sail inventory

During this cold, sunny afternoon we looked at some bags of sails I had not opened yet. We rolled them out on the driveway, inspected them and took a few measurements to help me with the rigging.

It turned out there were three main sails and four jibs.� I had traded two spinnakers for an old outboard motor so I only have two spinnakers left.� All the sails were in good or better condition and one of the mains had reef points just like George said. This is the one pictured and the one we will use.

I mounted the boom and temporarily hooked up the topping lift and rove the main sheet and it all looks like it will all work.� I hooked up the forestay which seems too long. I have some engineering to do on the adjustable backstay which I am changing from the original.

Yesterday I removed the spinnaker pole lift which I do not plan to use and re-arranged the main and jib halyards to exit in the cabin.� I have a little different idea about how to do the halyards.

almost

The parts I have been working the past week are mostly finished and in the boat.

The oak keelson got some Watco oil and was bedded and bolted down as shown in the first picture.

Yesterday I cut and installed about 50 mahogany plugs into the floor grate.� This morning I sanded these flush and gave a final coat or Watco to the floor grates.

I sanded the pedestal after the final layer of fiberglass tape and sprayed a coat of primer.� (The fiberglass tape was the end of a roll I inherited from Jonathan's boat project last spring.)� I made a little teak platform for the top of the pedestal, bedded it, and bolted the main sheet block and jam cleat in place.

I thought about bedding the coamings but discovered that I had bought two tubes of silicone caulk that was out of date so that will have to wait.

I dug an old�spray hood out of the garage attic.� It belonged to another boat and was never used. Unfortunately we hosted a pack rat in our garage last year and the rat chewed two holes big enough to put your hand through, in the cover. Other than the holes,the cover is in new condition and might fit the Etchells�boat with a few modifications.

We will think about whether the spray hood is worth the clutter.

From the garage I dug out a Sunbrella boom tent and two Dacron monkey hammocks that came with the Etchells and Marjorie threw these into the washing machine and we will see if these might be of some use on the daysailer.

Recycle Floor Grates

The original Etchells had a mahogany floor grate that was 6 feet long and over 3 feet wide. The grate appeared to have been sanded and varnished several times and was in a distressed condition. There was some rot in the floors but the wood in the planks seemed worth saving. My new cockpit needed a floor about 9 feet long and 2 feet wide. I wanted to drop the height of the floor an inch or two to gain a little space.

To disassemble the old floor grate I removed the wood plugs that had not fallen out and about 50 screws. Most of the screws were old-style, bronze, wood screws with a shallow, slotted head and about half of them came out pretty easily. There were a few iron screws and nails too.

I spent much of yesterday cleaning the planks using a power plane, a disc sander and finally an orbital sander. I put a coat of Watco on the old, dry wood and began to figure out how to reconfigure the floor grate.

The last picture shows what I ended up with today. All the material was re-used excepting a few tiny scraps!

Much of my enjoyment of this project is figuring out how to re-use parts from the original boat.

The original Etchells had a control console in the center of the cockpit floor for sheeting the main and about a dozen other lines. I am simplifying the rigging but still wanted to sheet the main to the center of the cockpit. I cut two pieces from the original fiberglass console and will glass them together to make a "mini" console. This console is roughed out and will be positioned pretty much as shown in the pictures.

Forty degrees and sun made today wonderful for working on the boat.
Later this week below zero temperatures are predicted as a storm moves in.

Coamings

We took a vacation from working on the boat for about two weeks during Christmas, with the exception of an important day spent putting up the mast.

On Wednesday afternoon I sanded and varnished the tiller and polished the bronze with a buffer. On Thursday I put the coamings on the saw horses. They had been roughed out several weeks ago with a Skil saw with a dull blade and the edges were rough and burnt. Marjorie had put on a sealing coat of varnish while we were in the warehouse.

I planed the edges, put a 1/4 " radius on the sharp corners with the router, sanded, and drilled for the mounting screws. By Friday afternoon they were dry-fit into the boat and looked good.

The curved, laminated coaming at the rear of the cockpit was still a source or worry. It is curved and both ends must be cut with compound angles to fit between the coamings. Lots of ways to go wrong. Well, I made a bunch of measurements and cut the angles on some pieces of scrap to test them in the boat. To run the curved beam through the table saw I made some guides to hold the free end which was a foot and a half up in the air.

If I ruined this piece I would have to go to Belgrade for some more mahogany, rip it into thin planks, epoxy the planks together, etc. This would take a couple of days of work and $50 materials.

Well, sometimes you are lucky. The curved piece fit into it's place just fine. This is a great relief! The Harken track fits on top as per plan.

You can't tell from the picture, but the weather today has temperatures below freezing with gust 20 mph winds and blowing snow. The plastic cover on the boat flaps vigorously in the wind but has not torn itself up.

mast raising

On Wednesday, after Christmas, it seemed a slow day. The weather was dry and above freezing so in the afternoon we decided to attempt to raise and install the mast in the Etchells, in the driveway.

The spreaders are about 20 feet above the base of the mast and the mast hole in the cabin is about 9 feet above the ground so the "sky hook" needed to be at least 30 feet above the ground. I thought about using the roof of our house but it is only 23 feet above the ground.

I made a "gin pole" using an aluminum extension ladder which was about 17 feet long. I had a spinnaker pole 10 feet long and the garage roof was 9 feet above the driveway. By hinging the foot of the ladder to the roof of the garage, lashing it in an extended configuration, and then lashing the spinnaker pole to the top of the ladder we achieved a gin pole whose top was over 31 feet above the driveway. We rigged three rope guys and a lifting rope through a snatch block at the head of the pole and erected the pole.

The mast weighs less than 100 pounds so I tested the rig with my weight (210#) and it didn't break, bend, or bow, so I figured we had a factor of safety of 2 or more.

The whole family was in on this experiment. Jonathan and Christopher balanced the mast while Marjorie and I pulled on the hoisting rope. When the mast is hoisted, ready to slip into the mast step, the top of the mast is about 50 feet off the ground and that, is impressive!

We were just about high enough to lower the mast through the hole in the cabin top when I noticed the upper section of the ladder was taking on a distinct bowed shape. We rested the foot of the mast on the cabin to reduce the load on the gin pole. Christopher suggested we change the angle of our lifting rope to put it directly under the tip of the pole rather than to the side. This helped and soon we had lowered the mast in the boat and bolted it to the keel. We attached a few shrouds, put on the boat cover and since it was 6:00PM and dark, we called it a day and put on the boat cover.

That night it snowed about 12 inches and the last picture was taken the next morning.

It was exciting to have the mast in place. It was starting to look like a "real boat" and I would now be able to figure out some of the rigging details.

Work on the boat will slow down a lot due to the winter weather and to other obligations during Christmas, and beyond.

going home

We got up at 5:30AM and fixed breakfast and a Cuppachino and made half a Thermos of coffee. We drove to the warehouse a little before 7:00AM figuring this is the earliest the taping guys would be there. After the generosity of the Millers, the last thing I want to do is delay their project. We had cleaned the warehouse on Sunday so we sat in the cockpit of the boat and had a cup of coffee, waiting for it to get light outside. About 7:30 we opened the garage door, hooked the trailer up to the van and pulled it out into the cold morning.

Marjorie had suggested that we take the removable tail lights off the F-24 trimaran, and use them to "be legal" on the ride home with the Etchells. A brilliant idea, which I implemented. The ride home was uneventful even though we were driving on hard ice some of the time. We sent slow and got the boat spotted in our driveway at about sunrise. It was afternoon before I started rigging an enclosure. I had thought about building a different temporary enclosure but reverted to the plastic sheet tarp draped over the conduit hoops that I used during October and early November.

We have had a few comments from email correspondents in other parts of the country that we were either pathologically zealous or at least diligent and brave for working on this boat during cold weather. I will assure you that even during near-zero weather, like today, if the sky is clear, the sun warms you and it is "not that bad". I did have a moment at 4:00PM when I removed my gloves to tie some knots and my fingers refused to work. Well, that was a sign that the "sun was over the yard arm" so after getting the cover on the Etchells, I quit.

This Sunday morning both Marjorie and I were awake at 5:00AM having fallen into bed early due to a long day Saturday, working on the Etchells. I said "Lets get up and start early, I have a plan." I figured if we put another coat of paint on the boat's cockpit on early Sunday, then left it in the heated space until early Monday morning, it would dry. Some sheetrock tapers might come in Monday morning to fix some cracks and we have to be out of there.

We were at the warehouse an hour before the sun showed itself. The temperature was a couple of degrees below zero! I sanded the inside while Marjorie read the paper. Then she vacuumed in inside and wiped down the interior with solvent while I put primer on plywood that will be the "seats" and "bunks". Then I mixed the single-part polyurethane paint, the same off-white as the deck, and began painting about 10:30 AM. Marjorie went out to Costco, did some shopping, and brought us back a sandwich about 12:30, just when I was finished painting, AND ran out of paint!d We had lunch and rested in our camping chairs which we brought in, almost a month ago, when we moved into this space!

After lunch, we loaded tools, paint, lumber, table, saw horses, etc. etc. into the van. We had hauled a lot of stuff to the warehouse. Marjorie commented that we had used most of it.

We got home about 3:00PM to a glorious, sunny, Montana, winter day. The sun was very welcome as house had cooled to around 60 degrees because we were not home, we had not kept a fire going during the cold, cloudy weather. I put on some clean clothes as I was "heavy with sawdust and paint", and took a short nap followed by a shot of espresso.

I ran the snow blower to remove about 3-4 inches of snow from the driveway. I ran the snowblower out into the yard so I could stand a chance of getting the Etchells turned around and backed into her place. alongside the garage.

We returned to the warehouse near sunset and loaded the last of our tools and materials and swept, and dust-mopped the space, hoping to leave it at least as clean or better than we found it. The boat is ready for us to hook up our van to the trailer and bring it home.

Somewhat worrisome is the fact that last night as we tried to drive the van from the warehouse area onto Frontage road, the entry road was covered with a glaze of ice an inch thick, and the van could not get enough traction to pull itself out onto the highway. We are thinking, "Which is the most level route from the warehouse to our house?"

Well, yesterday we screwed and glued pieces of plywood and 1X2's together and today we continued more of the same. By the time Prairie Home Companion came on the radio, 4 PM, we were ready to do some painting.

We missed most of the of the PHC program as during the first part we were painting deck-colored paint on the inside of the hull and later we painted white primer on the bare plywood that makes seats. Our friend George Renner lent us the white primer from his stock of supplies. It is almost as good as having a West Marine in Bozeman.

We didn't get home until about 7:00PM and that feels like a long day for an "optional project" that is supposed to be "fun"! Oh well, the boat is inspiring so we keep going. Dinner will be re-heated spaghetti.

I think that tomorrow we will move the boat out of the heated warehouse we have enjoyed and will park it in the driveway.The low temperature tomorrow is predicted to be around 4 degrees F. No painting outside is scheduled this week, but the Christmas tree is waiting to be decorated.

storage under cuddy cabin

Today, Friday, we continued to work on the storage bins under the cuddy cabin. By this afternoon the frames built and in place and Marjorie applied fiberglass tape attaching the frames to the hull.

We are scheduled to leave our heated warehouse this Sunday. I had hoped to do some more painting of the inside before moving the boat to our cold driveway but time is running out.

On a typical day I wake up early and imagine that I will finish Task A, Task B, and Task C during that day. At the end of the day we may have finished Task A.

The work is mostly fun and challenging. It is special to see something you have only thought about, take shape. We have worked on this project much of the past 11 weeks.