I lied – I am going to be here this week…long story. I was a little unprepared to have a full weekend to work on the boat and I hadn’t made the arrangements to get the boat into the paintbooth at work. I also measured the booth and the hulls would barely fit but I would have to carry them individually across the plant because of work stuff in the way. I’ve kinda flopped on my decision again and am back to spraying them in the backyard. I’ll have to sand the sprayed gel coat regardless of where I spray it – so a bug or two probably won’t be a big deal.
I stopped by Chris Zander’s this morning – he’s doing a nearly identical project on another I20. We split the cost of a good spray gun since we are both going to be shooting hulls soon. Chris had also picked up another box of Team Seacats parts from
SailMax.biz since he had been visiting them last week (thankyou!). Among some rigging items, we got the hardware for the self-tacking jib and an ultra-cool Kevlar traveler cleat mount for the rear beam that I installed yesterday. He then came by my place to borrow my grinder and help me move some stuff around.
I got in a pretty good day yesterday. With Chris’ help, we cut holes in both decks for the ports behind the daggerboards. Then we removed the starboard hull from the trailer to the backyard where I intend to test spray some gelcoat on a small area to see how it comes out. I also feel the need to get a better idea for how much gelcoat we really need. Chris then went back home to work on his boat. I then reinforced the port daggerboard well from the inside with three layers of 17oz Knytex. It was quite difficult to get the glass positioned and wetted out through this 4.5″ hole because the repair is over two feet below the hole and I can’t see what I’m doing when my arm is in the hole. I did get some good results however, and it looks really good. Because the deck is a little rounded on top and the port lid is flat it has to be bedded in order for the lid to seal properly. After lathering the joint with 3M 5200, I then temporarily mounted the deck port with wood screws on the high spot of the hull (only 2 screws). I then made the joint look pretty and cleaned up any spots of 5200 with mineral spirits. I have to get some screws to make the final mounting but it will take a day or so for the 5200 to setup enough anyway.
I then set in on the traveler. I first removed the cleat hardware since we’re installing a
SailMax.biz kevlar center cleat mount. The traveler bearings were in sad shape and I had to shake the car in order to move it up and down the rear beam. I like this old-style Harken traveler because they work very well and the bearings are pretty easy to replace after removing one endcap. I have a new-style traveler on my F18 with a springwire that keeps the bearings captivated when you remove the car, but the return track for the bearings jams far to easily easily and I’m having to rebuild it about every 6 months (once a bearing jams in there, the others can’t move and get flat spots – which then jam more easily). Anyway, I already had the torlon bearings from previously rebuilding my F18 traveler…but I only had 61 and needed 62. I sorted through the bearings I had just removed and found one in decent shape and used it. The traveler now is back to perfect shape and zips up and down the beam with only the slightest level difference – sometimes slamming your finger when moving the beam around >:-(. From the advice of Mike Krantz at SailMax.Biz, I drilled and tapped two 1/4-20 holes in the rear beam and mounted the cleat mount in the center of the rear beam. I then bolted the traveler in place using trusty 5200 to bed it in place. Now that it’s set up enough to move around, I’ll take some pictures of it today.
It was a nice break to not have to ‘sand’ on anything yesterday and move forward on several other items on the list. I’ll likely drill and mount the self tacker hardware today – but I may wait to take the beam into work to borrow a pneumatic rivet gun since I have to set 12 stainless rivets for this thing. So today hopefully I’ll get a little gelcoat applied for my test, mount the trailer box permanently to the trailer, maybe carpet the inside of it (after a trip to hardware store), and whatever else I have time for. I’ll keep you posted.
