Team Seacats

I accomplished a good deal again today. It’s pretty late and although I’m going to skip the visit to the gym in the morning (to recover from today!), I’m headed to bed soon. I’ll make a post with more detail tomorrow – but the port for the port hull is installed and only lacking drilling through and installing the final screws. I got a 4′ section of the hull sprayed with gelcoat as a test that went pretty well. I had a lot of orange peel because I didn’t thin it with the correct medium (more on that tomorrow). I test sprayed over the area where I melted the foam core and repaired – it came out exceptionally – I can’t wait to get both hulls sprayed! I also mounted the self tacker track on the front beam and that turned into a fiasco. First, somewhere between there and here, it was bent (fixed it), several screws were galled and I had to retap everything and clean up the screw threads, and now I have several interference points that limit the motion of the self tacker to about 5 degrees (should be almost 90 degrees). I also got the trailer box mounted to the trailer, mounted latch hardware on the front, and carpeted the box bottom and sides. It looks spectacular too. YAaaawwn. More in the morning (all the photos are already loaded if you want to see more).

Originally uploaded by Team Seacats.

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.

I’m sure this will probably count as a milestone – the hulls are wetsanded, washed, and ready for gelcoat. With the assistance of a friend, Mark Hale, I loaded the hulls on the trailer and snugged up the beams for transport to the paintbooth at work soon. I’m going to be out of pocket next week so there won’t be much happening to the boat or here on the website…sorry about that! You can bet I’ll be back getting things going hardcore as soon as possible.

On another note, I have to brag a little. Let me apologize in advance for the ensuing mental image…but without a stitch of clothing, I weigh 165lbs! That matches the lightest I have been in about 10 years. My personal goal is 160 (and that’s still plenty healthy – I’m 5’7″) and Frank, who is a bit taller, is working to 180. Minimum class legal crew weight on the Nacra 20 is 325lbs but that’s generally accepted as very light. At 340lbs we’re going to be pretty well suited for a wide range of wind conditions from weak to strong. Weight is such a critical thing on lightweight high-performance beach catamarans and I believe that 340 is ideal for this powerful boat.

Originally uploaded by Team Seacats.

I just received word that, as it stands now, Powerade is back on board supporting the Tybee500 by putting C&H production group on site filming the race. Last year, they filmed and assembled a 30 minute special that aired on OLN (the Outdoor Life Network) twice. I wasn’t sure about what kind of exposure that really is but I had three people at work (a 350 person company at the time) say they saw us on TV! Only one of them was interested in sailing. The C&H crew indicated to me last year that they would come back with equipment to put cameras onboard the boats with hard disk recorders capable of capturing a whole leg but that they were concerned that some of the teams would shy away from adding the extra few pounds of gear to the boats. They were assured that our team would be at the front of the line to carry the gear!

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I have a top coat of filler curing on the repair area from last night.  It looks like that will do it.  I wetsanded the port hull once more and gave it a full wash so it’s ready to be cleaned with acetone and sprayed.  The starboard hull needs a little more sanding but it’s close to being ready for gelcoat as well.  I can’t wait to start reassembling this boat!  I didn’t upload any pictures because they pretty much show the same thing as before.  I have a friend from work stopping by tomorrow to help me move the hulls and saw horses into the backyard so I can take an early day off work and spray gelcoat when the temperature gets right.