Apart from Skipper spending a lot of time and effort on keeping my shell in the best condition he can, which happens to be one item on his A4 winter list of jobs, there are lots of other jobs on that list. The list also contains a number that has been transferred over from last year and a number of new ones. Some jobs are not necessarily urgent like moving the AIS aerials to the lower spreader to get better coverage and some are what he deems 'would likes'.
One job that was a must, was the replacement of my jib, torn to shreds by the wind when the sail tie used came undone. This has been collected and is in position.
This year he's managed to get a few 'would likes' off his chest and more importantly off the list. Take the photo above for instance, you can see that the Gel coat on the deck has had the Skipper treatment and the rain can be seen to be 'bubbled' due to the wax. For those of you with a keen eye, you'll notice that you can also follow the lines all the way to where they turn 90 degrees to the mast, this is usually covered with a panel and when rafted people tend to walk on it. Skip not keen on the dullness of the surface also spotted a number of star or spider cracks as seen below.
These cracks are stress cracks heavy objects or something being dropped usually causes them, so with the aid of the multi-tool, each crack is followed and filled. The panel at the top if from on side and the panel at the bottom the other, hence why the cracks don't line up!
Once filled rubbed back and repeated a couple of times, Skip then went and bought a G-100 spray gun specially made for spraying Flow Coats, which is Gel Coat but with a wax mixed in that evaporates. This is not quite as easy and YouTube was correct when users suggested that the gun leaks as soon as it comes out of the box and he discovered that one of the rubber O rings had split. Now the gun is not as sophisticated as some he has and even with new rings, it still hisses all the time.
So above is one of the line covers (panels), the other is underneath on the floor and it has had three coats and is being rubbed down. To get the shine back he's used P600, 1000, 1500, 2000 & 3000 grade wet & dry, the last four are mini sanding disks that fit on his air-powered palm sander. The secret apparently is to use water with washing up liquid in it to provide the lubricant. Once a hazy shine has been produced it's then a case of turning to the much finer liquid cutting compounds. Finally, a couple of coats of clear Flow Coat is applied and the polishing process is repeated, to give added protection and that deep glassy shine he's looking for.
Above you can see three stages during the state of polishing, the one furthest away liquid compounds have been used, the middle is going through the various stages of wet & dry and the nearest has has a P120 grade sanding. Skip has also chased out a number of stress cracks on my stern and dug out and filled some dings too. These have all been rubbed smooth and he's likely to spray in the summer when the ambient temperature is better.
Another job that was part 'Would Like' and part replacement was the new control panel on the cockpit. The old Yanmar rev counter had packed up towards the end of the season and the four LED lights had long since given up the ghost probably even before skip and crew had taken possession. Also, the ignition key is a simple square key that other uses could be to bleed radiators, this is not very secure as a pair of pliers could be used instead. Also, occasionally the key would fall out and turn the ignition off, being diesel the engine would still run but the bow thruster would not function and guess when this was more likely to happen - yep just when you're looking at coming alongside and not looking down at your ankles! As you can see below he's fitted a split digital gauge too, the upper display is oil pressure and lower is water temperature. When running within tolerances (set by the user), the display is green, when it exceeds the range it goes red and if allowed to stay in the red, then flashes. On start up the display is purple till it reaches the desired tolerance. These colours can be different but that's how Skip's set it. It still has the protective plastic over the panel.
Another of the 'Would Likes', is something Skip saw on the Volvo Round the World racing yachts. His engineering brain liked the tri-sail pattern which causes the wind to accelerate between the sails causing higher boat speeds. Whilst Skip is not intending on racing, the light winds usually found when we cross Lyme Bay causes us to travel at or below 5.0kts making the crossing a long day, by adding a sail between the code 0 or even jib could reduce the crossing time by up to half.
Using a laser, Skip carefully cuts away at the ceiling and panels to fit the big steel bracket to transfer deck loads to the bulkhead.
Here the bracket is chemically bonded to the bulkhead and held in place with two screws until the bonding has fully taken place. The access door is to my retractable bow thruster and is usually hidden by the head board.
On the other side of the bulkhead is the anchor locker here the steel plate is lined up against the bolts and tightened as the chemical bonding takes place of the D ring on the foredeck. The photo above is prior to that stage as the halyard that is used for the Code 0 and Jenneker is attached plus no nuts on the bolts! Below the 12.5mm thick marine ply is chemically bonded to the bulkhead with the domed nuts tightened to squeeze tight the two sides.
Then the ply is made watertight by fibreglassing it and a Gel coat applied to seal any pinprick holes that might have been missed.
Inside the visual impact of the bracket is reduced by fitting a thin bit of veneered ply to the sides and the front. The front has magnets so that it can be removed to expose the bolt heads for inspection. Skip needs to find the correct stain, which he thinks is Chestnut and a darker for the lower portion so as to reduce the impact further. All he needs to do now is to obtain an appropriate halyard and feed this up the mast and to the cockpit and of course take all the relevant dimensions and get a J3 made, having spent money on a jib replacement the budget for another new sail is work in progress.
So I'm now back in the water and back on my pontoon up the Medina. The removal of the old ignition switch didn't go without a hitch and at first, neither the bow thruster nor the windlass would work. However, Skip found the wire that needed to be reconnected to enable this to happen.
Easter is approaching and it's hoped that we will be able to see how the new jib fares and have a shakedown for a few days before setting out further afield.
