Yardwork, details, details

Making progress, thinking about sailing.  If we get down to the bay by the 22 Aug., the Americas Cup Cats will be having trials for a few days. Would be something to see, but not likely a life changer, more like another line in the sand.

The defining project has been the forward hatch replacement. As is the usual case, it is more detailed than the plan would indicate. I built a framework inside the old hatch, and cut some plywood to fill in the gaps. Took a while to find the right plywood, but there was a yard in Berkeley that stocks 3/8 inch marine plywood of good quality. Good reminder of how important having a car at our disposal is. The old hatch is 31 inches square and the new one is 20.5 inches square. The reason for a large hatch is generally to pass sails on deck quickly and easily. We have roller furling so mostly will not change foresails and would much rather have the security of a smaller more secure hatch. The old one was heavy and rotten, so that would be a little more incentive. Of course the above picture is the project as planned.

As the above picture shows there is a large patch of new plywood in front of the hatch area and a large area where the deck skin or fiberglass was not attached  to the old plywood. It has all been fitted and filled and coated with epoxy in this pic and will then be glassed over, faired with a layer of epoxy slurry, sanded and primed for painting.  .

One more pass with a sander, maybe a little more fairing slurry, and prime it. It seems like a lot of work, but we are used to doing it and the main impact is the delay each time we mix epoxy wait for it to set up. It takes about 4-6 hours for the filler to be sandable, so that pretty much eats up the day as the clock goes.

Gives us time to enjoy to enjoy the deer at Paradise cove.  They like the fresh pear more than they fear me. When it gets too hot or we get too worn out we go down to paradise to cool off and rest. We share the place with four or five black tail deer.

We have also removed the tape from the waterline and re-taped on the new paint so that the bottom can be painted. We had the yard sand the bottom, because we just have better things to do than lay on the rocks grinding toxic bottom paint overhead. Still have a couple of more details to do before painting the bottom. One of them is what I cal a crash block which is a piece of high density foam which I am glassing over to insert behind the dagger board in the trunk to absorb the impact if we should strike some under water object like the bottom. This detail was missing before and only a piece of worm eaten 2x6 was there. The board edge suffered a little damage from rubbing on this, so it will get a little patch work before we launch. It is not a pre splash project, because the board can come out anytime, but it is nice and dry now.

We have also removed the head for cleaning, installed the seacocks on the through hulls, run the wires from the mast back to the control panel, painted some of the decks, and a few other select little distractions.

The deck painting is going well, but not without setbacks. The window each day is small as the decks are very wet early in the morning and the grey primer gets very hot after a few hours in the sun. We like to add to our suffering when possible, so I decided that the sand we use for non-skid felt too much like sand paper and bought some course sand to try on the back deck. It feels like walking on tiny spikes. We now have to scrape that off and go back to the fine sand we have on the ama. the process is several steps, apply the first coat of paint, sprinkle it with sand while still wet, let it dry, apply another coat of paint to lock the sand in and provide even coloring. 

Had to drive around for half a day visiting welding shops who said "Sure we can do that" on the phone, but then couldn't because the stainless we want to use it too thick to bend. Finally found an industrial shop and foundry in Petaluma to bend the piece. I should be ready today, so I can take it back to the welder to weld, then attach it to the freshly painted deck. and we will be ready. All of these delay projects just allow more time to do the other little details.