Got The Shaft

The two set screws on the sides of the shaft coupling were removed but the shaft would still not move. I decided to remove the bolts holding it to the transmission. Once I did that, the key was tapped out lightly and it all came apart easily. I used a bucket to keep the tiller to one side so the shaft wouldn't hit, then pulled it out. There were some smooth marks on the shaft from the stuffing box and the cutlass bearing. The area inside the stuffing hose had what looked like a build up of calcium deposits that I had to knock off with a rock as I was scrubbing it clean. The stuffing hose wasn't easy to get off. No idea how long that was there. Found out the old hose was wire-wound. I had to get it off, piece by piece. From what I've seen online, there is a right hose and wrong hose. I think this would qualify as the wrong hose to use. According to the information on this page from Compass Marine, this hose is too thin and it's not supposed to be wire-wound. I measured, with calipers, the stuffing box fittings at around 1 3/4" and the part attached to the boat was closer to 2". As of right now, I'm looking at getting a Buck Algonquin stuffing hose as replacement. A 1 3/4" hose is just under $20. The old hose was 7" long while it looks like a replacement would be 4 1/2". Since the stuffing box packing nuts are pretty green, I'm going to soak them in some vinegar to get the corrosion off and clean up with a wire brush. I didn't get a closer look at the cutlass bearing but I can do that the next visit. What I saw before, it looked to be in need of replacement too.

Leverage in a small space

coupling with shaft key. thought it was rust, but it's red paint

packing nut

keeping rudder out of the way of the shaft

calcium deposits

Clean shaft.

removed, piece by piece

wrong kind, it seems

too thin

I think sealant (white part) was used before. Some was on the old hose.

Until next time.

Motoring around - Videos

Here are the videos I made from my attempt to go sailing.

 

 

Thanks for stopping by.

Motoring Around

Today was the day I was going out on the lake. Instead of just working on the boat to get ready to go, I wanted to actually GO.

As I heard once, "a plan is a list of stuff that ain't going to happen." The reason behind this quote is that you can plan all you want but when you start to DO your plan, sometimes you are just reacting to the situation you are given.

I showed up at the boat today to see a little bit of a mess. The mess mainly comes from all the dang spiders all over the place. Webs, nests, egg sacks(?), and the spiders themselves. I saw spiders today that were from the size of a quarter down to the size of the period at the end of this sentence. Or at least they looked that tiny.

Yesterday I bought a garden hose and a nozzle for the house but took it to the boat to spray anything off. I sprayed all over cleaning dirt and webs and such and saw there is a little bit of growth on the exterior in the way of green spots on wood and spots on the deck. Thankfully, the interior looked fine.

I took a bunch of stuff to the boat with me. I emptied some of it from the truck and stored it inside. Spent quite a bit of time killing spiders too. They get everywhere. Stepping foot onto the boat is also stepping into a bunch of webs too.

Spider slayer!

Once I got everything stored, I went on to bleed air out of the fuel lines. About this time, it rained pretty hard a few times. Found a leak from the deck that I didn't notice before. I thought a porthole was still leaking even after replacing a rubber gasket but turned out to be a hole from something that may have been mounted on the deck from a previous owner. Now, I need to come up with something to fix that. I'm thinking penetrating epoxy might be something to take a look at to seal it up.

bled air from fuel filters

Black spot is the leak culprit

The rain didn't last too long and I decided to go ahead and do some sailing for once. I have only sailed a Colgate 26 for an ASA101 class so I've been looking forward to sailing MY own boat for a while. Took the mainsail cover off and untied the starboard dock lines while getting a few things ready to go.

Looking at the weather online yesterday, there were reports of thunderstorms happening a good part of the day. It ended up really nice and didn't really rain much more throughout the day. It stayed partly cloudy with a nice breeze blowing too.

Things were going well motoring in the lakes, or so I thought. The lakes are connected by a canal. Just to get from my marina, through the canal and to the other lake is about 3 miles. I motored this entire way. Thankfully, I didn't have any issue with the engine at all today. As soon as I got to the other side, I raise the sail to get started, then I hear a really annoying sound. It was the sound of the bilge alarm. To that, I immediately jump down into the cabin, open up the floor board to see an almost full bilge and water flowing into it. I don't mean a drip or trickle, I mean a flow like a faucet was turned on. I didn't have the bilge pump turned on so I turned it on and jumped back into the cockpit. When I saw no one was nearby, I jumped back down and poked my head into the engine space and heard the flow of water. I found out the water was coming from the stuffing box. I was surprised to see this. I replaced the stuffing material last year to make sure it was good and tightened the nuts together so they wouldn't come off. I wasn't comfortable trying to work on it out on the lake, although thinking about it now, I could have just by dropping the anchor and getting to work. I ended up motoring all the way back to the marina to take a closer look at what was going on and to fix the issue. Not only was the nuts on the stuffing box loose, the big one holding the stuffing material wasn't even on the threads of the stuffing box. I think the boat yard loosened the nuts to do some work on the boat getting it ready to put in the water but forgot to tighten it back up. Anyone hear of the nuts on a stuffing box working loose?

While motoring back to the dock, there was a guy in an rigid dinghy with his son. As he passed by, he asked me if my boat was a Pacific Seacraft. I just said "no, it's a Nor'sea." On the owners group, I saw someone comment about how they were asked many times if their boat was a Pacific Seacraft so they made some "Nor'sea 27" lettering and attached them near the bow.

After taking care of everything back at the dock, I worked on organizing a few things I brought with me for the day. I bought some storage containers to use with food items. One cabinet I plan to use as a pantry for storing food and wanted to test fit some things on the bottom and on a shelf. It looked pretty good to me and I could end up getting quite a bit of food supplies in this one cabinet. I then filled the containers I got with some food I bought. I could add more containers over time.

I was watching videos from another Nor'sea owner, Greg and Jill who own Guenevere. They recently posted one video of useful items for the galley. These items included a collapsible strainer, bowls and I thought this was a good idea. I went grocery shopping recently and just happened to find a couple of items and I thought I would go ahead and get them. I got a collapsible strainer and a funnel. Thanks Greg and Jill for the space saving idea.

I looked at a couple storage boxes that are molded fiberglass that is used under the cook-top. I'm looking at scrubbing them and roughing them up a bit and painting the inside of them to give them a nice clean look. One of them was cut on the end because it was slightly longer than the space allowed. I'm looking at using some epoxy and fiberglass tape to reinforce it and then smooth it out for painting also.

Despite the setback trying to go for my first sail with my own boat, it still turned out to be a pretty good day. I actually left the dock and was gone for a total of 2 hours. I still got a lot done. I'm glad I was at the boat when I found out about the stuffing box. I would hate to come to the boat and find it sitting on the bottom. The short time I had the sail up, I ended up going in circles a couple times. I guess in a way, I did go sailing, just not how I expected it to go.

At least everything is a learning experience to prepare for the next step ahead. I'm sure the next time will go better.

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!

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.