Current projects

by Chuck March 2, 2003

Replacing the running rigging: Sailnet had a great sale on rope last month, so I bought 130 feet of StaSetX to replace the 3-strand nylon main and jib halyards that came with the boat. I'm hoping that the new halyards will make it easier to get a good hoist on the sails and improve performance.

Replacing galvanized bolts on the lifeline stanchions: At some point the stainless steel lifeline stanchions were removed and put back on with galvanized bolts. Rust streaks down the sides of the hull are the most visible result, but I've always been terrified that one of my kids would come up against the lifelines and the bolts would give way. After I removed the stanchions, I also found they had been bedded with silicone, which is a leak waiting to happen. I cleaned the old bedding off, cleaned the rust stains off the stanchions, and bedded everything again with Life Caulk and put in stainless bolts, washers and nuts.

Cleaning up the stern: The previous owner put two drop-down outboard motor mounts on her stern, I removed the extra one. The one I wanted to keep was held on with two stainless bolts and two galvanized bolts, so I took it off too to renew the bedding and bolts. There were also a pair of corroded and bent bow eyes on the stern, several mounting holes for antennas filled with silicone caulk, and I noticed that the three bolts holding on the bottom rudder gudgeon were corroding. When I pulled the port motor mount, I discovered the transom was delaminating underneath the mount. Black, foul smelling liquid started running out when I pulled the bottom rudder gudgeon. The starboard side of the transom is basically a big osmotic blister. Which leads me to my next project...

Reparing the transom of the boat: The easy part will be filling all the extra holes in the stern. That's just filling the holes with epoxy putty. The hard part is deciding what to do with the delaminated section of the transom. I can either shoot epoxy into the void and hope it holds, or I can take the delaminated section off, dig out any bad core, and re-build the whole thing with fiberglass.

Tags:

Sailing

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