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Old 02-18-2012, 07:55 PM
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Oh Happy Day

So barring any unforeseen catastrophes, on Monday my boat will be getting its bum wet for the first time in 13 months.

I had a lot to do to prepare her for launch, so today I went up to the boatyard for a day of non-stop work. It was a really nice day today, so I wans't freezing or getting rained on.

I installed my custom-built bulkhead in front of the engine, to hang the heat exchanger and expansion bottle. I had to drill a hole to run a battery wire that I had temporarily hooked up before. I also checked the fit of the new battery box lid I had made, and it fit perfectly, which is nice. Now I just need to paint it.

I hooked up a hose to engine raw water intake and fired up the engine. It was very gratifying that she fired up after just a few seconds of cranking with the choke on, after having sat for about 3 months. And even then, the last time I ran the engine, it ran for only about 20 minutes.

I let it run for a good, solid half-hour to get up to temp and charge the batteries. The temp seemed to stabilize around 170, and the O.P. was around 40 once it got up to temp. She ran smooth, purring like a kitten. I think I need to slow the idle down just a tad, though.

We all know this forum is a wonderful thing, and I owe it many debts of gratitude, and today I owe it even one more. When I first started the engine up, after it got going, I suddenly heard a loud, low moaning sound vibrating through the whole boat. If I had not already read about it here, I would have been freaking out and wondering "what the HELL is that???" Fortunately, thanks to this forum, I knew immediately it was the prop shaft turning slowly in a dry cutless bearing, so I quickly grabbed the gearshift lever and pushed it into neutral, and the noise immediately stopped.

While the engine was running, I re-installed the boom - and everyone can breathe a sigh of relief, because as Neil urged, I removed the sheet-metal screws and installed machine screws, with the anti-corrosion goop.

I then unpacked the headsail and ran it up the furler. To my dismay, it's got some mildew spots, so when I get to the slip, I'll pull it down and give it a little washing at the dock.

Then I put on my brand-spanking new, never-been sailed, custom-made main sail. That was a bear, because it's very stiff. I then covered it with my brand-spanking new, never-been-used, custom-made sail cover, which was a bear because the sail was so stiff it was hard to get the skinny part of the sail cover closed. But it looks about 983 times better than the old, worn-out old sail cover.

I also installed a new chain pipe for the anchor chain - the old one had lost its lid and I could not find a new one that fit, so I just bought a whole new pipe and lid. It's one of the very, very few sparkly shiny things on the deck now.

Then I gave the entire deck and cabin a good scrubbing, because it had gotten dirty and a little mildewy from sitting in the boatyard for so long. Once I get the boat back in the slip, I think I will drag my pressure washer up to the marina and pressure wash the deck to get rid of some stubborn spots.

There still are a few things to do before she goes into the water and we cruise to the marina - I will do those things Monday morning and we should be able to splash her by mid-day. Then it's only about a 2-3 mile cruise across the Piankatank River from Jackson Creek down to Queens Creek, but I'm going to seriously enjoy getting her out there in the open water!

The only thing that might put a little kink in the plans is the weather. It was 60 degrees and beautifully sunny today, and the temp is supposed to drop rapidly tonight and then tomorrow we're supposedly going to get 2-4 inches of snow. I'll believe it when I see it. This being Richmond, even if we get it, it should melt by Monday.
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Old 02-18-2012, 08:50 PM
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Thumbs up Any day on a boat....

Hey Bill, Happy to hear the good news and looking forward to some cool launching pictures!
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Old 02-18-2012, 10:05 PM
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Another thing I did today, which always makes me happy, was to pull out some more dead, unused wires. I discovered some wires running inside, just under the deck/hull joint, along the port side, from just aft of the dinette, through the dinette storage compartment, into the storage compartment behind the head.

It was old speaker wire - don't know if some long-ago P.O. was using it for power, or had a stereo system on board, or what. All I know is I gleefully yanked the wires out and threw them away. It always warms my heart to tear out crap like that.

I might die of ecstasy when I pull out the old, dead refrigeration unit.
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Old 02-19-2012, 01:54 AM
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Long hard road to get to this point. Most of us here have followed you every step of the way and wish you the best. I'm know I'm looking forward to it, for you. Good work Bill.
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Old 02-19-2012, 06:40 AM
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Thanks for all the good wishes! I've also received a couple off-list replies, which is very nice.

I'm thinking that my mast step is leaking into the deck - something certainly is. I'm thinking that the forward area above the v-berth might eventually need a re-core.

I wish I had a big barn to put the boat in for the winter - then I could work on her and remove all the hardware from the deck, yank the deck step, etc. As it is, I plan on just sailing the old girl around this year. Maybe next year I'll have the yard unstep the mast and put one of those big plastic covers over her so I can open up the deck and see what I can see. Hey, it's only money, right?

This year should be interesting for me - I will be leaving my current law job and buying a franchise to start up my own business. In a month or two, I will be very, very busy. Hopefully, I'll still be able to get get out on the odd Sunday or two to grab a sail here and there.
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Old 02-19-2012, 10:43 AM
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"Thank's and Happy Sailing"

Bill,
You deserve a special vote of thank's for sharing your photos and rebuild story with us. For most of us a project like that is a very educational experience and I consider your "classroom" to be an A+ adventure. I doubt that anyone who followed it will be leaving out any of the oil galley plugs during their rebuild.
Best wishes for a successful launch and a happy sailing season.
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Old 02-19-2012, 12:18 PM
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Here, Here! Good job Bill.
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Old 02-20-2012, 08:33 AM
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Way to go Bill. We've all been looking forward to this day and living vicariously helps keep the winter blues at bay.
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Old 02-20-2012, 07:43 PM
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Well as I stated at the beginning of this thread, my boat did get its bum wet today - although there were indeed some "unforseen circumstances."

There were several things to take care of prior to launch - nothing major, really. The "biggest" thing was to replace the centerboard pennant. The plan was to lift the boat in the travel lift, drop the centerboard, pull the old line out with the new line attached, and make an eye splice in the new line and attach it to the centerboard. Then the yard guys would paint the centerboard and then we would splash the boat and be on our merry way.

If, if, if only things ever would work out so smoothly as planned, in the real world.

In the real world, it goes like this:

The travel lift comes over and picks the boat up. The idea is they'll pick it up slowly and the centerboard will lower as the boat is lifted. I'm inside the boat, feeding the new pennant line through, attached to the old.

They hoist the boat with me in it, and they yell up "lower the centerboard!" Meanwhile, I'm up there wondering why the line isn't moving. After some yelling back and forth to be heard over the roar of the travel lift's diesel engine, we realize it's not lowering any more than it is (about 45 degrees), which is not enough to get at the fitting where the line attaches.

So I yell down to my buddy who came along with me to help sail the boat back to my slip to put the ladder back up so I can come down and see what's going on down there.



That's him holding the ladder and me up on the stern of the boat, waiting. Check out that new bimini - brand-spanking new, custom made last year. This is the first time it's been up. We set it up this morning before the lift came over.

So I go down and reach my hand up inside the centerboard trunk and find the old line and pull it down, until I can't get any more out. And we still can't get at the fitting where the line attaches to the centerboard, because it's still up inside the trunk.

I'm thinking something's wrong - why won't the centerboard lower any more? We all peer up in there and determine that, in fact, that is as low as the centerboard is designed to go.

Then I say, "Well, if you guys can lift it, I can pull out the pin."

OK, all agree.

So I go back up the ladder (a motion I was to repeat many times today - I am sure my legs will be screaming at me tomorrow) and into the boat - recall that there is no sole in the cabin, because I tore it out last year and have yet to replace it with anything. This becomes even more important later in our story, but it proved itself to be a major advantage, because it was exceedingly easy to get at the fittings that cover the centerboard pin.

The fittings are basically two chunks of fat bronze pipe - one on either side of the trunk, each with a cap threaded on. I grabbed a pipe wrench and unscrewed them both and discovered that the pin is just a fat hunk of bronze rod.

The guys below yelled up "OK!" and I pushed the rod right out easily. They lowered the board to the ground, trailing the old pennant line.

They pulled on the old line to pull the new line through, but it would get part way through and then jam. Apparently, the hole was just barely wide enough for the diameter of the line itself, but nothing more. No matter what we did, we couldn't get the line through. So we all thought deeply on the matter (meanwhile, I had little $$ symbols floating out of the top of my head, as the boat sat there hanging in the slings with the engine of the travel lift running).

We decided to cut the line off the centerboard and tie a smaller line on to it, then use that smaller line to pull the new line through.

I went down to see what was going on. Then when we thought we were ready, I ran back up the ladder ... again....



Check out that bimini - nice, huh?

By the way, if anyone ever asks you, "Say, do you know what the centerboard of a 1968 Pearson Wanderer looks like?", you can answer, "Why, in fact, I do. And in fact, I can show you a photo of one. It looks very much like - indeed, it looks exactly like - this:" and you can then show them this photo:



And this one:

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Old 02-20-2012, 07:50 PM
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So...

We cut that line off, attached a thin string to it (whipping thread, actually) and pulled that up into the boat. I was back up inside the boat, remember? I then tried to attach that little thread to the new line and yelled out (screamed, actually, to be heard over the roar of the damn travel lift engine through the thick solid fiberglass hull) to give it another try.

My buddy stepped up to assist - he stood on the ladder and yelled at me through the open companionway and yelled at the rigger who was on the ground under the boat:



See me in that photo? Well of course not. I'm directly above the guy who's sititng on the ground in the Tyvek suit. You can't see me because I'm on my hands and knees in the bilge of my boat.

I must say, the rigger was a decent fellow. He certainly was no spring chicken, but he crawled around under the boat and up and down the ladder a few times and on his hands and knees in the bilge... and remained very "well, let's figure this out" throughout the whole thing.

So...

The thread could not pull the new line through, and in fact it broke, and now we had no line going through the hole. So now we had to start from scratch.

So he tried poking a wire up in there:



And I tried poking one down from above.

And this story goes on for 2 hours.

Yes. 2 hours. Cha-ching. Cha-ching. Engine on the travel lift running, boat hanging in mid-air; the yard guys go take their lunch break; I'm on my hands and knees in the bilge, poking a wire into a hole that goes no where.

Very long story only slightly less long, the rigger finally does what he should have done to begin with - he gets a giant, long drill bit.

Turns out the hole was full of barnacles.

What hole, you ask? This hole:



I pointed the camera directly up inside the centerboard trunk for that shot.
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Old 02-20-2012, 08:02 PM
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So once he drilled the barnacles out of the hole (and I'm skipping all kinds of adventures in cuss words and various tries and attempts to get a wire or something through that damn hole), it was easy to pull the new line through. Then he said, "OK, well now I can do what it was I was originally called over here to do."

And in about 5 minutes, he made a lovely neat eye-splice in the new line and attached it to the fitting:





Then we had to sit and wait for yard guy #2 and yard guy #3 to come over with the paint, to paint the inside of the centerboard trunk and the centerboard itself. At this point, the boat had been in the slings for probably around 3 hours.

They painted the CB and trunk and a few other spots here and there. Then came time to lift the centerboard back up and put the pin in.

Oh geez, I'm thinking to myself - this should be an adventure, after everything else up to this point.

To my amazement, it went right in, first try - took only a few seconds.

BTW, if anyone ever should ask you, "I say, you wouldn't happen to know what the bronze pin that holds in the centerboard of a 1968 Pearson Wanderer looks like, would you?", you can respond cheerfully and with great confidence, "In, fact, curiously enough, I actually do!" and you can show them this photo:



So OK, after sitting around and climbing up and down the ladder and cursing at hidden and highly inaccessible barnacles and pushing wires and pulling ropes for hours, it now seemed like we might actually get the blasted boat in the water. Which was a good thing, because we figured it was going to take us at least an hour to get the boat out of Jackson Creek, cruise across the Piankatank River, up Queens Creek and into the slip - and we were concerned about running out of daylight.

So we climbed back down out of the boat and they started the long, slow trek down to the pier.
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Old 02-20-2012, 08:04 PM
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[YOUTUBE]dcIKeaKKcYM[/YOUTUBE]
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Old 02-20-2012, 08:08 PM
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[youtube]XuUN2COnLqo[/youtube]
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Old 02-20-2012, 08:10 PM
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I owe a debt of gratitude to my wife, who came along not only to drive down the marina to meet my buddy and me at the other end of the trip, but also for taking all the pictures and video for me. You can hear her voice in the first video, when she says "There goes our boat!"

Of course, she will tell you I owe her way more debts of gratitude for way more things than that - and she would be right.
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Old 02-20-2012, 08:14 PM
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So I hopped aboard to make sure there wasn't any water spurting out of anything. Checked the pipe and fittings that the centerboard pennant runs through - bone dry. Checked the bronze caps on the pipes that close in the centerboard pin - bone dry. Check my brand-new through hull for the raw water intake - bone dry.

Suh-weet! Looks good - let's rock and roll. But first, there's that little matter of the yard bill. Rigger's time (which should have been less than 30 minute but ended up being 2-1/2 hours), painting, hanging in the slings....

So I ran up into the office to pay the bill while the boat sat in the water, still in the slings while the yard guys waited for me to come back. My wife and my buddy hung out down there waiting for me.
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Old 02-20-2012, 08:25 PM
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Paying the bill took about 15 minutes, because there was all kinds of stuff going on in the office. Meanwhile, I'm thinking "come on...come on...we're running out of daylight..."

Finally get the bill paid, run back down to the boat, "OK! Let's fire this baby up!"

Grab the PFDs, jump aboard - I climb down into the cabin to fire up the engine.

I glance down and notice a small, yellowish puddle in the middle of the bilge area, where previously it had been bone dry.

What the?

I quickly check the pipe caps covering the centerboard pin, since the puddle was right next to the starboard one - bone dry. I'm sure that puddle was not there before. Where the hell is that water coming from?

Just then I notice a tiny trickle run down the inside of the hull and join the puddle. It was coming from under the galley cabinet. I flung the door open and grabbed everything I could get my hands on and yanked everything out of there. Why do we have so much junk under the galley sink?

I almost immediately realized what was leaking. The depth sounder transducer is under there. And yes, it was leaking. A very small trickle was dripping from the transducer, running almost invisibly down the curve of the inside of the hull, and puddling in a small depression in the shallow part of the bilge.

Remember how up above I said it was a good thing I didn't yet have a floor in the cabin? This is why. If there had been a floor in there, that puddle would have been under it - and I never would have seen it. We would merrily have motored away and across the river. I would have tied up at the slip and left the boat. And who knows whether that puddle would have grown or the bilge filled up, or what?

So...

Turns out that the depth sounder transducer is mounted in a wooden backer block. Probably was installed 30 years ago or more. Because the boat was on the hard so long, the backer block dried out and shrunk. The yard guy who came aboard and looked at it said that it probably would take up and stop leaking, but I didn't want to try to go home and sleep tonight with the knowledge that that old leaky wooden backer block was all that was keeping my boat afloat at the slip.

And - the transducer itself was leaking - through the body of the transducer. I'm guessing it's probably 30 years old. We quickly made the decision to pull the boat back out and have them tear out that old wooden backer block and they will install a new FRP block and brand new transducer to work with my Garmin GPS chartplotter. That way, not only will the depth show up on my chartplotter's screen, I can eliminate the old Datamarine depth gauge and either fill in that hole or use it for something else (maybe a little round porthole to let more light into the cabin).

So the boat came back out of the water, they blocked her up on the hard again, and we drove home.

It's always something...

Time to break out another boat unit.
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Old 02-20-2012, 08:29 PM
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Outstanding Bill.

Y'know, you're s'posed to sleep aboard the first night with your bare feet in the bilge.

edit:
Bill and I were typing at the same time. My eerily prophetic comment came before I saw any of Bill's leak story. Last I saw they were ready to take off. Sorry it went down that way, glad it will be resolved without catastrophe.
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Old 02-20-2012, 08:49 PM
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Bill,

I feel for you!

I was apparently reading these installments as you were posting them. I would get to the end of each one, and have to go back to the main screen and hit refresh until the next installment showed up! :0 Very dramatic.

So when's your next window of opportunity for launch?
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Old 02-20-2012, 09:00 PM
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Hopefully later this week. The forecast is saying that Thursday will be 70 degrees and sunny. I told the yard manager I'd like to shoot for that. He said they would try and see if they could get it done by then. If not, then Friday or next week.

I mean, if I have to take a day off of work to go sailing, it's just something that I'll have to soldier through.
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Old 02-20-2012, 10:15 PM
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Mr. Murphy

Sounds about right. Boat chores I tend to think will be easy to do end up being difficult and the stuff I think should be difficult is sometimes easy to do.

Center board boats have a little more gear to deal with but I think it is worth it.

Good call on hauling out again. It is only money after all and you'll have another chance at it on a warmer day.

I can't wait for our launch in April after our shaft/drive train replacement is finished. Should be lots of fun, just like you had.

Thanks for the update.
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Old 02-20-2012, 10:25 PM
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No pictures of the leak??? I'm disappointed, you are usually more thorough Bill!
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Old 02-20-2012, 10:36 PM
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Talking

There are two problems with wood fairing blocks on fibreglass hulls. One has to do with different coefficients of expansion in salt water which is dealt with by using the hardest and most dense wood possible. The second problem is that many use 5200 to bed the blocks to the hull, which is a mistake. Although the 5200 will initially seal and work OK, in time it "withdraws" from the wood and permits a leak. Roofing cement or polysulfides are better choices. FWIW
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Old 02-20-2012, 11:31 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jpian0923 View Post
No pictures of the leak??? I'm disappointed, you are usually more thorough Bill!
I'm sure he had his hands full at the time!
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Old 02-21-2012, 12:28 AM
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But his lovely wife was there, and he a buddy with him! There is no excuse.
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2/7/67 A4 Engine Block date
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Old 02-21-2012, 07:15 AM
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jhwelch jhwelch is offline
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After many years I removed an old transducer that had not been doing anything and that had one of those shaped wooden blocks. Rather than glassing over the large hole (which to do properly would have been impossible, as there was not enough room inside the boat to fair back) it was much easier to install a thru-hull with a cap on the inside.

-Jonathan
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