January to Launch - Lauch - May to September - October to December
Repair/maintenance: 225 Hrs to Dec 31st
Right, the last 'fixes' to get the boat to a level of mechanical sturdiness, sailability and prettiness that suits us... Until next winter.
Decided to have an extended sprit with the gear for the Screacher and the spin installed. Looked at making a carbon one - Tuffnel 38mm tube as a former with carbon tape wound, epoxied and bagged up, fixing point balsa inserts, faired and painted was going to be around £200 to £300 for me to do... Or I could spend £25 on some ali tube and £50 to get it etch primed and sprayed. A difficult choice I know :-) Turned out very nice - and I did make some carbon end caps.
Same for the rudder cassette thingy - seems very agricultural to me for what it does but hey ho... One of next years projects is to remake the ali plates out of carbon, but for this year it's just a etch/spray jobbie and again, it turned out very well!
Also had a look at how the bow fitting was doing - it seems very flimsy up at the bow for the stresses imparted, so I made a carbon re-enforcement that goes back to the mooring line fairleads and epoxied it in place. Also took the time to have the bow fitting etched/sprayed - tarty or what.
After a couple of 'odd' video recording issues last year I decided to make a more convenient "just plug the cam and power leads in and off you go..." effort. Water proof power junction box and some spare carbon sheet off cuts and it was done - together with a rather flash GPS text overlay box, very pleased with the results and it'll work well with both the boat and the car. Then found out what the problem was we were having last year; The JXD PMP recorder will not 'tape' more than 15 minutes of high resolution video before crashing, low res is fine though. So, had an explore of the interweb and found that this is a know issue with no fix for it - scratch one recorder, bit of a shame really as the screen is fantastic.
So, had a look around and found the Dv500 - very nice indeed, excellent recording quality, very easy to use/setup and will record over 17hrs on a 16GB SD card! Only thing against it is the very titchy screen - you have to be square on to it or you can't see a thing.
Dad(tm made a mould for some side deck supports and we bagged up a test piece (just used a lilo pump rather than the vacuum pump this time) and it turned out OK. Think we're going to run out of time this year to get them done and fixed on, so another job for next year.
Time for the nasty. February half term saw us removing the antifouling from the floats - outside face was very easy, the VC70 stuff came of in about 10 minutes (not too good stopping marine growth but at least it came of with no drama). The inside face was a mini repeat of last Easter (the horror!), pretty much took us the whole week to get it all off and polished back up. Just got the main hull to do now - easy, five minutes work :-)
After last year spending a day getting the waterlines done on the floats/hull and still not being happy with the results I bought a laser level. Looks like it should make getting them straight a breeze!
Time for the really nasty. Getting the antifoul off the main hull - the time has come. So after the horror of last Easter getting the stuff off the outside face of the floats - we did what any self respecting and keen person would do.... We paid someone else to do it! :-) Chaps turned up with a van, a compressor, some very very fine sand and a bit reverse vacuum cleaner and 10 minutes later we hade a clean, smooth main hull with not a trace of antifouling paint on it - bliss.
Laser level to the fore! Took around an hour start to finish to mark the waterline ends, set the level up and pencil dot the 'new' +waterline in. Six coats of Gelshield 200 and a week of rubbing down, repainting, rubbing down, polishing and repolishing and we had a very glossy finish - odd looking but very glossy! (It turned out the waterline was perfect on both the main hull and the floats). The hull, before we applied the Gelshield was in extremely good nick, the chaps who remove the old paint both commented on the quality - nice to know!
We had a good look around for the new antifouling paint and after our experience last season, decided on some Tiger Extra. The tin says one coat will do for a season, two will do for a year in the water so we put three on. The laser thingy worked well again on the hull/floats, took about 90 minutes to get them marked up, dotted and masked. Very please with the results.
Took the paint off the daggerboard - took 30 minutes but looked like a brutal axe murder had taken place by the time we had finished :-) three coats of new paint on.
Decided to add a second spin halyard as we'd done the bow sprit to allow for both the Screacher and spin gear to be set up at the same time - I wonder if you can fly both at the same time, bet that'd be fun :-) Ordered an Allen mast sheave and modified it with a beefier axle/wheel and took a very deep breath... and cut a hole in the mast, well two holes. It all went pretty easily; marked up the halyard exit hole, drilled, filed and sanded smooth, repeated for the sheave box hole and the mast was done. Drilled and tapped a hole in the mast base for the halyard block and a job I'd been dreading was done - easy.
Ready for launch day! lets hope for a relatively easy day, drive to the ramp, sail up to the marina, do the paperwork and home...
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Repair/maintenance: 95hrs - Total = 320 Hrs to end of May
The sun was out the high water was perfectly timed and the water was flat - a pretty good start... Then it all went a bit wonky, nothing major just a pain. When we put the halyards back in the mast I forgot to run the jib through its fairlead, so Val had to go up the mast to fix it (once we were on the water and unfolded I hasten to add) - done. Then I'd also, well not forgotten but left off the nasty placcy jib halyard deflector thinking "bet that doesn't do anything... Well, it does, damn it! We couldn't furl/unfurl the jib as the halyard just wound itself around the ali furler extrusion...
The we got one of the shroud shackle keys in the wrong way (facing the mast rather than facing the bow) which meant the rig couldn't rotate without bending the shroud at the eye fitting at the top of the mast, so up I go and two hours later we have a working rig... Not the most fun we've ever had - but (a) we won't be doing that again, (b) at least we caught on to the problem before we damaged anything and (c) we can use the jib :-)
Small things but, as I say... A right pain!
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End of may to end of September 2009
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