Merry Xmas!

Merry Xmas everyone! No chimney on Kamalii, so here's how Santa delivers to the Booths.




Wishing everyone a great break and happy new year.


PS: I just discovered "Chill with Bob Ross" on Netflix. I am at peace.

Spreader Is Ready

Our sexy new spreader is painted and varnished and ready to go up. It's blowing it's tits off at the moment, so will have to wait until Boxing day (Xmas day I will be in no state to go up the mast).

Underside 

Topside

Windlass Back Together

I just finished the windlass. Phew. Kind of hard to go away sailing for the holidays without a working windlass, although I guess the kids could be put to work...

I still have some painting to do on the motor unit, but that can wait until after the holidays. I have replaced most of the grease nipples, replaced mild steel bolts with stainless steel ones, and generally given her a birthday. 8 litres of gear oil seems a bit OTT, but that's what she takes.  Isi started polishing the chrome bits, but lost enthusiasm, so I guess that will be a holiday job for me.

The Beast is back!

Striptease

Stripping and painting the windlass has proven to be...painful. Stripping this thing down was a mission. Every part of me hurts. Every part of Sharon hurts. Well, the parts not currently marinated in rosé wine, anyway.

The new spreader is ready to collect, but I have to paint and varnish etc. Going to be a big rush to be ready for Xmas!

Stripping her down.

Ideal? She's a pretty awesome windlass, but if she wast cast in bronze rather than steel, then she would be "ideal". And worth a fortune.

First coat of primer.

Will be racing to get this baby sorted by Xmas day. I have all the chain gypsies, clutch units, etc at work, painting them in the evenings. Oh shit. Panic. Xmas is coming!

Sorry to the "crew" that there has not been much sailing so far this season, promise to make up for it in the new year. And if any of y'all are going to be out at Great Barrier this holidays, you are most welcome.

Still Life, with Varnish

It just keeps coming. But the aft cabin and lower saloon are starting to look much better. Will post some pics when finished.

Post-Post Mortem

John called today about the spreader. The spreader is laminated in two halves, top and bottom. It seems the laminate has come apart at the base, water has gotten in, and the rot has traveled further up the spreader than first thought.

John reckons it is about as much labour to repair as to make a new one, so one new spreader coming up.

A Dainty Little Thing

Since sailing is off the menu until we get the spreader sorted I decided I would rip into repainting the windlass, a job I have been putting off for a long time.

My plan was to partially disassemble the windlass on the boat, then pull the whole thing off and take it to work for a full strip-down, then have all the painted body components stripped before either repainting in 2-pack or powder-coating.

Say, remember that time we thought we would pull the windlass apart and pull her off the boat? Ha ha ha ha ha...  man, what were we thinking?! Idiots...

Firstly, I pulled off the top drum, brake assemblies, clutch cones, etc. That was about 40kg of parts.

Next I pulled off the top-plate, top-drum drive gear (about another 10kg) and pumped out all the gear oil.

Then (after a fair bit of head-scratching) I pulled off the motor assembly. Bloody hell! That was a good 50kg -60kg.

Then came time to remove the main housing. Yeah, right...  I estimate the stripped down unit probably still ways around 70kg-80kg, and has been bolted down in a bed of mastic. About the only way we are getting that baby off is with a crane. After much effort with crowbars and such we decided, yes, we will strip and paint her in place, that seems like a much better idea...

So, this should be fun. But man, Kamalii's windlass is a BEAST.

Yep, she needs some love. Here I have already stripped off the top drum, brake and clutch assemblies.

Seriously heavy gear set.

Motor assembly. Fuck-Ing-Heavy. For scale, on end it comes up past my knees.

Stay tuned, this should be interesting...

Post Mortem

Dropped the spreader off at the boat-builder's this afternoon (John Beggs, thanks for jumping onto it so quickly!) and had a proper look at what has happened. Turns out.... rot. Looks like moisture trapped in the stainless plates that are wrapped around the base end of the spreader, and she has slowly lost integrity. A bit of on-the-wind sailing loading her up and she has given way.

John is going to splice and pin in a new base section, and needless to say I will be checking all the other spreaders carefully. At least I know the spreader I took down last time is fine - no rot there.

Something a little more exciting...and depressing.

I went up to the top of the mast today to re-run the jib halyard and fix up the furler wrap-stop, on the way back down I checked out the spreaders etc, and found a horror on the upper starboard spreader. The base has crushed and fractured through, with the whole thing swinging aft about 10 degrees. The mast fittings are all sweet, as is the metal plates that sandwich the spreader wood where it mounts to the mast, but the wood itself has simply given way.

No sign of rot, it appears time has gotten the better of it, but I suspect it has been helped along by yours-truly possibly over-tensioning the rig. This is probably also a factor in that jib winch ejecting itself...   These old girls don't like to be tuned up hard like a modern rig, but I tend to wind the cap shrouds and backstay on a bit hard to keep the sag out of the jib. Maybe I just need to live with the sag. I *really* hope I can get this sorted before Xmas; it's a job a bit beyond my skills and tools, as it is going to require a fairly sizable piece to be scarfed in and pined.

Taking it down

The plate has twisted 10 to 15 degrees

Fractured through down the bore

Partying hard on a Friday night...

...with a varnish brush.

Sad.

The next batch

I promise to try and do something interesting to post about soon.

Ooooh, Shiny!

The upper saloon table at the moment. Final coat on, now onto the next lot...

V is for...

Varnish.

It never ends.

Currently working on both the lower saloon and the aft cabin. I have just repainted all the headliners for the lower saloon, so now it's time to rip into all the teak trim. Currently trying to work out where inside the boat I am going to lay all this out for the next few days while we apply the varnish.

And this is only about 1/4 of the bits to do.

Jib Winch Mount Repairs

I have repaired the jib winch mount. Rather than just fill and re-drill I decided to step things up a bit.

These are M8 stainless steel wood inserts. By using these rather then wood screws I can bolt the winch on with M8 machine screws, which means I can take the winch on and off without chewing out the wood. The larger outside diameter of the insert (16mm) means the load is spread over a larger surface area.

The next step was to drill out the existing screw holes to accomodate the inserts. I then epoxy saturated the bores to further strengthen the wood.

I doubled up on the inserts so the bolts really have a strong grip. I had to grind off the skirts at the face of the inserts so they would wind in as a single unit. The inserts can be wound in and out with a large hex key, but to keep the two inserts in line I simply ran a bolt through them as shown and then wound them in with a socket drive. Handy tip: they went in with the epoxy wet, by coating the end of the bolt with a teflon (PTFE) lubricant any epoxy that gets onto the bolt will not stick, making it easy to withdraw the bolt without getting epoxy in the bore of the inserts.

Inserts in place. I later (the next day) realised the one on the lower-left was not inserted straight. All I had to do was use a hex key to wind them back out (the epoxy strengthens the wood, but it does not really stick to the stainless steel), ream the bore with a drill, then re-insert it at the correct angle and it cut itself back into the epoxy saturated wood. No problems at all.

Here the epoxy is setting and I have wound full-length bolts into the inserts, coated in teflon lubricant. Inserting the inserts pushed excess epoxy down the bore where it formed around the bolts sticking out of the end of the inserts. This then set, and once the bolts are withdrawn a threaded channel is left behind. So the actual bolts I use to hold the winch on stick out beyond the end of the inserts by about 40mm, but are effectively still threaded into the mast. Just using expoy to create a threaded channel this way is a common way of installing fasteners into wood spars, but using the stainless steel inserts makes it a lot tougher and less prone to wear from working loads.

Finally, here is the winch base mounted on it's wooden pad, all bolted up to the mast. The masking tape is just to create a clean edge for the bedding compound.

So, all good in theory, but only some serious sailing will show if this stands the test of time. I reckon it will, he publicly declares...

Bronze - It Rocks

From the jib winch mount. Nearly 60 years old and as good as new.

I have decided to go with M8 stainless steel machine-screw inserts into the mast for remounting the winch. This will spread the load of each fastener over a larger area, and allows for the bolts to be removed without chewing out the wood. I will also epoxy saturate the wood in the bores to further strengthen everything up. The aim is to make it good for another 58 years.

In other news, I think I have finally nailed the last (significant) deck leak! As expected, it was getting in from a tiny, inconspicuous little spot and then tracking under the teak decking and coming out about a meter away.

James Booth, BCom, BSc, DipShit

We have had a real bugger of a time with the autopilot compass towards the end of last season, and on the weekend it went crazy again. I cursed all marine electronics to the crew - "It's all unreliable shit!", I cried.

Then today I had a thought...

We have a little speaker and sub-woofer setup for Sharon's laptop, for when watching movies on it. When we go sailing it needs to be stowed away. Guess where we have been stowing it. That's right, in a locker right next to the compass.

Just tested it - the compass deflected by 23 degrees.

Well, that's embarrassing.

But funny.

Post-match Analysis

I have taken the jib halyard winch off it's base, and also had a good close examination of the mast where it mounts. The only "interesting" thing I can find is that the base plate, which is really just a stand-off for the winch, was originally drilled incorrectly when it was made; all six main screw holes were drilled low by 1/2". They then plugged these holes and re-drilled them, with the new hole slightly cutting into the plugs. The wood has dried etc as it has aged, and the glue for the plugs has failed, so they basically all fell out. This may have had some impact on the ability of the big bronze screws to work vertically, but I doubt it was a huge impact.

Two of the screws were seriously bent (had to cut them out), these were obviously the ones that held on till the last.  Otherwise the screws all appear to be in perfect order.

It really does just look like time, load, and endless "wiggling".

At this stage I will probably over-drill the existing holes, plug them with hardwood dowels epoxied in, and then re-drill and screw. I was mad keen on using stainless steel machine screw inserts, which would give a bigger load-bearing area and not be prone to working the wood as much, but can't find anything above an M8 and I need M10. Will keep looking for now though.

Shit... Fuck... Shit-fuck!

Out sailing! Yay!

And then....this happens...

That's the jib halyard winch. Ripped clean out of the mast. We were hard on the wind but only in about 20 knots. My first thought was of course "Rot! Noooooooooo!!!!", but fortunately that is not the case. The wood is absolutely sound. It appears that it is just a case of the screws working over time (57 years) until they chewed out. Not a major to fix, and I'm already pondering using large stainless barrel-nut inserts so this can't happen again. When it all went pear-shaped we tried to furl the jib, but with the halyard slacked off it wrapped on the forestay. Ended up having to haul Simon to the masthead so we could untangle it and then drop the jib. A top effort from Simon, Alice and Sharon - a model of how to recover from an "Oh shit!" moment.

Correction: The mast was replaced circa 1970 (after a wee incident involving drug-runners, a hijacking, the US Coastguard and machine-gun fire ) so that is 46 years of working.

Eight Coats

Still lots of finishing work to do, then we start work on the aft section. In other news, we are about to go sailing! Woohoo! Long, shitty winter over.

Varnish.... Must. Varnish....

Primer

1st coat

4 coats

Just four more coats to go...

And now for something completely different...

Actually, not that different. Out sailing today on the Waitemata with Isi's school class on the deck scow "Ted Ashby". Good fun.

Captain Sharon at the helm.

Whole Lotta Sanding

A bloody hard day's work, but we are almost ready to start varnishing the capping rail. Have a couple of hours work to finish in the morning, then will be ready to get going. Of course, this is only about 1/3 of the total capping we need to strip and varnish. So looking forward to doing the other side and stern....

The Joys of Maintenance

Making good progress on the bulwark, expect after this weekend that we will be ready to sand and varnish the capping rail. Fingers crossed for another fine weekend next week.

During the work on the bulwark I found a small area of rotten wood, up towards the forward end. I dug it all out and it appears that water has been getting in under the capping rail, through a gap between the cap and the bulwark. This had previously been filled with mastik but it had failed. I have cut everything out to clean wood, dug out all the old mastik, and am now doing the repairs.

Dutchman repair before fairing - no epoxy filler here, thank you very much. Note the open seam to the right where the plank tails into the next - I have dug out loose glue and will re-fill.

I had thought about removing the winch base pad and other bronze fittings, but access to the bolts below decks is a nightmare, so have decided to strip in place. It's a shame that the bronze won't stay this colour...

It will be good to get this job done and get everything back together again so we can go sailing again (Kamalii groupies, ready yourselves, invites coming soon). But that main mast keeps glaring at me, saying "Varnish me now!". Deep breath...

Great Sailing Weather

It's Labour Weekend, the semi-official start of the sailing season in these parts, and beautiful weather. Great for sailing, which is why we are spending it sanding...

Planning to finish off the work we started on the starboard bulwark months ago, and get the capping rail prepped for varnishing. Fun fun fun.

Sigh...

Overall, Kamalii is an extraordinarily well designed and built boat. But on every boat you get those odd things where you wonder "What were they thinking?".

I had to remove the burgee line tie-off (I'm sure it has a proper name, no idea what it might be) as we continue to strip the starboard bulwark (yes - we actually had a more or less fine day!) and then I noticed something. They clearly fitted it before they rigged the boat.

I had to disconnect the starboard shroud and then remove the turnbuckle so I could get a screwdriver in, having to actually poke it through the chainplate attachment point. With it in place there was simply no way, even with a right-angle screwdriver.

A lot of work to undo two screws.

In other news, I have started fitting the trim battens and edging that Simon and I made up, it's all looking great. Of course, theres a lot of varnishing to come...

May as well be shredding $20 notes...

I've been working away slowly on finishing off the aft cabin. The headliners are all done (except for one I wasn't happy with), now I need to sort out the teak trim, fix up the wall panel alongside the port berth where it was cut to let them run the genset exhaust through, and then paint.

I have 90% of the teak trim for the room, but a few bits are missing, a couple are knackered, and a couple no longer fit due to changes made when the starboard berth was converted to a double. All the overhead battens in the starboard state room are also missing, and there are various bits and pieces around the rest of the boat that I need to make. Woodwork time.

I purchased some slabs of Burmese teak (at NZ$8,280 per cubic metre!), and then with the generous help of Simon and David Jenkin have reproduced a pile of battens and trim pieces that match the originals.

David Jenkin is a piano maker and has the coolest workshop - I was like a kid lost in a toy-store. He generously let me use his workshop, and Kamalii veteran Simon kindly gave up his Friday evening to assist me in generating large amounts of very expensive sawdust.

1.4m x 50mm x 200mm slabs of teak. I stored them in my office so I could enjoy the smell...

Ripping up the slabs.

The huge canoe is Simon's - he's laminating new bulwarks.

Stacks of new battens and moldings, all routered to match the originals.

 

About $50 worth of sawdust, by my estimation.

Over the coming weeks I'll start cutting and fitting the trim, then take it all down again to varnish. Thanks again for your help, Simon!

Bilge Troll

The float switch for the aft bilge pump died. Remember, kids: check your bilge pumps regularly.

Replacing it required a caving expedition into the bowels of the aft bilge. When we were working on Kamalii in California I could not physically fit through the hatch, let alone maneuver myself around down there. Now, not such a problem. #notsuchafatbastard

Rather steampunk, don't you think?