Portlights over pizza.

Before the cabin house sides get finished or the new decking goes down, I want to replace/reinstall the portslights. Over the last week or so, I've been cleaning up all the trim pieces that came off. They were really shot and in various states of neglect. Some had epoxy and others had old failed varnish and others seemed to have nothing on them at all and were covered in deep grooves where the grain had been exposed to the elements. Over the last few nights, I had been sanding and cleaning up the wooden trim pieces that cover the port lights. I then covered them with a couple coats of epoxy which essentially turned them into shiny pieces of rock hard plastic. Hopefully next week, they will go back on the the cabinhouse, over the glass, get bunged and will still need several coats of varnish for UV protection. The glass itself was basically OK. There was one broken portlight facing the bow up forward. That one was replaced and the rest seemed decent enough (some small scratches around the edges) to just clean up and reinstall. Maybe someday, in a few years I'll get new glass for all of them but not this time around.

Tonight's goal was to clean up, scrape off the old caulk, varnish and epoxy around the edges of the glass. I also had to make the kid dinner and be a good Papa, so I suggested to her that she eat her dinner out on the boat while I worked out there so we could hang out. She was so excited, you would have thought we were really going sailing. We went out there, she pulled out the little table in the cockpit area and ate her pizza, milk and yogurt while I scraped and cleaned the glass and did some other things. While we were doing this, she pretended to be on the water and the dogs who were running around under the boat, were sharks and the cars t at were driving by the house were other boats whose treasure she was going to take. She found the hidden drawer in the table and that where she plans to hide all her gold and silver in their. She made this disclosure to me in a wisper so the sharks, who were now pirates swimming around, didn't hear her plan.

We had a great time, I finished what I wanted to and we had a lot of fun together. I wished I could have taken some pictures of it, but the camera is waterlogged/broken from the sailing trip on the Cape.




Even I wont want to read this if there are no more pictures...I need to get a new camera soon.

Annual Cape Cod Trip 2007

Every year the three of us, (four of us, the dog goes too because its one of the few places where she hasn't worn out her welcome) head down to a friends place on the Cape for a long weekend. We've been doing it for a few years now and there are a couple of standard things we have to do.

The first is to surf in a local contest and try not to look too bad in front of a crowd of real surfers. No pictures of this yet.

The second required event is the girls salon. The "older" girls would traditionally set up a shop/salon at the house and do the adults hair, nails, make them sandwiches, get them a drink etc. A few years ago we were giving them 1-5 dollars and it slowly crept up to 10-20 dollars. It was called the girls of summer salon. Well, the older girls are starting to out grow this tradition and prefer to spend their time watching TV and talking to teenage boys down by the beach.
And so the torch was passed to the younger generation...

These are the proud new owners of the girls of summer salon.


The first victims/customers customers. This first season everything was on the house.

Everyone took a turn including the parents, the girls themselves and even the dogs.

The other annual requirement ( last but not least) is sailing.


Finally have some good shots of sailing on Elsa, a Menger 17.
See more info on the 17 here...
http://www.allhandsandthecook.com/menger/Brochures/mengercat_17.pdf


The right one shows a small beetle cat trying hard to catch Justin before finally giving up the chase.


The girls had a great time down below playing with sharks.

There's a lot of room for a 17 foot boat.

When they would come up, we would sail along other boats and pretend we were pirates taking their gold.

Then there is the afternoon/evening sail on Friday.

This is the view down the stairs looking at Elsa Friday about 5:45pm.
Who would go sailing when it looks like this?? We would.

It's a good thing this is an adults only sail because the wind was really blowing this year. According to the Weather Underground it was blowing 25 with gusts up to 32 . You can see a slightly focused expression on Justin here. It's partial concern for the wind gusts and a little concern that I'm standing on the bow taking this picture causing the boat to head up in the wind right towards some moored boats.

The weather was threatening to rain on us as the fog rolled in ( you can see it just starting to cover the coast line in the photo of Justin sailing) and our goal was to just get in a few tacks and make it back to the mooring/the shore in time for a steak dinner before getting wet. While we made it back to the mooring dry, we dumped the canoe paddling into shore and got soaked. We had to swim in the dark, dragging the beer cooler and the swamped canoe. Dinner tasted great.



Moms, kids and a Hemingway impersonator



The girls had a catch and release program with the baitfish.

Cant wait for next year.





We need one of these for the fleet...

Project list updated...Fall 07

I've made pretty good progress so far and may actually be able to get this boat in by the spring (I have no where to put the boat... but it may be ready).

Here's the newer condensed to do list...

BY AUG 15:
Glass in bulkheads, knees, sheerclamp and cabinets, fair, sand and paint everything inside.
BY SEPT 1:
Finish cabinets, companionway dropboards
BY SEPT 15:
Epoxy, varnish or paint everything inside and finish portlights
BY OCT 1:
Finish glassing the deck and rebuilding the mast
By OCT 31:
Finish repairing/fairing the hull, paint the deck and hull
NOVEMBER:
Repair any damage to the motor well area (glass/motor mounts/through hulls etc). Replace all deck hardware, pulpit, push-pit and stanchions
WINTER:
Rewire the boat and rebuild the motor and rudder

With at least 5 months of winter, I should be able to get the motor ready to drop in by early spring.

Inside almost finished...

This is what its looked like for about the last month or so while I was finishing all the glass work. I must have went through 100+ plastic gloves, 40 or so plastic cups and spoons, yards of cloth and more epoxy than I'm admitting to my domestic fiscal specialist, a full tube of boat life white caulk, sheets and sheets of sandpaper, a small can of high build primer and a large can of Old Salem, Petit yacht gloss white.

And this is a real sign of progress. For the last six months I wore boots, shoes and whatever I wanted inside this construction site of a boat and after this last push, for the time, I had the urge to take my shoes off before stepping on board because it looked so nice in there.

What a difference 6 months makes.....

In the boxes of bits that came with the boat, I found a Maximum inc. wind speed instrument (see port side) and a tide clock (strbd). The tide clock seems to work well enough with new batteries and a cleaning. The anemometer, I found out by sending a photo to the company, is the Vigilant model and is about 30 years old and it needs a new wind speed generator (the bit that goes on top of the mast). It requires no external power source, has a gust recorder and can measure wind up to 100 mph. I put them up high on the bulkhead because otherwise, I'd hit my head against them when leaning there.

Between Friday and Saturday, I spent sun up to sun down working on the boat. My mom ( Memere Kiki ) generously took the kid for the whole weekend) and we took full advantage of it, Maki went rock climbing and I sanded all the finished fiberglass, varnished the cabin sole and cabinet fronts, painted and caulked hanging locker walls, the aft section of the forward berth, the stringers etc under the deck. Sanded and painted again. This boat looks nothing like the empty hull I was sitting in with a space heater last January.


Knees finished

A shot of the knees that are above the head

The head (picture is not upright)
I didn't work too hard to make the space between the knees itself perfectly smooth because this area is covered by varnished slats. I have to alter the slats somewhat because I made new knees but they still look great. I'm also thinking of adding a shelf between the knees/ the knee and the bulkhead for toiletry stuff since the area does serve as the head (need to finish rebuilding the toilet and plumb it this winter).

I had some help with the trim pieces. She first tried the screwdriver but quickly figured out that the Dewalt cordless was much easier and more exciting.

Strbd and Port side up forward...
It looks better with the trim in place. I made the two blocks by the tiller to support a bar in the hanging locker for lines and clothes. They should look good when varnished.


Port and strbd foot wells
I still need to get a couple coats of paint on the inside of the footwells and varnish the cabinet fronts with 4 more coats of varnish...and make the counter tops....and plumb the sink... etc...


Port and strbd "saloon"
That varnished sole looks great. Friends came by and thought it was wet. I only put six coats on but it'll do for now. Maybe a couple more before launching.

Up forward, I put a couple coats of paint on the lower part of the berth. I still have a few pieces of trim to finish varnishing and put up. This winter I had about a hundred pieces of trim lying around my basement and now I'm down to just a hand full.

One of the next things to do is make the shelf that runs along the walls. I have the front of the shelf but have to make the brackets and shelf itself. There is one on each side of this main area, two more up forward and I think I'll add on in the hanging locker too. Lots of storage space on this little boat.

Later this fall I will finish the counter tops. I finally decided how to finish them. I have been thinking of a way to use the old teak decking and I decided on using the old inserts which are in good shape and building a "new" surface using the old deck. I'll leave them bare with white caulking instead of black. Even the flip up extensions can be made this way. It should look pretty good when done and is a nice use of the old boat bits.

Port side sink and sliding insert

Starboard side longer sliding insert.

I also have to crawl forward to finish caulking and painting the underside of the deck in the v berth. Its a messy job with lots of fumes in a small space but I can get to this or any of the last touch ups little by little over the fall. No more structural work inside! All the projects inside now are just little ones (Including rewiring/plumbing the boat?)




Jan 2007 and August 2007.

Bilge done....

Finally got around to epoxying/tabbing in the ballast. Then painted with a few coats of grey bilge coat and with everything back together, it looks great.

Finished fiberglassing....(inside).

To make up for a poor performance last weekend, I pushed all week and was able to get all the glassing done on the inside of the boat All the chainplate knees, bulkheads, cabinets, and the sheer clamp are done.

Any gaps, cracks or bubbles were cleaned out, sanded and got a few more pieces of glass, then skim coated with epoxy and filler, sanded again until (generally) fair.

@!%%$#&*! Chainplate rant...

Of all the projects so far, the placement of the chainplates has been the biggest challenge. Not that it was difficult to remove the old set up and build the knees but it was really hard to decide what the best design was (for this boat). Initially when I got the boat, the chainplates were hung inside long tubes built into the lay-up of the hull. They were then bolted from the inside and had backing plates on the outside. Something I don't think you see too much. They seem to be fairly stout and have held up for the last 30 years. There was some hairline cracks noticeable outside the boat in the gel coat suggesting some hard spots and that the pressure of the rigging was not spread evenly throughout the hull. I don’t think that there ever a chance of failure but there were some small cracks just the same.
To remove and inspect the plates I had to cut them free from the glass. The Stainless plates looked questionable. There was clearly some water in there over the years because the bolts were wasted and the plates them selves were discolored and had small marks of corrosion where water had sat. After reading about the shoddy metal smithing skills of Cheoy Lee early years, I decided to just replace the plates. But I couldn't figure out what the best way to reinstall them. This for some reason more than most projects was a real hang up. I couldn't’t decide to put them on knees which is the popular method now or to lay them on the outside of the hull which is a more traditional way to do it. The standard arguments seem to be that you cant sheet your head sail in as far with chainplates on the outside of your hull and therefore cant head up as close to the wind. Also they can leak when heeled over. Placing them on knees which I see on a lot of boats seemed right except that while the majority of the stress is on the hull because of the glass tabbing, there is also the possibility of some stress being carried by the hull to deck joint area. This is fine on a boat that is an all plastic boat and the hull and deck are glassed together such as the Flyers made from 1967 on. This boat is a real transition between all wood and the all glass version of the boat. On the 65’s are basically a wood cabin house and deck just sitting on a glass hull with a joint that is questionable at best. On my boat, there's no glass connecting the top of the boat to the bottom and parts of the deck to hull joint were rotted so bad I had to replace them. My worry was that some of the stress carried by the knees would be transferred to the underside of the deck and lift it up.
Because of this I wondered if the best thing was to just tear out the knees I already started putting in with thickened epoxy. More than once I decided that the safest thing to do would be to admit I made a mistake by using the knees and just stick the chainplates outside the boat where I could be sure they would be fine. Who cares about losing a couple degrees into the wind as long as you can be sure the rig wont fail?
These were my thoughts until I glassed the knees in. Now looking at them they look as strong as anything else I could have done. I also glassed in the inside deck to hull joint which adds even more additional security/strength.

The deciding factor was thinking ahead to the finishing of the deck and realizing that when I take off the rub rail, add another 1/2 inch thick layer of marine ply covered by two layers of glass and cloth (three were the hardware will go) and that this glass will be carried down and over the deck to hull joint on the outside, essentially making the outside hull and the topside deck one large continuous piece. This took away any concerns I had regarding the strength of the chainplates set up.

On to painting and sanding...