The Anatomy of a Summer Refit

In case you're new to the blog or actually have a life, you may not have gathered that coming here to Snead Island Boat Works for the summer meant a lot of hard, uncomfortable work for Tim. But it also meant he didn't have to deal with The List. He hates The List so deeply that he turned it over to me a couple years ago. He hates it so deeply that when I showed it to him yesterday with all the check marks beside everything, he almost fainted. This summer, The List became my project. It's been a long summer of very hard work, but it's been a great summer for me because I've learned to do so many things that I didn't know how to do before, and I've become intimate with Kintala like never before.

I thought that any of you who are actually considering doing such a thing as full time cruising might like to see what happens after you've cruised for three years. So without further adieu, here's the summer refit. some of them have been linked to the post that talked about the project.

1. Refinish hatch screens. The original finish was four years old and was getting grungy from all of the humidity. Humidity is your enemy in every way.
2. Make jerry can covers. We have them for the fuel cans, but the water cans needed them.
3. Make chafe guards. I found that Sailrite's boat blanket makes terrific chafe guards and they have the side benefit of being able to install after the lines are set. You just wrap them around and velcro them. They have held up well through some pretty tough winds this summer.
4. Make shelf support for electronics shelf. After using the shelf for a year, it became apparent that it needed a bit more support in the middle of the span since we were putting so much stuff on it.
5. Install iPad mounts on binnacle and dodger hand rail. We wanted mounts in both places so that we had options.
6. Install new sump box and repurpose old sump box. Kintala had a large, deep fiberglass box that the shower and head sink drained into that was attached to a sump pump. The sump pump quit, and rather than replace it, we opted for one of those self-contained shower sump plastic boxes with the pump built in. I installed it under where the old box was. Then I cut the old box in about half depth-wise and built a wooden bottom for it. We now use that box to store soda and beer.
7. Move fridge drain to drain into sump box. In the attempt to have as dry a bilge as possible, I moved the fridge drain hose so that it drains into the sump box.
8. Install 12v plug in cockpit for iPads. I installed this close to the iPad mount on the binnacle.
9. Repair stern nav light. Turns out that installing the 12V socket allowed me to find a loose wire that fixed the stern light. Things rarely turn out that easy.
10. Install LED light strip in forward engine area.
11. Install LED light strip in aft engine area.
12. Install Mantus anchor swivel.
13. Send headsets in for evaluation and/or repair if financially feasable. It was, and we're back in the headset business for anchoring and docking.
14. Make windlass cover. Our windlass leaks a lot of water into the chain locker through the chain tube and we are trying to limit the amount of water that ends up in the bilge.
15. Rebed all salon ports and repair teak. Long, long, involved project. The teak under the port frames had rotted and rather than scrape all the teak off the fiberglass (it was glued) and replace it, I elected to dig out the rotted teak, and fill it with fiberglass body putty then prime and paint it white. This lightened up the interior substantially.
16. Replace headliner. A job that actually turned out to be easier than I thought, and that rarely happens. Took about a week total. A link to another post. And one more.
17. Locate and repair water leak above port settee. After removing the headliner it was easy to see that it was the block on the deck that the main halyard would travel through if it was fed to the cockpit. Removed, rebed, and replaced.
18. Make flag sleeve. We needed a sleeve to cover the flag when we aren't flying it. The flag gets filthy and there was no reason to have it deployed all summer.
19. Replace galley faucet. We had a leak at the faucet head where it had cracked. While replacing it, I also added a water saver that I absolutely love.
20. Mount battery bus bar. We had too many power wires coming off the battery terminals so I added a heavy duty bus bar to clean up the installation..
21. Install remote oil filter and change oil. The summer refit items were mostly to add to either comfort, beauty, or ease of living. As a result, the remote oil filter was top of the list. Changing the oil always meant shedding blood and now it's super easy to do.
22. Add new bilge pump and move existing one.  We wanted a bit more redundancy in bilge pumps. I added one of the new low-profile pumps and then moved the existing one. I also added one of the three-way bilge pump switches on the new pump. Our existing one was just a breaker so there was no test function.
23. Change heat exchanger zinc.
24. Change fuel filters / add electric bleed pump. Another one of those projects that you cringe at on a Tartan 42 with a Westerbeast is bleeding the fuel system. I wired in a small electric bleed pump that bleeds the system up to the high pressure injector pump. You do still have to bleed that injector pump and crack one of the injector lines, but it's a whole lot easier than it was and much less human bleeding while fuel bleeding.
25. Remove alternator, send out for overhaul, reinstall. We have a Balmar 75 alternator that costs a fortune to replace. One of the benefits of working at a boat yard is that they know all kinds of places to get things serviced. Our alternator came back from the shop looking almost completely new for a fraction of the cost.
26. Overhaul raw water pump. I originally was going to just change the impeller, but once I got inside I discovered that the whole pump was pretty shot. We ended up getting a new one. I still may overhaul the old one just to have a spare on board.
27. Sew new cushion slip covers. We have white salon cushions and one of the ways we've found to deal with that is to make slip covers out of fleece blankets. The back cushions we leave the white, and use the slip covers only on the bottom cushions. I had made one set last year along with some new striped throw pillow covers, and this summer I made a second set with one of the other colors in the pillow stripes. This way we get a chance to change the look of the salon just by changing the slip covers.
28. Replace head sliding mirror doors. We have a cabinet behind the sink that has two sliding doors that are mirrors. When it gets hot, the boat swells in just the right way to make the mirrors catch on the shelves. It made it almost impossible to open the doors and the silver was getting rubbed off the back. They looked tacky. I was able to get some thinner acrylic mirror so now the doors slide easily.
29. Replace salon fan.
30. Send compass out for overhaul.
31. Replace compass light.
32. Replace throttle, shifter, and fuel cutoff cables.Without any doubt the hardest job I have ever tackled on this boat.
33. Run new control line for wind vane.
34. Replace plexiglass engine instrument cover.
35. Replace below decks down stay for inner forestay. We found that one of the strands was broken on the stay when we were looking at something totally unrelated. Good lesson to always be observant.
36. Replace or repair whisker pole. After looking unsuccessfully for a newer one that was the right size for our boat, I decided to repair ours. We couldn't afford a new one. It was a bit of a job that took most of a week in addition to waiting for parts.
37. Find a spare anchor. Our old Danforth spare that lived in the anchor locker literally rusted away. We discarded it and have been on the lookout for one at used boat part stores but finally caved and bought a new one.
38. Repair crack in bowsprit. We had a very small crack in one of the welds in the bowsprit. As it turned out, a boat next to us was getting a welding job done and so we were able to have him haul the welding hose about 10 feet over to Kintala and do ours for $20. Better lucky than good.
39. Repair bimini aft support. One of the rivets had worked loose and, while it was no structural issue, the rattling noise was driving  me crazy. I ended up drilling it out and using a screw and nut.
40. Wire new galley A/C plug to inverter. We have a power strip on our electronics shelf that connects to the inverter, but I wanted a plug in the galley so that I could use my mixer and Magic Bullet.
41. Replace topping lift. Ours is getting frayed at the top.
42. Replace the staysail furler. Our staysail furler was one that came off the kids' disaster boat and, while we were incredibly glad to have it the last two years, it needed replaced. Friends of ours gifted us a newer Furlex furler when they replaced theirs so we had to install it.
43. Replace staysail halyard. The old furler had a different kind of halyard that attached directly to the furling unit so with the new furler we needed a new halyard.
44. Replace masthead wind transducer. Thanks to a very fat osprey in St. Lucie, ours was broken. 
45. Refinish salon floor. Many previous posts about this. You can search by the floor refinishing tag. The decision was made to refinish rather than replace because replacing a boat floor while living on it full time is nearly impossible. Refinishing it while living on it was just barely tolerable. Worth mentioning the stain remover again here. And another post link.
46. Make screen cockpit enclosure. We don't need the plastic enclosure at the moment because we're not going north into colder weather, but we wanted a screened in cockpit so we could sit outside in the evening.
47. Sew new shade cover. 
48. Replace holding tank vent filter.
49. Replace exhaust hose and clamps.
50. Service rudder stuffing box.
51. Tons of logistical items. We had a whole list of things like doctor's appointments, dental work, renewing the Coast Guard documentation, renewing the Customs sticker, canceling and then renewing the Delorme InReach, getting Florida drivers licences, replacing expired fire extinguishers, checking and updating flares, registering to vote in Florida, registering and recertifying an EPIRB that was gifted to us, and tons and tons of research for parts and instructions on all of the above projects.

The things we didn't get to cross off the list that will either get done in the islands or next year:

1. Modify lazy jacks. Ours hang up on the sail battens and need to be adjusted to minimize that.
2. Refinish exterior teak.
3. Polish stainless.
4. Paint deck nonskid.
5. Paint bilge (easier to do when hauled out so maybe next year).
6. Replace aft cabin and v-berth fans (may yet get done before we leave).
7. Repaint aft hatch by wind vane.

To be fair, it's been longer than a summer refit. Tim started working here April 1st and, with the exception of the departure prep list, I'm just now finishing up my project list. Eight months of pretty much four or five full days a week. So if you think that retiring onto a boat means you actually get to sit around and do nothing, this post might disabuse you of that notion. It's a bit like childbirth though - once you're sitting in the cockpit looking at the beautiful Bahamian waters, you tend to forget about all the pain of the refit. And I'm soooo going to enjoy sitting in my bug-free cockpit!

Project Report - Cockpit Enclosure

You do the best you can. You plan. You design. You make a list of materials. You source the best price and delivery. Inevitably, the project takes twice or three times as long and at least 30% more materials than you estimated. But once in a very, very rare while you get lucky and a project takes exactly what you ordered and much less time than expected. <gasp> did I just actually say that?

I've been sitting in the cockpit for the last two years trying to figure out just exactly how I was going to design a cockpit enclosure and, I admit, I was exasperated. Our cockpit is not square-backed like so many of the newer production boats. It curves. It also has a two-step coaming that starts out from the bulkhead at one height and then, halfway toward the aft end of the cockpit, it drops down a couple inches and narrows considerably as it curves toward the helm seat. I wanted to have the screen outside of the bimini frame, but, due to the way we mounted the solar panels, that wasn't possible. I'd been putting off the project just because I was so frustrated with trying to figure out how I was going to do it.

A couple of weeks ago, while waiting for a coat on the floor to cure, I took my Sailrite patterning plastic and my rolls of tape and began to tape it in place on the frame to see what I could come up with. Doing this in 95° Florida sun was probably not my best idea since it acted like a greenhouse and nearly roasted me to death, but after a couple hours I had what I though might work.

This past week I could no longer put off the project so I gathered my materials, moved my sewing machine out into the cockpit and began the work. After a bit of a slow start, something that always happens on any custom fit job, I found my stride and in just 5 days had the project finished. To say that I'm pleasantly surprised and that both the Captain and I are immensely pleased with the outcome would be the understatement of the century.

For those of you that might be thinking about tackling this projecct, here are the materials I used. My total project cost was somewhere around $350. I can't tell you exactly because some of the materials I used I already had in stock, like the thread as an example.

• For the screen I used Phifer Solar Screen from Lowe's. I thought about using the Phifertex that everyone else uses, but this fabric is a little less than half the price and that was a big factor for us. I could also get it locally without freight.
• For the framework I used Sailrite's 2" facing. It would have been much cheaper to make my own facing, but time was a huge factor to balance against expense and the pre-made facing would cut my time by almost half. I also didn't have a good place to cut facing or an iron to press it.
• For the needle and thread I used a #20 needle and V-92 thread.
• I used #10 YKK plastic zippers, some of them double pull and some of them single pull depending on the need
• I used 1/4 and 1/2" seamstick tape. You have to tape every seam and zipper on a project like this so don't skimp.
• I used stainless snaps cloth to surface where I snapped to the outside of the coaming and in some of the smaller areas where I couldn't use zippers to connect to the bimini I used the stainless cloth to cloth.
• I used Flex Rail to attach the screen to the coaming where it dropped down in the aft area. I used Dow Corning 795 as a sealant and #6 screws every 8".

Fitting this area was the hardest. Our mainsheet and traveler run along the forward edge of the cockpit so there was a long discussion about whether to try to rig the screen so the mainsheet came through it in some way, or whether to disconnect the mainsheet shackle from the traveler and stow it on the genoa car track. We decided to do the latter for awhile and then we can always modify that screen panel to include some type of pass-through for the mainsheet later. Having the mainsheet out of the cockpit also gives us more living room. By the way, that lovely custom Bristol 57 in the background is for sale if you can afford to fork over a cool $599K.

I ended up with five total panels. Two on each side and one across the stern. The vertical line / zipper you see in the middle of the photo is the end of the first panel and the beginning of the second panel on the starboard side. If you look at the bottom of the photo you can see where the coaming drops down and narrows.

The lower section of the coaming is pictured here with the track mounted on top.

The aft lower section also runs in the track on top of the coaming and inside of the stern. The wind vane autopilot and the outboard are all outside the screen.

When we're parked for a long while the wheel is mounted on the rail. It fits nicely outside the screen. There are several places where I used short velcro strips on the outside of the screen to mount to the bimini frame to give it extra stability.

The view from the starboard outside.

One of the zipper seams which I designed to completely cover the zippers to protect them from UV damage. You can see one of the velcro straps there as well as the snaps that attach the screen to the outside of the coaming.

Before we did the new bimini and the connector, this is the enclosure we had for the dodger. Converting the upper corners of the dodger to accept the new enclosure was the hardest part of the job. 

Here is the outside of that corner with the new enclosure.

And here is the inside of that corner.

This was the second most difficult part, dealing with the aft stay. I ended up using two pieces of screen and doing the facing below the stay and a zipper above the stay. The whole piece slides into the track, then the middle zipper zips, then the top zippers, then the sides. It's a bit of a puzzle assembly, but it's pretty bug tight. We're pretty excited to have another living space for when the grand kids are with us next month. It will also provide us with good shade in the Bahamas. At some point when we head north again we'll do the plastic portion of the enclosure, but for now there was no reason to expose it to UV damage when we don't need it yet. All in all, next summer here at Snead Island will be much more pleasant with a place to sit in the evening.

Floor Refinishing Progress Report

Yesterday I finished the main salon area of the floor so I have completed the small section in front of the V-berth, the small section in front of the head door, and the main salon between the two settees as well as all the hatchboards. I still have the two sections between the galley and the nav station as well as the two sections in the aft cabin. The ones between the galley and the nav station will take twice the time because I have to lift the companionway stairs out while the finish cures. This means only one coat per day and at seven coats, that means twice as long. I'm incredibly happy with the results so far but I do have several comments to make about the Circa 1850 polyurethane finish that I'm using from Jamestown Distributors.  In no order, here they are:

• The finish is incredibly hard once it cures. I had some that had overlapped another section and when I sanded it, it just laughed at me. This is an excellent finish for salon floors.
• The finish is not the easiest to put on. They say you can use a lambswool applicator, a lint-free cloth, or a bristle brush. For ease of cleaning, I bought a really good, top-of-the-line natural bristle brush. The problem is that it is very difficult to apply evenly. I chose the satin finish because I hate gloss finish on a floor since it eventually scuffs down to satin anyway. I think satin is easier to keep looking clean. While they tell you in the instructions to thin only the first coat with mineral spirits 10%, I found that I had to thin every coat to get it to flow without leaving brush marks. You have to measure carefully because the more thinner you use, the flatter it appears when it's dry.
• When it comes to you, the flattening agent is one giant gelatenous glob in the bottom of the can. You can't shake it because it will introduce air bubbles that will then apply to your work, so you have to stir it. It takes at least 30 minutes to incorporate all of the flattening agent by stirring, a feat made more difficult by the fact that they fill the can to the absolute top of the rim. I appreciate getting full cans, but it's impossible to stir without spilling.
• The published dry time for recoat is 3 hours at ideal conditions. We are currently running an air conditioner which keeps the inside of the boat right around 70° and 60% humidity, very near their perfect conditions, but I found that it was really closer to 5 hours before I could sand the finish without clumping the sand paper.
• The price on this stuff is incredibly reasonable for the quality, and Jamestown Distributors is a real pleasure to deal with. Shipping was quick and the product was well-packaged.

Here are before and after photos of the section of floor that was soaked with diesel fuel. The after photo is complete with seven coats of Circa 1850.

One thing I will say - I'm very happy that I started with the least visible section and worked toward the most visible. In the beginning I was hesitant to sand very deeply, worried that I would sand through the veneer. As I worked, I was able to learn just how deeply I could sand so it began to look better. Also, my skill level improved immensely as I progressed, so if you visit Kintala, please don't look too closely at the V-berth section, OK?

Rebuilding a Forespar Whisker Pole

Kintala came with a whisker pole mounted to two brackets on the deck. It took us quite a while of sailing the boat before we dared try the pole and we almost dumped Tim into the drink trying it. We weren't impressed.

Along came a good friend of ours, Barry, who showed us how to use the pole. I'm embarrassed to say how easily he did it, and he's considerably lighter built than either Tim or I. We began, tentatively, to use the pole. After two years of using the pole while cruising, we weren't sure how we had ever sailed without it. We spend a considerable amount of time sailing on just the genoa, and an even greater percentage of that time sailing in light wind. If you try to do this without the pole, you end up slatting the genoa and greatly decreasing its lifespan.

Back a few months ago while we were heading down the east coast of Florida to Snead Island for this job, we put up the whisker pole with a new rigging design we had read about in an article. I doubt that it was the rigging design, but the inner tube of the pole bent and broke after we had it fully extended. We tied up the pieces and anchored them to the mounting bracket the best we could and added it to the summer project list.

Early in the summer, I contacted the wonderful tech support at Forespar. They were kind enough to tell me that it wasn't entirely our fault that it broke, since it was two (not one, yes two) sizes too small for our boat. Go figure. Unfortunately, a new pole properly sized for our boat was just under two grand. Definitely not in the summer budget.

We began to look on Craigslist and eBay. We did find one that was the right size, but the description included the fact that one end didn't come with it. That end would have set us back nearly $500 so, with the price of the pole, it was also out of our budget. After a while I started looking at the possibility of repairing ours. Yes, it was two sizes too small for our boat, but it had lasted us almost 5 years and who knows how long it was used before that. As long as we were careful about the load we put on it, it might be worth exploring. After a few days of research, we surprisingly found that West Marine had the pole precut in the proper length and at the best price. Who knew? I ordered one from the parts department here on sight and waited the three weeks for delivery. As a side note, Rig Rite does also have most of the parts, but we were able to get a better price through the boat yard here from West Marine.

It appears that Forespar doesn't really want you to rebuild your poles, though. Finding information on parts and reassembly was difficult at best. I did happen on the basic drawing on their tech support site that I used throughout the rebuild that you see below.  It's part of an interesting article about whisker poles so read it when you get a chance. After removing the pole ends, which were all riveted on, you end up with four basic pieces - the outer tube, the inner tube, the inboard end fitting with the attached stinger tube, and the outboard end fitting. There are also two bushings that enable the inner pole to slide in and out. Every rivet had to be drilled out, and every screw was completely corroded in place and had to be drilled out and retapped.

New control line and jaw control line

While I was waiting for the new inner tube, I removed the old control line and replaced it with a shiny new one. I also removed all the smaller lines on the outboard end that are used to pull open and lock the jaw as well as provide loops to hook guy lines. One of our sheaves was completely locked up from corrosion and had to be drilled out and replaced. Fortunately, we had one just the right size from a block that we removed from The Floating Bear fiasco. Score!

The broken 90° tube. You can see the missing outer nut
where it's supposed to be in the photo above

There is also a 90° bent piece of aluminum tubing that guides the short piece of line on the outboard end that pulls open the jaw. It has a threaded end on it that comes up through a hole in the side of the tube and then a nut screws down on it. The whisker pole is aluminum, that tube is aluminum, and the nuts are stainless. Can you say corrosion? The little tube cracked and the nut fell off. I was unable to find a replacement online so I called Forespar and they were able to get me one.

A new jaw control cable. You can also see the new sheave where the
control line exits the end fitting. Please ignore the dirty deck :(

The hardest part of the rebuild was figuring out how to reassemble the pieces. It's like doing a jigsaw puzzle. You have to slide the inner tube into the outer tube until it's completely inside, install the stop bushing on the end of the outer tube, slide the inner tube back through that bushing, and then put the end on the inner tube. I confess it took me two tries to get it right. Some of it I riveted, some other pieces lent themselves better to being assembled with screws and nuts.

After a sigh of relief that it actually worked the way it was supposed to, I strode confidently to the foredeck to mount it in the brackets. Ummmm...when you order the inner pole it comes pre-cut at nine feet four inches, the exact measurement that it's supposed to be for that model pole. Unfortunately, some previous owner cut two inches off the end of the pole so this pole won't fit. After looking at it with Tim, we realized that the aft bracket had been installed backwards and so, rather than remove the bracket, rebed it, and reinstall it, they decided just to cut two inches off the pole. Go figure.

The whole project took about three weeks including the waiting, but we  have our original pole restored for a little less than $250 instead of $2K. Yes, it's too small for Kintala, but cruising budgets sometimes demand some compromises and this is one of those for us.

K2R and Teak Stain Removal

Even though I mentioned K2R in a previous post, I thought it deserved a post of its own. I can't emphasize how nasty the diesel stain on our teak and holly floor was before I started this project. This photo doesn't do it justice.

The wood was dark, the white holly strips black. After sanding, it was marginally better, but the stain was still one of those where you could ignore how good the rest of the floor looked just because that stain looked so bad. The diesel had been soaking the wood for at least 10 or 15 years. We're not sure exactly how long since it was at least two owners previous to us that the tank leaked.  After researching how to remove oil based stains on teak I happened on a forum about K2R. I remember my parents using it to remove stains from dry-cleaned clothes when I was little, but teak? It was worth a try, since the alternative was pulling up that section of plywood and replacing it. I'm not sure even that would have worked because the sub-floor marine plywood base under the teak and holly plywood was also soaked and might have seeped into the new plywood.

As I mentioned in the previous post, it takes multiple applications to remove diesel from soaked wood. You apply, it lifts what can be reached, you let it sit and the fuel from the underlayment seeps up into the teak and holly, you apply again. I've now used two and a half cans over a week's time, and it's pretty close to being done seeping. You can do one application every 30 minutes or so by the time you apply, let dry, sweep it up, rinse it off, let it dry. It takes a lot for a marine product to impress me, but color me impressed...and not stained. Now I can hardly wait to get the finish on!

Looking forward to aft

Looking aft to forward

Boat Hopscotch

My recent descent into blog silence has been due in part to an injury brought on by sheer stupidity, not something you really like to announce to the whole blogosphere. Due to some moving around of cover straps to stabilize our shade cover during the last tropical storm, I ended up catching my foot on a strap that wasn't where I was used to it being, and dumped myself onto the side deck. In addition to injuring my right arm and shoulder in the process, I think I may have shaved off a few days of Tim's life expectancy as he was down below when I fell. For nearly two weeks, all boat projects came to a screeching halt while I tried to rest the offending appendage. Telling a Type-A workaholic personality with a project list and shrinking time frame to lay still for two weeks is difficult at best. I found a good series of books and settled in for the duration. While it still makes its presence known on a regular basis, the injury is healing slowly and boat projects have once again commenced.

The blog silence has also been partly due to the fact that the particular project I'm tackling right now is a long-term one. I'm refinishing the very old, discolored, dented, and completely disgusting floor inside Kintala. We had debated off and on about doing it at all, afraid that the veneer might be too thin to sand and not wanting to try to tackle the job of replacing the teak and holly plywood entirely while we were also living on the boat full time. One day that I was waiting on parts I decided to sand the worst section, the small  piece at the head of the V-berth which had been damaged by a previous owner's neglect in repairing the head which then leaked into the V-berth (ewww). It was an isolated piece, one separated from the rest of the salon floor by a ledge, so if it didn't turn out well it would not be staring us in the face. Anything had to be better than the stained, peeling stuff that was there. Using my cheap old Black and Decker mouse sander I went to work and was pleasantly surprised. Most of the stains and dents came up, leaving just a few places that were too badly stained to sand off. I got some Oxalic acid and treated the black mold stains that were left, but the damage had been too long standing to treat. The Oxalic acid did a nice job of lightening the teak overall and I suspect it would do well on newer stains, but this had been there over 10 years. Nonetheless, the floor took a finish nicely and encouraged me to proceed with the rest.

The problem with refinishing a boat floor while you're living in the boat is that you can't walk on the piece you did for 24 hours. This means that I'm having to do one small section at a time so we can hop over it while it's curing. Fortunately, the floor in Kintala is divided up into sections that make this possible with a minimal amount of hopscotch. After a lot of research I decided to use Jamestown Distributor's Circa 1850 finish. It's a very hard, very fast-drying polyurethane, the kind they use on bowling alleys. You can recoat in 3 hours if the temp and humidity are ideal. Since I'm doing five coats, a quick-curing finish was essential.

One of the major challenges with this project has been a large fuel stain right in front of the port side settee that was caused when a fuel tank leaked two owners before us. It completely saturated the marine plywood subfloor as well as the teak and holly plywood. It had turned the wood dark, especially the light holly strips. In this photo you can see the stain in the bottom left corner. The top of the section is where I had begun sanding. Since I was less than pleased with the results of the Oxalic acid treatment of the V-berth section, I started researching online to see if I could find something to remove oil-based stains from teak. A couple of the forums kept mentioning a product called K2R, a dry-cleaning solvent that removes stains from fabric as well as concrete and wood. I remembered using the stuff when I was young and decided to try it. It was emphasized that multiple applications would be necessary on tough stains so I anticipated using a bunch of it, but I ordered only one can to try it. There is a household 5-oz size, but there is a 12-oz can packaged for marine use that is surprisingly cheapest at West Marine. This stuff is amazing.

The second photo here on the right is after sanding, showing the stain. This photo is taken from the opposite direction so the stain is in the top right corner. The photo below is after 6 applications of the K2R. You spray it on, let it sit for 10 minutes until it completely dries into a white powder, sweep it off, then rinse it with water and let dry.


























The only problem with long-term fuel stains is that they continue to seep up from the sub floor and into the teak and holly again. I was surprised just how much it continues to seep, even though the leak was years ago. Each application leaves a little less seep, but it will take 3 or 4 cans of K2R to get it done. When I rinsed it with the water I was able to gauge the color it would look like with the finish and, while I'm satisfied with the evenness of the color, I'm still a little concerned about the fuel seeping up under the finish and damaging it, so I'm going to continue with the K2R for a few more applications to see if I can get the seepage down to a minimum. Here's a photo of the way it looked when I rinsed it with water and it was still wet. Considering how damaged the floor was, I think it's going to look great.


Here's a detail of just how damaged the floor was, with the top part of the photo the freshly sanded and the bottom unsanded and damaged.























I was able to take all the hatch boards out of the boat and sand and refinish them outside which helped to minimize the interior mayhem quite a bit. Once I start with the finish inside the boat, though, it will take quite a few weeks to complete so that each section cures enough to walk on before I start the next section. In the mean time we'll practice up on our hopscotch.

Out of Control

(Note: this is an impossibly long and technical post. I promise I will reward you with pretty pictures later. If you have the task of changing the control cables in your boat, please read on.)

Item # 17 on Tim's list: Throttle cable needs replaced.

Item # 18 on Tim's list: Shifter cable needs replaced.

One of the problems with projects like that on a list are that those eight words represent three and a half weeks of calendar time (rainy days and other things like errands and waiting on parts get in the way), and 9 actual days of working time. That's a long time to go without checking anything off The List.

Now if you think that any monkey ought to be able to change out three control cables on a sailboat in less than 9 days, be sure you never purchase a sailboat with a V-drive, at least one that Tartan made. Westerbeke was kind enough to place all the common service items on one side of the engine - oil filter, fuel filters, fuel pump, injectors, control cables - and then Tartan promptly turned the engine around backwards, installed a V-drive, and jammed all those nicely accessible service items right up against the refrigerator with a whopping 1" of space between, and that includes the 1" thick sound insulation.

It took every ounce of willpower this perfectionist could drum
up not to rip everything out here and start over. Who installs
things this way?? Those are my pink messenger lines.

Next, you take that same engine and add 29 years of previous owners and their desire to have all the latest electronic gadgets that require wire to be run hither and yon, and the adequately sized cutout in the bulkheads that the control cables were fed through all the sudden become horribly, inadequately, completely jammed full. Then there's the string of tie-wraps attaching all of that rat nest of wires to the control cables that have to be cut, some of them (of course) in the cubby at the foot of the aft berth under everything stored there, and it's full.

As if all of that wasn't enough, add the fact that some genius designer around the time of Noah decided that both the throttle and the shifter cables should be clamped in the same clamp, and that the clamp should reside 10 inches down inside the binnacle which has a diameter roughly the size of a grapefruit, and into which is stuffed a shaft, a shaft brake, steering chain, wire rope and lighting wiring. Of course, to do this one has to remove the shifter housing which is held on by four very long machine screws which have likely never been removed in 30 years and have frozen solid (3 hours, chisel, vice grips). No less, the genius (read: sadist) decided that to remove the cables (one of which comes up on either side of the wheel shaft), one has to disconnect the cable clamp, tie a line onto the cable ends, push the cable ends down into the binnacle, work the throttle cable under the shaft and then pull them both up on the port (shifter) side. Unfortunately, the genius failed to consider the fact that the clamp is larger than the space left between the shaft and the steering chain so it requires lifting the chain off the sprocket to provide the extra half inch missing.

Rudder post and steering wire rope in the background

The difficulty there lies in the fact that the chain is held in place by the wire rope attached to it, which is in turn held in place by the nuts fastening it onto the rudder quadrant. In order to lift the chain off in the binnacle, one has to empty the lazarette, climb down inside, unhook the wire rope from the rudder quadrant, climb back out, lift the chain off the sprocket. Oh, and then remember to reattach the nuts so you can lock the rudder down so the oh-so-kind sport fishermen in the marina don't break your rudder during their 5-knot approach to their slip next to yours. Hopefully, you remember this before you have put everything back into the lazarette (ask me how I know this.)

Three of my favorite tools. Two different lengths of bronze rod
and a ball of butyl tape. Combined, they are life savers for
maneuvering and retrieving all sorts of things.

After the chain is lifted off the sprocket, you need a long screwdriver or my favorite tool, a two-foot piece of bronze rod with hooks bent on each end, to work the clamp out of the binnacle so you can remove the control cables. Why in the world somebody designed it that way I have absolutely no idea. The logical way would have been to have single cable clamps on each side of the binnacle but, hey, I'm just a grunt mechanic so what do I know? Doing all of this necessitates unhooking the control cables from the engine end as well to give you the play needed. Ahhh...the plot thickens.

Remember the V-drive? To unhook the shifter cable from the engine end, you have to remove a cable clamp (one of the most accessible in the whole job), and then remove the cotter key holding the pin that runs through the clevis which attaches to the shifter arm. This was the easiest thing in the whole job and it took me two hours.

One of the screws for the clamp deep inside the engine

Since I was going to be doing the other two cables, I decided to replace the fuel cutoff cable as well. To remove the engine end attachments for the throttle and fuel cutoff, you have to remove the cables from the cable clamps and remove a nut from a ball fitting on the throttle and a set screw from the fuel cutoff. Each of those two attach points took over four hours. For two screws. Most of that time was spent laying on the engine with my arm nearly up to my elbow jammed between the fuel manifold and the exhaust anti-siphon hose. Working with one hand. Blind. The screws were standard, not phillips, and were less than an inch from the fridge side wall which meant using an offset screwdriver attached to my wrist with my handy 3-cent tool keeper, and getting about 1/32 of the full turn between each time I dropped the screwdriver. Easily retrieved by my tool keeper, wash, rinse, repeat...and repeat...and repeat...

Once you're ready to remove the cables, you have to attach messenger lines to them (I used Gorilla duct tape) and attach the bitter end of those lines to something on the engine. My messenger lines did get tangled on more than one occasion because I used standard weight messenger line. Notes on messenger lines: use a little heavier line like paracord  that you can really tug on, and color code them if you're doing more than one cable at a time. When you're reinstalling them, you'll be glad you did as you're often working in different cubbies where you can't see the whole line.

Three days to remove three cables. The first delay was waiting on the cables. Our shifter cable was a 6400 model Teleflex, and the really good parts guru here at Snead Island couldn't find one. Turns out, the only reason we had a 6400 was because the boat was originally outfitted with a Paragon transmission which requires one. Now we have a Hurth transmission which can function on a 3300 model. Cheaper, more readily available and half the thickness. Score! Easier to run back through the stuffed bulkhead cutouts. Ahhh, but the plot thickens again.

Converting from the 6400 to the 3300 also requires changing out the shifter handle shaft on the binnacle. The shaft we had was too thick to accept the clevis that fits on the 3300 cable. Lots of chit-chatting with Edson's very capable and kind technical staff and we had the parts on order. Ordering was the easy part. Installing was another thing altogether. Another half day (and half a can of PB Blaster) down the drain. It turns out that the set screw in the end of the shifter handle wasn't what was holding it. 34 years of corrosion did just fine, thank you.

Running the new cables turned out to be much less of an issue than removing them. The new cables were much more flexible and slippery. It took me less than 6 hours to run all three new cables. Keep in mind that it would take considerably less time to do all of this with a helper. Part of the reason it took me so long was I was climbing in and out of the boat constantly and the companionway stairs were removed to access the engine. It also involved going from access panel to access panel from cubbie to cubbie, each time moving the cable just a few inches. Color coding the messenger lines is extremely helpful in this process.

Installing the binnacle fittings and getting the cables anchored in the binnacle was next. This involves figuring out a way to hang a flashlight in such a way that it can shine past your head which is squeezed between the cup holder and the binnacle while holding a very long piece of bronze rod with a hook on the end. Why you say? Because the bronze rod will be used to try to prod the cable clamp bolt down into the binnacle in such a way as it lines up with the teeny little hole, push on the clamp to push the bolt through the hole, and then hold it there while you feed the nut on the outside of the binnacle. Oh joy.

Edson binnacle cable clamp

Last, but not least, you have the fun of attaching the engine ends of the cables. Shifter cable was the easiest, done in  just a couple hours. The throttle and fuel cutoff cables go through the cable clamps with those screws that are right by the fridge wall - one full day to get those screws in and get the ends attached. Part of that time was spent cutting the utility cable for the fuel cutoff. In spite of the fact that it was measured against the old one, it was about two feet too long. Not a difficult job, just time consuming. (I loves me some Dremel.) This was the  most difficult day of the job. In fact, it's the most difficult job I've ever tackled on Kintala and I have the cuts and bruises to attest to that.

I finished the cable install on Friday, and wrote this post that evening, fully intending to get to publish it Saturday morning after Tim helped me do the engine run-up to test all the cable functions. Saturday morning came, the engine started, water poured nicely out of the exhaust thru-hull, the oil pressure came up and...the engine died. Somewhere during the contortions of getting my arms into the areas needed to remove and replace clamp screws, I must have pushed too hard on the many fuel lines and worked something loose and the engine got a little air in it. It doesn't take much on a diesel, like I said in a post not too long ago. Rats-n-frackin. The weekend passed with a bit of a gray cloud overhead. I really really wanted to check the project off my list before the weekend but it was not to be.

This morning I dug up all my enthusiasm and all my Westerbeast bleeding tools and set to work. An hour and a half later the engine roared to life and all my newly installed cables functioned as should be. A few lessons were learned here, which I thought I would recap:

1. I should have just taken off the fuel manifold to give me access to the space where the clamp screws were. I thought of this, but since bleeding a Westerbeast is NOT FUN, and I had just done it a few weeks before, I didn't go that route. In the end it probably cost me two days. I confess to being worried about damaging a fuel line trying to take off the manifold which would have cost many, many more days so that's my main reasoning for not removing it
2. Use good color-coded messenger lines.
3. Double check the cable placement in the binnacle clamp before you go to all the trouble of installing the clamp. The cotter key has to be firmly in the groove in the cable. Ask me how I know.
4. Disassemble your compass and binnacle pieces periodically and lube them with Tef-gel. You or some other future owner will greatly appreciate it some day
5. Take the time to do things right. A previous owner had done a real hatchet  job on repairing the block base on the fuel cutoff handle in the cockpit. It took me most of a day to fix.
6. Make use of good techinical service when it's available. The guys on the Edson tech line are top-notch.
7. If you're going to be working way back in the bowels of a 34-year old Westerbeke, be sure to take off your rings. This one I actually did think of before I started.

So before my English major daughter states the obvious that this post is almost one long run-on sentence, it was written that way on purpose because this project was the project from hell that just wouldn't end. And now, I believe, it's time for a project that's easier and a bit more fun. Stay tuned...

Uncle

The filling of the cruising kitty is going well, and the boat project list has more items checked off than not, but summer has been hard on Worker Man. Snead Island is a great place to work: New Boss is fair, considerate, and hard-working himself, the owners and the rest of the employees helpful and easy to work with, and Tim's desire to produce quality workmanship expected. But the Florida sunshine - the emblem of this state - is his biggest enemy. Working down inside small, un-airconditioned boats that are sitting in the brutal rays takes its toll on his 61-year-old body.

On the other hand, the summer has been pretty good to me. Being in charge of The List has afforded me the opportunity to learn a phenomenal amount about Kintala. Most of my projects so far have been inside the air-conditioned boat so, other than the outside portion of the port rebuild project, I have had the benefit of cool working environs. Not having the benefit of a highly experienced mechanic at my beck and call 24/7 has forced me to research, learn, troubleshoot, and push through problems on my own with only the brief conversations after Worker Man returns for the day and before he collapses on the settee directly under the A/C vent. Checking off list items has gone a long way toward improving my confidence as a mechanic.

Until yesterday.

Early in the summer I decided to tackle first those items that would make maintenance on Kintala easier. The easier it is to change the oil or fuel filters, the more frequently it will get done. Installing the remote oil filter system was of the highest priority. Adding en electric fuel boost pump to bleed the engine after changing filters was next. I did my research, spoke to our friend Stephen who also owns a Tartan 42 (which is a very nice one for sale by the way), and spent time looking at various pumps. When Stephen sent a photo to me of the pump in his install, I realized all of a sudden that I remembered seeing one already installed in the boat. It was mounted on top of the fuel tank, hidden under the settee base, all the plumbing there, but the wiring was set up with ends to attach to an external battery when you needed it. Yes, we should have realized a long time ago what it was for but, you know, the out of site out of mind thing.

Not having a separate battery nor any desire to purchase one, I spent the day Monday running new wiring from the house bank to the engine compartment where I mounted a switch, then from there to the pump. As with all things boat project, it took the whole day, although I confess that an hour and a half of that was fashioning a wooden switch box to house the switch I happened on in the used box at the parts dept here on site. If you've been following this blog for a while then you know that Tim and I are both pretty anal when it comes to detail so the box had to be right.

The engine compartment showing the remote oil filter install and the new switch box for the bleed pump on the back wall.

The fuel filter housing with the bleed banjo fitting on top

Tuesday, new filters in hand, I began to learn the ins and outs of changing fuel filters on a Westerbeke 50. I had never done it before and, in fact, had usually found some place else to be when Tim did it because it is a very unpleasant job that involves bleeding of the human sort in addition to bleeding of the fuel sort. We had no spare diesel to fill the filter housings with, but everything I was reading on the topic of the electric fuel pump indicated that the pump would fill those housings given enough time. I changed the filters, turned on the pump, bled the filter fittings, let the pump run, bled them again, pump run..well you get the idea. 15 minutes later I started the engine. It started right up. Big smile on my face for the 10 seconds it ran until it stopped. Rats-n-frackin'.

Off to the maintenance manual and various Westerbeke forums. The general concensus was that I still had not removed all the air and had sucked it into the high pressure side of the system where it air locked the injector pump. It takes shockingly little air to stop a diesel engine, it turns out. Since I had cranked over the engine, I was now blessed with the learning experience of the Westerbeke 8-point bleeding procedure. An hour later and I was still not getting fuel to the injector B-nuts and the starter was getting warm from cycling the engine. "Uncle!"  Wiki says that the term "cry uncle" is from Roman times when children who were being pressed by a bully would have to say "Uncle" to be freed. How truly appropriate, as I can think of no better bullies than the designers of the Westerbeke 50.

When Worker Man returned to Kintala, I retraced my progress, showing him how far I had succeeded in obtaining fuel dribbles along the bleeding path. He loosened one B-nut that I had been unable to reach on the high pressure side of the injector pump. cranked the now cool engine, got fuel there. Then he bled two of the injector line B-nuts and the engine started.

I've learned a ton so far this summer, but perhaps the greatest lesson I learned through this project is that some times you quit just on the verge of success. I stopped because I was worried about damaging the engine and starter from too much cranking (probably smart), but had I taken some time to read some more, to think it through and continued bleeding the next day, I would most likely have gotten the job done without help. Don't get me wrong - getting help when you're unsure is a very good thing, and it's great when it's there to benefit from, but I'm sure there's going to be times when I just have to keep at it and not give up. At least when the Westerbeast is involved.

The oil pressure sender connection is, of
course, right by the dipstick so it can be
bumped into every time you check the oil...

And just so The Beast could show me who's boss...when the engine finally cranked to life there was no oil pressure on the gage. We immediately shut down the engine and closed things up for the night. This morning I started troubleshooting and discovered that the wire from the oil pressure sender to the gage was both loose and damaged. I cut it clean, installed a new connector, lock washer and nut, started the engine and was rewarded with oil pressure in the green. So take that you big bully.

Shhhhh...

Just a quick photo of the finished porthole rebuild/new headliner project. The port side ports went much faster since I knew what I wanted to do. Four days total. I have one more interior project - to replace the sliding mirror panels in the head - and then it will be back to the engine and steering projects. I'm feeling pretty good right now about my progress, but Shhhhh don't tell Kintala, OK?

1,907

That's how many days we've owned this boat. I'm not sure how many oil changes we've done in that time, but I can tell you that every single one resulted in blood being shed. Since Kintala has a V-drive setup on the motor, the oil filter is positioned on the port side of the engine, underneath various parts of the fuel system and a spider web of fuel lines, behind the exhaust vented loop, and exactly 1-1/8" from the end of the filter to the wall of the refrigerator. It was agonizing to try to work the filter out of the hole, and it always involved oil spilled into the engine pan.

1,908 is the magic number, because today I finished the install of our remote oil filter. The PH-8A filter is now wonderfully exposed, easy to spin off, and will involve no spilled blood or oil. Magic.

The remote filter we chose was the JEGS kit from Amazon. It was reasonably priced and included everything except the rather specific high temp thread sealer which took three stores to find. It was easy to install and could be done by a reasonably able mechanic in a half day at most. Why in the world we waited this many years to do this, I'll never know, but the Westerbeast thrummed along happily when I let it run to check for leaks. Not near as happy as Worker Man is going to be the next time he changes the oil.

Yes, down under that mess of fuel lines is where the filter used to be.