I excerpted the below from a post on Amatheia’s blog by Scott Maxwell
I was perusing the “sailboat” section of the Pdx Craigslist and a listing caught my eye. The ad was for a local boat builder, advertising his services. I thought I would give him a call as I still had a major structural refit of the forepeak that I just didn’t feel qualified for. Enter David Smith, master boat builder when not selling real estate. David does this for the love of boats he says, and it’s clear that he speaks the truth.
He gave me a bid and got started on the forepeak. We settled on a plan for the refit. Plywood would be epoxy coated and glued to the underside of the forepeak, extending aft under the side decks to the wall of the hanging locker on the starboard. side and the bulkhead to port. The bulkhead that formed the chain-locker would be removed, strengthened and reinstalled. A toggle system would be constructed to receive the bitts, the toggle secured to the bulkhead.
David is a part-time boat builder and this project took a while although it didn’t cramp our other work at all. When it was finally completed he installed the bitts and bowsprit with the stainless trim around the bitts on deck. David did a fantastic job and forepeak is strong and the deck gorgeous with the great looking bitt trim and new bowsprit.
In the meantime the warmer weather allowed us to begin the prep process of the deck and house. I struggled with how to proceed. Repaint the whole deck? Leave the non-skid and just paint the old gel coat? I finally decided to paint the whole thing white, then come back and tape out the non-skid […]
Winter was a slowing experience. The mast step repair was finished, a beautiful job by Todd at Charlot Marine. He found the rot to be more extensive than thought, extending up into the compression post a bit. The shower pan was cut out, the old fiberglassed mast step was removed, the bottom of the compression post was trimmed off and the new fiberglass wrapped mast step made to fit. The new post was tabbed to the floor, the shower pan was re-fabricated and a brand new, very cool piece of sole was created for the entire head. Gorgeous work and very well done.
Pursuing my favorite job of disassembly I removed the fuel lines for replacement and the engine cooling hoses for the same. I have a shaft/packing seal situation in that area, that’s a job for later.
In the garage some serious sanding occurred during the cold months. All the ceiling strips were sanded and re-stained. The brightwork was sanded and triple coated with Cetol Natural Light. the bowsprit had the same treatment. The handrails looked OK but needed quite a bit of sanding to shape the mounting holes damaged from fatigue combined with the bung removal.
Jon disassembled the Butterfly Hatch, sanded all the parts and we reassembled with 1/2 Plexiglas windows. Used the old gaskets, maybe it won’t leak. But I’ll make a Sunbrella cover for when it rains.
Snow fell and the temperatures got quite chilly. The diesel heater took some of the chill off.
For more adventures with Amathea please visit http://www.amatheia.net/
Once the dust had settled we started the process of mapping out the repairs. The surveyor we had used didn’t use a moisture meter. He tapped around the deck and cabin with his small ball peen hammer. There were small pockets of de-lamination in the cabin sides he told us. That didn’t seem too bad I remember thinking. But the survey was long done when we started pulling off the deck and house fittings. Off came pad eyes and fairleads, winches and jib tracks. It was clear there was significant moisture in areas, when the port jib track came off we had to catch the drippings in a large pot. “There are wet ones and dry ones” another local surveyor told us. It was pretty clear to me that I had a wet one. I drilled a number of test holes through the inner skin. The side decks were wet, especially to port although most of the cabin top was dry. The forepeak was the worst. The deck had been saturated repeatedly from the gaping unsealed holes for the samson posts (bitts). It wasn’t long before it was apparent that the head and side liner of the interior had to go. We stripped it off and pulled a lot of staples. We marked and stored each piece in turn. The large windows were a total loss. They had leaked and been resealed a number of times judging by the different sealants we encountered. They had funky plastic frames. Out they came. Out came the bronze port-lights forward. Off came the butterfly hatch and it’s frame.. We knew the chainplates and maybe stanchions were leaking. Off came the ceiling strips in the salon and v berth. Now we could see what was going on. Off came the chainplates and to our […]
Went up to see Windsong this weekend to get some of the remaining chores done before we take her down the coast. I was solo, so didn’t get to take her out for a ride unfortunately. I gave up on the electric oil change pump and purchased a manual vacuum pump to replace it. West Marine was having a sale on some other items so I also purchased a few things that I needed before we headed out: a backup handheld VHF, handheld GPS (Garmin Oregon 400c was on sale), new flares and the oil change pump.
When I got to the boat I tried my newly rebuilt manual bilge pump and discovered that it had stopped working for some reason. I just replaced the major parts on it so I had no idea why it wouldn’t work anymore. It takes two people to remove it, so I’ll have to wait for a friend to come to troubleshoot it. Needless to say, I was pretty upset to find it not functioning once more. Last weekend it worked perfectly after we finished installing it. But now…nothing.
I also began to remove bungs and some trim around the boat to take home and begin more wood restoration. I figured that there is a lot of wood that needs to be stripped and varnished, better start now than later.
Then it was onto the engine: oil change and stuffing box tightening.
Pumping out the oil:
The oil change was smooth and uneventful. Getting it finally done was a happy occasion though. After the oil change I focused on the stuffing box. It was still leaking slowly, not as fast as when we stopped the engine a week ago. But still leaking more than it should. The problem is that the locking nut […]
Pulled from Jasons website http://www.jasonrose.com please visit there to see more about s/v Bodhran and Jason
I love left handed drill bits!!!!!!!!
Engine pulled and rotated to get to the sheared off bolts. Amazingly that’s clean black paint and not oil covering the side. My instrument panel leaks whenever I take of wave in the cockpit so the top of the engine looks like crap, but amazingly the sides and bottom are nice and clean:
Well it’s engine pulling time again on Bodhran. This time without Greg’s help things didn’t go quite as smoothly, but she came out eventually and once again the block is free of pesky sheared off bolts. Two things made this endeavor relatively painless. First I happened across a great used tool store here in Whangarei called Downtown Tools. I spent over an hour just browsing a getting the lay of the store and eventually came away with a 2000lb come-along for NZ$35. Between this and my boom vang rigged via a strap over the boom I was able to alternately apply pressure to the two lift points on the engine to allow it to come off at the angle I needed not to screw up the motor mounts. Of course it turns out that one of the motor mounts was completely stripped anyway. Not to worry, I found a replacement and 2 spares at the used marine store next to the marina. The second amazingly slick event today was the deployment of my new left handed drill bits. The first time I had a motor mount block shear off in the engine was in the Marquesas. Drilling out the hardened steel bolt wasn’t too big of a deal and with the help of an easy out, Greg and I extract the bolt end no […]
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