Last Cockpit Seacock

Had another good weekend. Got the last seacock installed for the cockpit drains. Trying to do it myself wasn't easy though. I used the boat hook to keep the thru-hull in place and got the seacock base started on the threads. I then used a zip-tie to attach to another seacock to keep it from spinning. Got out of the boat and tightened the thru-hull down. Epoxy squeezed out from the base, that needed cleaning up. Luckily I was able to do this early in the morning where I could wait the whole day for the epoxy to cure. Unfortunately, I didn't finish curing. The outside of the fiberglass base was solid but when I removed the thru-hull, the center was still pliable/soft. I put the blue drain hose back through the hole for rain water to drain in the meantime. Soon, I'll be able to seal this seacock, and get new hoses on the hose-barbs. The current hoses on the other three are not very secure, at best I was abe to get one hose clamp around the hose.

Other project I wanted to do was attach the anchor chain to the boat. Not sure there was ever a place to attach the chain or rode, so I got a U-bolt, drilled holes to attach it. Then I put a soft shackle I made on it and the end of the chain, so now, when I deploy the anchor, the chain is not all going to find the bottom. The chain is about 140ft, so I could probably cut some of that down and attach some rode. Not sure the rode that came with the boat had ever been used or if it's even good to use.

These two things were projects I've had on my list a long time. I'm happy I can cross off a couple things. A good part of the visit, I was working on the rudder. When I tap on the rudder, there were hollow sounding areas, I cut part of the skin out to get epoxy behind those areas. I plan to post more on this when I have more work on it completed.

Squeezed epoxy into the gap before tightening thru-hull

I may cut the extra length off the threads

Last couple weekends have been pretty productive. I've been able to cross off a few projects off my list. Every little bit helps. Thanks for stopping by.