It's been an admittedly (read: absurdly) long time since I last posted any sort of status report here and for that I apologize. The good news, however, is that during my taciturnity1 there has been much progress. Jody Boyle of North Bay Boatworks turned out some beautiful spreaders (okay, they weren’t turned, but they were beautiful nonetheless), I bought a Chart Light and ended up completely rewiring the Main DC Distribution Panel, and I got a new tiller. Depending on what the weather does this week, I may be able to finish the final bits of prepping the spreaders and put ‘em up this weekend.
The call I had been waiting for had finally come ringing. My spreaders were finished! They were even more awesome than I had expected them to be, and gladly paid the modest fee to the first-class shipwright who had wrought them. I could hardly bring myself to take them to the drill press with a 5/8” bit, but I knew what had to be done. Having been dismasted twice (well, three times if you count the number of masts) within twelve months I have become exceedingly skeptical about anything rig related. Seeing as how the spreaders take a fairly hefty load, wanting nothing left to chance, I set about making them as beefy and water resistant as possible. They are secured to the mast with two triangular plates that are through-bolted in six places, with two holes bored out for 1/2” clevis pins. The pins are placed through the spreader tangs and the spreaders and then secured with cotter pins. I began by slugging the six through-bolt areas with 5/8”ø slugs, then taped and treated the bottom with seven coats of Bristol Finish on top of two coats of Z-Spar Flagship Varnish thinned 50%, sanding between coats as needed. I’ve got two coats of Pre-Kote and one coat of Hatteras Off-White yacht enamel on the top, with two more Hatteras coats coming in the next two days (weather withstanding). With the topsides done, I’ll sand the varnish down nice and smooth and lay one last thin coat of Bristol down, with a little lip over the enamel to make sure they’re nice and sealed. Then the plan is to drill the Clevis Pin holes and penetrate the holes with Smith’s Clear Penetrating Epoxy Sealer. There wasn’t really enough meat around the holes enough to put an adequately sized high-density epoxy slug, so I’ll seal it up nice ‘n good with the Smith’s. As for the tips, they’re not as complicated since the fitting that goes there takes up the majority of the load, and the fasteners only see a minimal amount. So, the two wood screws that hold that fitting on will get a little Sikaflex 291 to make sure that there is no water penetration, but that is about it. If all goes well, I’ll have fancy new spreaders in my rigging to show off on Sunday.
The importance of red lighting at night can’t be overestimated in my opinion, so I got this fancy chart light that has a red lens. It’s mounted on the end of a 500mm arm, and has a very low amp draw (for an incandescent light). I was very excited when I got it and, understandably, wanted to put it in right away. I got some duplex safety cable (the kind with red an yellow conductors) and pulled it from the locker where the fixture was located to the distribution panel. Then I tried to find a place to plug it in. I had been putting off any kind of electrical projects until I was done with the rig for a couple of reasons, and not small among them was the fact that the back of the panel was a total rat’s nest. The good news is that there was mostly new cable, but it was in a tangled fire waiting to happen. I didn’t have it in me to contribute to the nest; and half felt like if I did anything that wasn’t fixing it, the whole thing might just disintegrate or catch on fire. Or both. So I went back to the store. And then I spent two days crammed in the lazarette installing a new ground (sub) bus, a new positive bus, a few terminal strips here and there, and a couple of sub busses for the cabin lights and accessory circuits, crimping countless terminal connections, and sealing the heatshrink while only burning myself once. I don’t think I could feel my legs for half the time, but now I have the foundation for a solid 12VDC infrastructure, and won’t worry about it spontaneously combusting.
It had occurred to me at some point that I needed a new tiller, the old one having succumbed to rot and ultimately meeting its demise during a crucial maneuver in confined waters. I broke out the tape measure and scoured the internet, and eventually found a pre-fabricated tiller for an Ericson 27 at Annapolis Pro Sailing for a very reasonable price. They were out of stock when I placed the order on the internet, and received a call on the following business day to let me know that while they didn’t have any in stock, APS would call the manufacturer to check if they had one. Turns out they did, and it was drop-shipped to me, arriving yesterday. It looks like there is a crack in the top layer of mahogany, and I am going to call the manufacturer to see if I can exchange it. I’ve just been pretty busy during east coast business hours of late, and haven’t had a chance to do it yet. Hopefully I’ll get to that tomorrow or the next day.
That just about covers the recent goings on here, but with the preliminary deadline looming there should be plenty more happening within the next few weeks. Once I get the new spreaders up, then the forestay will come down and get sent to Svendsen’s for duplication, and whilst that is happening I’ll mount the new forestay chainplate that I fabricated. With any luck, somewhere in there I’ll build a new forward hatch and noodle out all the traveler bits and the reef lines, and then its all sailing.
1 Thanks Ms Bradley.
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