Birthdays and Bowsprits

After a happy birthday had by Duncan, we've been playing very nicely with a few pleasantly rewarding jobs. The Rudder cheeks are now bolted on.  Once again one of those simple jobs that we started in the morning... 

 

and ended up that we were still doing in the dark.  It was cold too!  Every cloud has a silver lining though, as this meant that the sealant did not kick off too fast.

We've been Caulking our lovely new teak cockpit deck which was a very messy job indeed. The masses of blue tape were Roger (our boat carpenter landlord)'s idea and whether it made any difference or not to the chaos that insued, it was very rewarding pulling it off.  Nevertheless, once the teak decking system (sealant) was hardened, lots of sanding had to be done.  We look forward to posting the picture once the varnish/ oiling is done and the cockpit locker hinges are in place. 

 

 

One sanding job that we were both eager to do!

 With the painting finally over we were polishing up our chainplates ready to put them on when we found a nasty little surprise.

Does anyone have any knowledge or experience with stainless steel?  We can't be sure how big a problem these cracks are, or what caused them.  This is by far the worst one and is on the Starboard Upper stay. 

Under close inspection several of the plates have at least one very tiny problem.

We are currently seeking advice and toying with the idea of making four new ones as we already needed to modify these four for our double spreader rig (originally single spreader).  It would be great to know more about metal stresses and normal wear and tear... sigh, more hours of trawling through google pages...

Some of the flaws are so tiny, we can't imagine what would cause this one in the top right of the photo.

 

 

On a much happier note our bowsprit is coming along in, well; bows and sprits!   We epoxied the three big planks of douglas fir together back in January 2010!  Did some very basic shaping and then stopped.  Here it was with all it's clamps on. 

Now the real fun begins! 

 Duncan cutting an angle in the end as the samson post has a rake to it.

 The bull nose takes shape.

 This shape was achieved using only hand tools; saws, chisels and Duncan's beloved 40grit (very coarse sandpaper).

Cutting in the recesses for the crosstrees to sit in.  We later tidied these up a bit with the router.

 Dunc's face says it all; the router is noisy and blows sawdust at you in a most unfriendly manner.  However, the results are so clean and consistant that we use it all the time now.  It's a powerful tool though so you've really got to be sure who is boss whenever you use it!



 Can you see what it is yet?

Ta Da!  Next job is drilling the holes to bolt it down through the deck and bolting on all the crosstrees and platform.  We're about ready for it after much thought and consideration but we need a really long drill bit so we're on our bikes over to Kemah in the morning. 

 

In answer to many questions the splash down date is provisionally the second week of March.  However, we aren't going to find transporters until the mast is glued up.  This will be a real turning point and our plans should be easier to judge then.  Mast building phase two is starting in the next couple of days so stay tuned!

 

Ruth and Dunc