New backing and base plates

Here are the new base and backing plate for the chain plate. The smaller piece, backing plate, seems to be cut odd/uneven because it is cut odd/uneven. I just followed the cardboard template I made from the very, very cramped location in the bow.This is replacing the very thin strips of 1/16" stainless steel that was originally there. There was nothing wrong with those strips per say, but I do prefer the 1/4" SS plate I made.

The larger plate is 3/8" SS. Metal Supermarket ran out of 1/4" but only charged me for the price of 1/4". Great service like that will keep me going there again and again. Drilling hint; buy a cobalt drill bit and a good cutting fluid. Wow. I went through three 3/8" jobber drill bits before I gave up, that is not including the 1/8" pilot holes. The cobalt bits are pricey, but well worth it.

Back to the larger plate, it is probably redundant and won't add much more strength to the whole job but I wanted it.

Small side bar here; I initially bought a fairly large piece of SS for the bow and was shaping it in a modified triangular shape with a curved base roughly matching the contour of the deck shapes around the bow but, alas, I fucked up the measurements and ended up with two pieces of 1/4" plate that I could not use (for this project).

I should have place a ruler in the shot to give you some scale, the big piece is about 7" long and 3" wide.

The wife and I have already glassed in the bow after over sized the through holes in the deck. This will allow us to drill the bolt holes in the resin alone and assist in keeping any leaks from getting to the core of the deck.

We still have to mix a final batch of resin, thicken it to a peanut butter state and spread it of and form it, sand it smooth, drill the correct sized bolt holes through the above mentioned over sized, resin filled hole.

I had a lot of mixed resin left over and the wife went around cleaning out the crazing in the deck around the boat and brushing the resin in them while informing me we will be painting the deck this year. I think she read my copy of Don Caseys "Hull and Deck Repair".

BTW, all cutting was done with a die grinder with cutting discs installed, edges removed with a bench grinder then sanded smooth with a sanding wheel in a drill press.

Costs:
Small SS piece = $12
Large SS piece = $17
Fucked up SS piece = $34
1/8, 3/8 Cobalt drill bits and cutting oil = $34 for a total of $97. Should have been $63 except for that screw up of mine...lol

GPS course

The wife and I just finished a GPS course with the Burlington Power Squadron. Learned a lot from it....I KNEW there was more to the unit that I could figure out. I now know what all the initials and acronyms mean, it actually makes sense...lol My unit and compass will now read the same bearing. Before, the GPS was set on "True North" as opposed to magnetic. It was worth the $60 each fee just for that.

New rigging, more $$$$ spent

Pictured is $182 worth of wire and rope halyards. The roller furling jib halyard had to be replaced as the roller furling swivel failed to swivel last year and as we tried to furl it it, the wire halyard began to unwind. Fortunately, this happened on the last sail of the season. In an attempt for this not to happen again, my rigger friend, Martin, suggested we put a swivel clip on as well. Much like wearing belt and suspenders, I like the idea. I am also replacing the two lower mast shrouds as one looked dodgy.

The furling failure just emphasized my paranoia about all mechanical systems. The more complex they are, the greater the chance they will fail. A simple hanked on jib would not caused us that problem. Just saying.

I know a picture of wire and rope will not appeal to most, but I have seen similar pictures in other blogs and I like them so I figure someone will like mine.

Chain plate repair

Spring is here and I finally removed the chain plate and ground down the rotten and cracked surface.

The plan is build it up with resin and fiberglass. Drill over sized holes and fill them with resin. I have a stainless steel backing plate made and a friend suggested making a stainless steel top plate too. Makes sense to me so I will take some measurements and visit the local http://www.metalsupermarkets.com/. No order is too small for these people. The bow is now sealed with plastic and duct tape. I will open it up every evening this week and remove the moisture. It should be totally dried out by next Saturday when I apply the resin, weather permitting.

Our new skill: Splicing

The wife and I took a two hour seminar/lesson on splicing doulble braided line. It was most informative. The first photo are my three attempts when we got home, the first two were failures but the third was spot on perfect.

The second photo shows my wifes three tries, one wrong and two perfect. The marks you see are reference points for us rookies.

She is the better rigger.....

I learned you cannot splice used rope. Rope that has been wet, nor rope that has been stretched.

Being able to splice loops in lines will save a bundle of $$$ as buying unsliced lines is cheap, cheap, cheap.

Road trip to a boat wrecker

What you see here is our new to us ST2000+ Autohelm plus four turnbuckles. Not shown is our man over board bouy and a tiny anchor for our dinghy. All for a mere $140. Another boating couple and us went on a road trip for this place.

The autohelm does work, we ran it through its paces at the yard. What sucks now is waiting for our launch in spring to put her through sea trials.

Thanksgiving sail.

Our friend taking our picture while my wife was taking their picture.

Me looking the happy fool.

Waiting for our friend to pull in. Look at the algae, it is thiiiick.