April Update (Written in May)

I made little progress on the boat in April, and none so far in May, so even though the first week of May has mostly passed, this update only covers things done to the boat in April. Despite the relatively small amount of progress, it was still some progress, and here are the things I completed.

The outhaul line was replaced. This sounds trivial, but ends up being a pretty significant pain. The outhaul has a 4:1 purchase system built inside the boom, and it's not easily removable. The boom gooseneck had been riveted to the end of the boom extrusion, and to gain access to the block inside, I first had to drill out the rivets. Before doing this, I tried to run a leader line through the boom in place of the outhaul line, but that turned into a big mess, which was only complicated by the fact that one end of the outhaul is anchored to the inside of the boom. I then tried to extract the whole outhaul assembly from the opposite end of the boom, but this didn't work as there's a reinforcing collar inside the boom with a diameter too narrow for the whole assembly to slide through, so it needed to come out the front of the boom. After replacing the line, I reassembled the whole thing with bolts rather than rivets, so that doing the same work in the future will be less difficult. The new outhaul is the black and red line in the photo.

I also redid the traveler. I found the old traveler positioning to be a pain, mostly in my back -- the cam cleats were located right in the middle of the backrest where'd you be likely to sit while holding the tiller. Oddly though, finding a better place to put them wasn't easy. I experimented with a lot of different ideas, and eventually decided to put them on the cockpit seats, far enough back from the cabin that two people could sit side-by-side at the front of the cockpit and still not sit on them, yet close enough to make reaching across to the low side of the boat to release the leeward line without getting up simple. I bought a new set of cam cleats and new line as well, to make everything look pretty as well as operate much more smoothly.

I also decided that I'd had enough with the faded, cracked, splintered backrests, and I decided I'd sand them smooth. This took quite a bit of sanding, as the low spots in the wood were probably about 1/8 inch lower than the high spots, and as I wanted a smooth surface, I had to take the entirety of the wood down about 1/8th of an inch. They came out pretty well though, as you can see above in the photo of the traveler, as well as from the other side in the photo alongside this paragraph. I still haven't decide if I should try to varnish or finish them in some way, but I'm considering coating them with a layer of epoxy, partly because I've already gotten a few spots of it on there while doing fiberglass work on parts of the boat near the backrests.

I also fixed two different cracks in the glass work on the boat. One behind the port side lazarette, which you can actually see in the photo of the traveler above, and another at the edge of the cockpit floor, also on the port side, almost directly below the other crack. Unfortunately, I forgot to take photos of these repairs, so no picture for now. Maybe I'll take some and post them in my next update.

None of these things are major changes, but they're all progressing forward, which is good. Getting the cracks in the fiberglass work gets me closer to being ready to paint, and that will make a huge difference in the appearance of the boat when I do it. I have to admit though, painting seems like a huge job with a lot of potential to go wrong, so I'm a bit apprehensive about starting on it. I'll let you know when I do, though.

Tyler Karaszewski

April Update (Written in May)

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