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 This then set, and once the bolts are withdrawn a threaded channel is left behind.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.