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.