape on the waterline.  One gallon did the keel, the touch-up of the hull where the paint was off to the epoxy.  There were a few spots where the fairing material chipped off as well as some paint.  I scraped out the loose stuff and then faired it out.  Then on the first gallon I got a little more than half the hull done.

Saturday, March 24, 2012
Minor disaster.  Somehow diesel fuel leaked out of the top of the keel and dripped down the side of the keel completely removing the first coat of paint.  I scrubbed it all down with Simple Green, wiped it down with acetone, and pumped out a gallon of fuel out of the keel.  My guess is that the keel got hotter with the dark red color instead of the white color it was before I painted it.  The heat caused the fuel to expand enough to leak out the vent.

I tried to wipe up the water drips on the hull, but it was a long process.  Randy a really nice guy who works at the boatyard reminded me of the tape "dam" so I ran tape around the boat above the red stripe with the bottom held out away from the boat so all the drips fall off before getting past the dam. I put the blocks on top of the keel while stuff was drying out.   It just about got dry, then there were a few sprinkles.  Finally it cleared up and I painted the bottom.  By then the keel was fully dry so I painted it too.  All the stripes from the diesel on the starboard side of the keel are gone, hiding under the paint -- I'll see if they come back to haunt me.  An hour later it rained!  The tape dam worked perfectly, not a drop made it to the bottom.

After the rain I began replacing the running backs. I'm using a locked brummel splice.  It is easy to tie if you have both ends, but quite complex to do it using only one end.  I've done it a few times and it is still a surprise when it works.  In this case I have both ends.  I do the block end first and when it is done I can pass the whole splice through the rope making the splice a piece of cake.  I tapered it and stitched it in as well.  The old one still looked pretty good.  There was some wear about 5% of the fibers were broken.

As I was almost finished with the first splice it began to pour.  I finished it and the next splice inside and it had stopped when I was done and stayed clear until I got the splices attached to the mast.  I moved the blocks over to the new lines.

From 7pm - 12pm was very productive...
I finished the vent system except for wiring in the fans.  I had a somewhat complex idea, and then kept simplifying it until I didn't have to sew anything, just make a few cuts.  I have to buy the connectors to finish.
I replaced the engine room storage box and supported it with peanuts so it won't crack like the old one.
I filled the diesel tank and emptied the fuel container that doesn't belong on the boat.
The engine room is all buttoned up except for wiring the fans.
Except for one thing... when I was tracing the wiring to figure out what I needed to do one of the leads from the genset fan relay wasn't attached to anything.  It just had an exposed ring connector.

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