new masthead

Jarred machined a new masthead. The old cast aluminum one had a bunch of holes drilled through it through the years as people added stuff, and the moving parts were pretty shot. The new one is both simpler and more complicated. We ditched the old anchor light (we'll hang a new one from a halyard at night after charging it during the day.) In the front, we added a doppler windicator and a new spinnaker halyard block so that someday and we can buy a bigger spinnaker and fly it from the top in light winds. In the back, the mainsail halyard block is brand new - the old one was pretty trashed and it was hard to get the sail up. And we're adding a "flicker" off the back for potentially buying a square top main in the future.

 

old masthead at top, new one at bottom.

new masthead hooked up to top of mast.

new running rigging

From left to right: two spinnaker halyards, jib halyard and main halyard, all spliced half Dyneema: mainsheet, Dyneema to replace wire reefing rigging in boom, and future running backs to be spliced to Dyneema.

The collection of running rigging so far. We were thinking of having two spinnaker halyards for the options to have both a regular spinnaker that flies from the mast near the spreaders and a masthead spinnaker for light wind, but we'll probably use one halyard from the masthead with option to pull the halyard down to the regular position with another line.

moving day

We had to move out of our subleased slip in Everett because our sliplords returned from their summer cruise to Alaska. Luckily Jarred had made friends with someone while we were in the boatyard earlier this summer, and this someone is still on his cruise to Alaska and was happy to sublease his slip to us.

So, on Sunday morning we motored over to our new slip, a two minute trip. We should have taken a little joyride out to the sound, but we had projects to do. We are so looking forward to sailing this boat.

I like the new slip a lot better. It is closer to the main drag in the marina, only two boats in, so we see a lot more boats go by. They are mostly larger powerboats.

But even better, there are other active project boats on our new dock, and so we fit in better here. We were sort of a spectacle on our previous dock, since every boat around ours was either all ready to go or neglected. We were in the middle of those two extremes, with not much in common with either. But here at the new dock we got nods of approval as we came in.

In fact one of the active project boats three boats down from us was a long term tenant in the Everett boatyard when we had just bought our first boat and spent five months there too. That was 14 years ago!

And the new dock has a covered entrance and automatic glass sliding doors instead of a chainlink gate. I feel super slick holding up my key fob and stepping through those sliding doors.

Today we added more deck hardware, which takes two people - me on deck holding a screwdriver and Jarred below racheting nuts onto the bolts. And then the boat got its first deck scrubbing and rinsing since probably 2002, so it's finally clean enough for company to visit.

in the new slip and after first deck bath.

hardware back on deck

boat when we bought it above, boat with drying paint below

Now that the deck paint is dry, it's time to put things back together. We took plenty of pictures of the boat when we bought it, so we're using them as a template. Most of the stuff is familiar, but we've not had a self-tacking jib before, and there are a couple of other things new to us.

winches

new deck layout so far - self-tacking track, deck organizers, new clutches and winches on.

forestay support replacement

The forestay support system in the bow was made of teak and plywood. It's supposed to be attached to the deck above and hull all around, but it came right out in several pieces.

So it was replaced with machined aluminum pieces that were then anodized black and fiberglassed into the bow.

deck paint

Paint (KiwiGrip, goes on like yogurt, dries with antiskid texture) finally went on the deck.

So long, teak.

lifelines done

The new lifelines are on. Jarred spliced Dyneema  around connecting hardware over several weeks, at home and on the boat. Our old lifelines on the previous boat were wire, which were stiff and could scratch the boat, so we always had to be so careful with them when they were not hooked up. They were also fraying, as were the original lifelines on this boat. The Dyneema lifelines are soft and flexible.

mast strut

holes in rotten plywood

The mast and the cabin it sits on was sitting about a half of a centimeter lower than it should. This was due to rotten plywood below the mast strut that goes through the cabin to the bottom of the boat.

This explained why all the standing rigging was a bit loose.

Jarred removed the strut and drilled a bunch of holes in the rotten plywood. He then filled the holes with epoxy so that area was now a solid block of epoxy.

Since the old mast strut was beat up on the ends, Jarred made a new one with a new steel pole and steel plates welded at each end for better connections to the epoxy pad at the bottom and the mast bracket at the top. At the top, he added a piece of Paperstone with a big hole in it and another steel plate on top of that to make a sort of Paperstone sandwich that holds the strut in place. On the bottom, a wide steel plate is epoxied onto the bottom of the boat, with another steel plate as a shim between that and the strut.

He raised the cabin back to the right height using two jacks under a rod inserted through holes the mast strut.

new mast strut with jacks temporarily holding it in place