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!
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