Projects...
I’ve been delaying the last major piece of brightwork refinishing because the boat will cease to be a functioning sailboat; I’m referring to the teak baseplate underneath each winch. To pull each piece off means the winches and cam cleats have to be removed:
Once I disassembled the winch (taking care with the spring clip!) and removed the five mounting bolts (with a little help from a friend), I had to remove the fasteners holding the baseplate to the fiberglass, which were buried under bung plugs, so of course those had to be drilled out first. When I finally got the baseplate removed, it was not surprising to see all the dirt and crud underneath. Also not totally surprising: finding additional holes in the fiberglass leftover from some previous piece of deck hardware; I believe I have found the source of the quarter berth water leak! Here is a picture after the area was cleaned up and the extra holes filled with epoxy:
I cleaned, sanded, stained and epoxied the baseplate. On the top surface I laid down some peel-ply (extra Dacron sailcloth) while the epoxy was curing. Once it had dried and the peel-ply removed, I was left with a slightly roughened surface which will be useful when the cockpit coaming is wet to prevent slipping while entering or exiting the boat.
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| Baseplate stained & epoxied with peel-ply applied while drying |
I bought all new attachment hardware, reamed the holes to the correct size and after first dry-fitting everything and pulling it back off, I applied some 3M marine sealant around all the holes:
Finally, I reinstalled everything using the new hardware with the help of a visiting boater. Once the port side is done in a similar manner, I think I will be done with brightwork refinishing for a while. Here’s a picture with everything reassembled, but before I installed the winch’s drum and the cam cleat:
SHADE
As summer has arrived the sun is making more frequent and more intense visits, so having some shade in the cockpit would sure be nice on those hot days. Eventually I want to make a permanent bimini cover out of foam and fiberglass, but for right now I just wanted something temporary that was easy to set up and take down. The boat came with a small radar arch (yes, it also came with a radar but that got sold awhile back via Craigslist), so I made some brackets (thanks for your help Bill!) to mount on the side of the arch that I could slide some poles into:
I could then run lines from the mast, around the outer shrouds back to the poles, then down to the blocks and cleats I normally use for the braces
