OUTHAUL REPAIR

So over the course of the past few seasons, there have been grumblings about the function of the outhaul.  I thought little of it until I tried to move it under a relatively light wind load last season.  That was enough to realize something needed to be done with it this winter.

With the boom in my basement, the work has been easy to complete.  I started with removing the reefing lines out of the boom.  Very easy to take out.  Then came the removal of the cast aluminum pieces at the ends of the boom.  The aft casting came out easily after remove of a couple of screws. 

The forward casting proved to be a bit more difficult.  Two of the four fasteners were completely stripped out and did not want to back out of their holes.  So, with a bit of persuasion from a grinder, the fastener heads were ground off and the screws punched into the boom so that the casting could slide out of the boom.  Prior to reassembly, the mounting holes were drilled out and tapped to a slightly larger size fastener.

With the castings off, the guts of the outhaul could be removed.  As it turns out, the blocks inside the mast were completely seized up.  Back when the outhaul operated properly, it gave a purchase of 3:1.  The setup consisted of a set of blocks, one connected to a fixed point in the boom and the other connected to a cable running to the aft end of the boom, around a pulley, and out to the sail.

The new setup includes an added block and line to double the purchase to 6:1.  Between the newer Harken blocks and the 6:1 setup, the outhaul is moving much more smoothly.  The entire outhaul assembly had to be put together outside of the boom and then fished inside.  All in all, I think I am very happy with this upgrade.  I've considered adding a short piece of track and a Harken ball bearing car to the aft end of the boom so that the operation of the outhaul would be effortless under heavy load, but that modification may wait until a later date.

BULKHEAD FINISH PANEL

The bulkhead finish panel is complete.  I used what was left of the old finish panel as a rough template for the new panel.  Then the panel was fitted in place, marked, and final trimmed to the proper size.  All the mounting hardware was also fitted.  New cleats for the engine cover to rest on were made out of leftover white ash from another project.

I had a bit of a challenge trying to find a piece of mahogany plywood to make the new panel out of.  The cost of a full sheet of plywood, plus a special order charge, was a bit ridiculous.  In lieu of the more expensive mahogany, I opted for a free piece of marine grade birch plywood and stained the panel to match the mahogany.  Obviously the grain differs, but the color match is relatively close.

Here are a few photos of the old and new panel.

The window was bedded in place with Life-Calk after the panel was installed.  A padeye tie-off point for harnesses was also re-installed with a new backing plate made of 1/4" thick fiberglass panel.

BULKHEAD REPAIR

The bulkhead over the engine has been repaired.  The old bulkhead was removed and found to have absolutely no integrity left in it.  All of its mounting locations were completely rotten and the bulkhead came out in two pieces.

A new bulkhead was constructed of marine grade plywood.  The plywood was wrapped in fiberglass and several layers of Interlux 2000E applied.

I decided to modify the mounting conditions of the bulkhead.  The old mounting consisted of four screws across the top of the bulkhead into the floor of the cockpit and another couple of screws into wood blocks at the base of the bulkhead. 

The revised mounting condition across the top of the bulkhead remained the same except a piece of fiberglass angle was installed to provide a bit of additional support between the bulkhead and cockpit floor.  At the sides of the bulkhead, a piece of fiberglass angle was attached between the bulkhead and adjacent fiberglass to take place of the blocks that had previously been installed at the base of the bulkhead.

I considered glassing this entire bulkhead in but decided it was better to use mechanical fasteners so that the bulkhead could be more easily removed in the future if needed.

COCKPIT SEAT REPAIR

There's been a bit of a soft spot in the port cockpit seat for the past couple of years that I decided it was time to tackle.  So out came the cutting tools.  I cut the top layer of deck into pieces about 2" x 2" with a dremel tool.  In retrospect, a larger cutting tool would had made this part of the process go much more quickly, but the dremel tool worked just fine.

With a bit of cutting and prying, the top layer of fiberglass was removed.  It turns out there was quite a bit of wet balsa core.  Here's a picture of the initial area that was cut out and another of the remnants of the cut out.

As I got further into removing material, there was more wet core than I had anticipated.  The wet core wrapped around the front of the traveler.  So more fiberglass and core was removed.  In order for the new fiberglass to have something to adhere to, the existing fiberglass needed to be feathered back around the repair area.  In some areas, there really wasn't enough area around the repair to allow for a perfect feathering, so the best that could be done had to be good enough.  Here is a picture of the area ready for the new layup.

Since fiberglass work was going to happen and I'm also going to rework the traveler, I decided to fiberglass in all of the old traveler hardware mounting locations.  Areas where hardware was mounted were ground out so that they could be filled and a couple layers of fiberglass laid in to prevent the filled holes from cracking out in the future.

So all of the areas of glass work were ready to go.  New balsa core and several layers of fiberglass where cut to the proper size.  The major repair consisted of three layers of a 29 oz. biaxial fabric while the small repairs consisted of two layers of fabric.

At the large repair a layer of glass was laid over the bottom layer of existing fiberglass.  Then the perimeter areas were filled with MarGlass filler.  The new balsa core was set and mudded in at the perimeter by more MarGlass.  Then three layers of glass were installed over the top of the core.