Memorial Day

Today was a nice, sunny, HOT day. It got to around 95°F today. Since it was a day off for me, I decided to do some work around the boat. I think I got there around 9:30-10am and didn't leave until 3pm. I had a 3 liter bottle of water with me that was quite warm by the time I left.

I wanted to get the standing rigging out of the house so I took it to the boat. I finally got to replacing the fore stay. It was needed since a connector was cracked in 3 places including one of them broken all the way through.

I first layed the furling track and new wire together to get the length right.

Since I was working on getting the threaded end on the wire, I first took it and inserted it into the Harken furler drum to see where it is seated when tightened. I put the old threaded stud into the broken connector while still on the line so I could mark where to cut.

Once I got the hacksaw out and did some cutting, things went together pretty quickly. Feeding the new line through the track wasn't too bad. I only had to twist a little to get it through. I think it turned out ok but the main test will be when it's all rigged up on the mast when I get Rhapsody into the water. That's when I'll start to worry.

Here is the connector that I took off the old line. I made sure to hold it where all the cracks are seen. Obviously, not something to keep around.

For a while, I had the boom at the house sitting on the deck in the back yard. It was wrapped in plastic but I took it all off so I could take a good look at it. Today, I took it back to the boat and layed it on top of the main sail down below.

I took a look over the mast itself too. I was sorting through which lines when to what and where. Looking at the mast head end, it looks like I could add a couple more lines but I think what I have now is sufficient. There's a line for the main halyard, jib halyard (used on the furler), and a line for the inner fore stay. There's another line I've been trying to figure out for a while and I think I figured it out today as being a boom lift. Looks like it can be adjusted. There's some sort of think plastic line on it that I'm thinking to take off as it looks to just get in the way.

I decided to finally get to the stuffing box again. I ordered a couple packs of the flax material. I only used one so the other can be back up for the future. Here I had a few supplies i thought I might use.

As I showed earlier, I took out 4 pieces of the old flax so I worked to put 4 back in. It was not easy to work in such confined space for me or the flax. Eventually, I got them all in there, tightened the nuts and this will be another thing to watch out for when Rhapsody gets into the water again.

I took it easy for a little while to do some sanding of the hand rail I took off so I could reseal. I'm looking to rebed with LifeSeal caulk. I looked at the areas down below considering to take the other hand rails off to sand and get ready for new varnish. All the interior hand rails are plugged up and nicely varnished and I'm not too crazy about ruining the finish. I'll have to take a close look to see what I can do to reseal other areas of the rails.

I think this piece turned out pretty good. Now, I need to figure out if there's anything else I need to do to prepare it for new varnish. Since I have time to scrape and sand other areas, I'm open to suggestions on how to proceed.

Not today but the last time I was working on Rhapsody, I decided to pull the trailer out a little. The back tire was next to a retaining wall to a pit. The main reason I wanted to pull it out was so I could get behind the boat a little better with the ladder so I can do some more sanding. The mast is also no longer hanging out over the pit either and is easier to reach. I think overall I moved it about 5 feet forward.

Since Rhapsody is likely in need of a new paint job before going sailing, I'm almost thinking of scrubbing the hull with a green scrub pad (normally for cleaning dishes) while it's raining. Since it's summer, the rain will be a little warmer. Just have to watch out for lightning.

I hope everyone had a good Memorial Day!

Work Continues

I finally got to go to the boat today and did a little bit of work. I had ordered some LED lights and installed them. The lights with a G4 connector had pins that were a bit long so I cut them in half and fit much better.

I took apart a winch to see its condition. It's in need of some cleaning.

I think it needs some adjustment but I have to look closer. As it's turned, there's a spot where it gets a bit tight for a moment then spins freely again. I wiped off a couple spots but will have to do a full cleaning later. For now it functions but there's a bit too much dirt. The smaller winch, Harken 8, will also need cleaning. I'm still trying to figure out how to open up the Barient 19 winches but there's no screw in the middle of the top.

I wanted to check out the hand rail on top since one of the bolts is loose. I decided to take the whole piece off and noticed that it looks like some sort of clear caulk was used.

I accidentally took a piece of wood out while trying to get a washer out of the groove it was in. This spot looked to be slightly damaged from a leak but doesn't seem all that bad.

Here, you can see I took the whole handrail off and found a bunch of the clear caulking again. I have some white LifeSeal caulk that I can use to seal it up when I replace the rail. I'm thinking to take off all the rails to rebed them.

It'll take some cleaning up to get the old caulk off. Since I took the whole rail off, I decided to bring to the house so I can get the old varnish off and get it ready for varnish, whenever I get to that part. The area that is exposed is covered by a tarp. If I do take all of them off, I'll have to get another tarp to make sure I cover the rest. So far, it doesn't look like it'll be that bad of a job.

Waiting game

"Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans."
                                                                                 - John Lennon

Ok, 2 weeks since my last post so it's been about that long since I last visited Rhapsody. I started a college class so it's been keeping me busy. The class is for my science requirement and decided to take Oceanography. Thought it might come in use. In the meantime, I went ahead and ordered some LED lighting for the interior and some flax material for the stuffing box. I got a letter from the Coast Guard yesterday about a small hiccup getting a documentation certificate. Hopefully that will be resolved soon and I can work on getting Rhapsody into the water and get some sailing time this summer or fall.

More stuffing box

Today wasn't too bad, except that it was hot in the high 80s.

Many Projects

This weekend was pretty busy. It started out rainy with some lightning/thunder. Not long after I did some videos around Rhapsody, the sky cleared up, the sun came out and it was HOT. Still, I pressed on getting some work done around the boat.

Videos

I thought I would make a couple videos walking around and inside Rhapsody. It's a bit cluttered but still getting some work done to it.

My first videos I've published.

Hayn Hi-Mod

The order I made for my standing rigging came in today. I went to the store and got some supplies in preparation for getting things ready. First thing I got was some wood, bolts, a hacksaw and some Loctite Blue 242. I was going to go with Sta-Lok fittings but a few people suggested Hi-Mod fittings instead so I thought I would give them a try.

First thing I wanted to do was make a cutting guide for the wire.

Here, I started with everything layed out.

I had one of the workers at the hardware store cut the wood into 6" long pieces (4 pieces). I got a drill guide (bar with all the holes) to help keep the holes straight. The clamp worked out too to keep everything in place on the deck railing.

Everything went together pretty good. For the bolts, I used a washer on each end and one in the middle to keep some space for the hacksaw to get through.

The wire fit the hole I drilled. It was a tight fit but it worked out and I got a nice clean even cut on the wire.

I found this video on YouTube about how to put the Hayn Hi-Mod connectors on the wire.

Everything really did go together pretty easy. The following pictures show how it looked myself.

Not really all that different from the video. After assembly, I took apart and added a little bit of loctite to the threads and reassembled. The instructions do say to tighten everything but not too tight. I'm not sure what too tight is but I did them as tight as I could by hand. The one wrench I have is able to fit on the outter piece but nothing to hold onto the part on the wire end to try tightening any more. This piece I did is for a shroud. Now I have more wires to make. It really is easier than I expected.