I’m sure you think James looks younger and/or thinner, but he’s already heard it. Just stick with superlatives regarding his handsomeness. Before: After:
Read moreMonth: August 2011
We Weathered The Storm
Ms Irene wasn’t that mean after all. No spankings were administered.
Read moreDeconstruction 2 (Mast Project)
When last you saw us, we looked like this: Once the mast was secure on the dock and the storm passed, it was time to remove the mast step. In order to do so, we first had to remove the compression posts below decks. In the picture above, the compression posts are the pieces of wood standing vertical. They have a curve to them that makes them wider at the top. Note the bar sitting across them at the top. The mast step is bolted to the deck via the holes you can see (sort of) in the picture, but two of the bolts come through the mast step, through the deck, and through the compression bar, where the washers and nuts appear. Of course, you can’t see that, because the compression posts are right underneath those nuts. This is the whole reason we have to take everything apart – because we couldn’t tighten the bolts from the top and we couldn’t get to the nuts from below. The compression posts are well supported by the bulkheads (one of which is cracked, remember?) and so we commenced to scraping paint away where we thought the fasteners would be. Then we dug out the bondo-type filler someone had packed on top of the screw heads. Then we tried to move 50 year old bronze fasteners in damp, swollen wood. Every fastener was an adventure. Turns out the compression posts were attached to the bulkhead, but also to the door frame for the head. We ended up struggling 24 of these fasteners out of the two posts. Once we had all the fasteners out, the posts creaked their way free. First the aft post… Note that the wood is darker at the top – that’s where water has been leaking in. The[…]
Read moreDeconstruction (Mast Project)
See how happy I am? Why am I so happy? I don’t think this post will really answer that question…so it must be because I love the photographer. What is that, you ask? Why it’s the crack in the bulkhead under our mast. I uncovered it a little while back when I took the veneer off. That’s the forward side. The aft side is no better. That is also the reason for this post. Remember way back when? When we got knocked down and broke the port side forward lower chainplate right in half. Weeeeelll, that also had the effect of pulling loose the bolts holding down the mast step. We tried tightening, we tried loosening. We learned that two of the bolts were installed between the horizontal and vertical parts of the compression system. Invisible. And untouchable. In order to re-seat the step, we were going to have to take apart the compression system. Which you don’t want to do with the mast in place. So we researched getting the mast pulled and every yard we talked to quoted megabucks. The last quote was such an insult that we left the marina we were berthed in, in order to get away from the madness. Then we read about and discussed pulling the mast using a buddy boat (I’d do it with two boats, but our one “buddy” wasn’t really an option). And then it was all about building an a-frame mast tower on the deck. There are plenty of resources about doing this already on the web. Suffice to say, we went and bought some 2x4s and a bunch of big ol’ bolts. And we cut and we bolted. After wrestling this contraption onto the deck, we attached the mainsheet rig to the apex and prepared to haul it[…]
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