Sailing blog; Bought a boat cheap. Made it work and look pretty, now we've gone sailing...
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Thursday, May 30, 2013
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
Last Blog before the mast goes up... We hope!
When
I was young there was a childrens' program called Mr Benn about a man; Mr Benn
who would walk into a fancy dress shop and try on a costume. When Mr
Benn walked out of the changing room he would walk in to another
time and place. The time and place of the costume in fact, and have an
adventure.
We opted to have mechanical fittings for our rigging wire and chose hi-mod. Once the wire was cut to the desired length using a thin cutting blade on our angle grinder, the wire is un-wound exposing the inner twist of wire, a former is placed over this and the wire is twisted up again, a crown is fitted to order the wire ends and the end is screwed on. It couldn't be simpler. The most difficult part is to get the wire to twist appart as our wire is 5/16". We've a few offcuts of leather to help us along and Ruth finds it helpful to use monkey or molegrips with this.
There has been a long list of jobs to be done before the mast goes up and we have been methodically plodding through them. We have assembled the new roller furling system that came with the boat which fitted together beautifully.
The crosstrees are now bolted on to the mast complete with copper sheaves for the shrouds.
One unrelated task has been gluing teak veneer to the the navigation station and installing some of the electrics; a task in which we found use for all of our now two lengths' of chain. Who needs fancy clamps?
We are sealing the chainplates with butyl tape. We are so pleased to have been recommended this stuff by Ivan as it's so much easier to work with than any caulking we've used before. The clean up is simply trim the edges and pull it off rather than sticky messy chaos for hours! We've no experience of it so lets hope it works.
Whilst completing these sizeable milestones, in particular the chainplates, which we had never thought would need replacing until we saw the cracks they had. We have had other smaller though also integral to the mast going up work to be completed. The collar which needs to be solid enough to have chock's drifted in between it and the mast at deck level has needed to be modified and have some means of attaching a water proof gasket to it. The deck has also needed enlarging; though the overall dimensions of the mast are the same the radius' are different. The old mast heel had to be replaced with the new one and new bolt holes drilled to accomadate it. Even the coins which will be placed under the mast have been chosen.
We
have felt a little like Mr Benn at times; not that we have been time
travelling; but that we keep having glimpses of other lives. From
metal worker, painter, hauliers, Fibre glasser, plumber, carpenter,
the list goes on. Our current foray has been into the life of a
rigger; like so many trades there are really cool toys to play with.
We opted to have mechanical fittings for our rigging wire and chose hi-mod. Once the wire was cut to the desired length using a thin cutting blade on our angle grinder, the wire is un-wound exposing the inner twist of wire, a former is placed over this and the wire is twisted up again, a crown is fitted to order the wire ends and the end is screwed on. It couldn't be simpler. The most difficult part is to get the wire to twist appart as our wire is 5/16". We've a few offcuts of leather to help us along and Ruth finds it helpful to use monkey or molegrips with this.
There has been a long list of jobs to be done before the mast goes up and we have been methodically plodding through them. We have assembled the new roller furling system that came with the boat which fitted together beautifully.
The crosstrees are now bolted on to the mast complete with copper sheaves for the shrouds.
One unrelated task has been gluing teak veneer to the the navigation station and installing some of the electrics; a task in which we found use for all of our now two lengths' of chain. Who needs fancy clamps?
Not
all carriage bolts are created equal and our quick job of 'just'
bolting on the chainplates has turned into a few days saga. I had
cut all the square holes for the carriage bolts using our old
stainless bolts as a gauge for size. Turns out our bronze bolts are
bigger but we only realised once we'd got one stuck, threaded it and
had to cut it out; all in a confined area. Argh! The chainplates in
the head are particularly awkward to tighten the nuts on, Ruth was
sick of sweating away over them and coming out with scraped fingers
so in the end I unbolted some of the plumbing to make it easier, mindful that this could easily have become a new can of worms it worked out.
We are sealing the chainplates with butyl tape. We are so pleased to have been recommended this stuff by Ivan as it's so much easier to work with than any caulking we've used before. The clean up is simply trim the edges and pull it off rather than sticky messy chaos for hours! We've no experience of it so lets hope it works.
Whilst completing these sizeable milestones, in particular the chainplates, which we had never thought would need replacing until we saw the cracks they had. We have had other smaller though also integral to the mast going up work to be completed. The collar which needs to be solid enough to have chock's drifted in between it and the mast at deck level has needed to be modified and have some means of attaching a water proof gasket to it. The deck has also needed enlarging; though the overall dimensions of the mast are the same the radius' are different. The old mast heel had to be replaced with the new one and new bolt holes drilled to accomadate it. Even the coins which will be placed under the mast have been chosen.
Of
course as is so often the way, to do these jobs, lockers have to be
emptied and the contents put somewhere. The saloon resembles a kind
of perfect chaos currently, at first glance it looks like clothes,
tools and books have been emptied in to it and then a path pushed
through the middle, upon closer inspection one realises that each
pile was once the content of some locker or another.
Finally,
we have almost everything sorted and fitted. We have dressed the mast short of a few extra halyards that will go on tomorrow. We need one more run to Blackburns for a few odds and sods then we are in business. The crane has been booked for three with the understanding that we will probably sit in the dock for most of tomorrow evening as we cut the wires to the correct length and attach the mechanical ends. This should not be a problem as there was a holiday today, (Monday) the yard is quiet, everyone aiming to be on their boats for the holiday. The extra time (delay) has given us some time to run
some wires whilst the cupboards were empty It is now our
luxury to have two fans in our fo'c'sle; I woke up one morning last week with my
ear full of water; it took a few moments to realise that this was
sweat! Texas weather is gaining on us! So if all goes well tomorrow we will have the windscoop up which will make
the cabin much more bearable.
Tuesday, May 14, 2013
Jazz Sundays
One
Sunday several years ago I remember going to visit a friend who lived
on a boat. We popped over to their then neighbour, who lived on an
old Dutch Tjalk. He was listening to Stefan Grapelli and Django
Reinhardt. I couldn't stay long, as I had a ticket to see Humphry
Lyttleton at the Malbourgh Jazz Festival. He was brillant; as are
Grapelli, Reinheart and living on a boat.
That
weekend Jazz Sundays were born. That Sunday to be precise.
Life
has been chaotic here; Jazz Sundays have struggled. Before the boat
went in the water there were a hundred jobs that needed to be done.
Since we have been in the water the chaos has persued. However, now
the mast is at least within a few hunded feet of its home we managed
to fit in a proper Jazz Sunday.
Jazz
Sunday actually starts with the Archers Omnibus, and a lesiurly
breakfast. 'The Archers' is a long running Bristish Radio Program.
My Mother recounts whenever she hears the theme tune that she
remembers dancing around her grandmothers living room as a child; its
been going a while ( i know everyone in England knows this, just
being inclusive!). Today we actually caught up. There was a point
prior to Impetuous being launched that we were a month behind.
Nothing like listening to the Shrove Tuesday episode During April
fools.
So
like an athelete capturing their stride after a tall hurdle we had a
proper Jazz Sunday. Archers Omnimbus whilst i prepared breakfast
then set the music machine to random Jazz and let it shuffle
sublime. Topped with beer at lunch time. Perfick!!!
This
week has seen us prepare the mast and, as we have already posted,
move it. Now moved, the focus is upon getting the mast up. We're
both very aware that once up, our things to do list shrinks to a
'things to do on our boat in exotic places list'. Lets face it;
Texas is not exotic! The main track is on, as are the
spreader boxes. The deck fitting piece has been made today. The cap
rails with slots for chainplates are complete, on one side, almost...
Soon, very soon we will start unravelling the enormous roll of wire
and embark upon the rigging; but thats another day because today was
Jazz Sunday.
Mast Deck Fitting re-shaped. |
Friday, May 10, 2013
Mast Progress
Today we got our mast
moved to the yard!
It was a bit of a
surprise as we'd just finished readying the mast back in Dickinson
where we built it. We called in on the rigger who has a suitable
trailer yesterday and despite being very busy he jumped straight to
the challenge and sent Brian and Travis to solve our problems.
Our first problem to
tackle was attempted solo. Stix n Rign's trailer is 53' long and the
mast was tucked away next to Roger's shop. This was therefore not
so accessible by the trailer and truck totalling 70ft. The riggers
requested that we make the mast as near to the road as possible and somewhere it would be easy for the
trailer to be pulled alongside it.
We embarked upon our
challenge Egyptian style around lunch time. We used wooden rollers
(cut up broom handle we still had handy after moving 'Pip' the engine
in all those years ago) and long timbers balanced upon the trestle
tables. We simply rolled the mast to a more accessible position; inch by
inch over the quite uneven terain. There was a lot of stopping and
moving the rollers, trestles and timbers but the force needed to
shift the mast along was pretty minimal.
We had no sooner
finished moving when the cavalry arrived. Before long we had lifted
the mast on to the trailer. Five sets of hands didn't quite make
light work of it, but by pivoting it across, it was manageable and not
too stressful. Once strapped down, we were delighted to see Brian do
a second walk around and double checking the straps... we relayed
the story of our boat moving disasters with the formula 1 truck
driver, and we were off.
A reversal of the
procedure at the yard saw our beautiful mast laid upon the saw horses
just a few yards away from the crane that shall soon lift it on the
Impetuous.
All our rigging
components have now arrived. We bought a VHF antennae this morning;
possibly our first and only ever purchase from West Marine (Super
expensive Marine Superstore full of Bling). As we were following the
Mast down the road Blackburns (our marine wholesaler) called to say
our wire had arrived; we have a 500ft spool to play with. We have an
industrious few days ahead of us; then the mast can go up.
Sunday, May 5, 2013
Brass neck leads to bronze turnbuckles...
There's no two ways
about it, we've been plodding along in too much contentment to have
any great news as yet. We've been lucky that the usual Texas summer
weather has been very muted and pretty pleasant towards us thus far.
We'd better get a wriggle on though, as this good fortune can not
last. It's lovely living on the boat all the time, we feel totally
at home and happy but this also means that we spend more time
cooking, making mess then tidying it up and chatting.
I'm still
plodding away at the toerails and hatch amongst frequent distractions,
and Duncan has been making the spreaders and tidying up loose ends.
The Spreaders shaped and being epoxy cored and cut in the ends
Lots of varnish and then white paint to protect the tops from the sun.
The chainplates are all bent now after that big learning curve, here's Jason and Duncan working on the last two.
Life's too short to
polish a chainplate but just look what happens if you do!
We've been ordering all
new rigging as none of our stainless ended up being trustworthy
enough. We've chosen to use Hi-mod mechanical fittings which finally
arrived today.
Here is what one thousand pounds worth of fittings
look like!
A most unwelcome expense but at least they are reuseable
and will last a very long time.
As it happens our
trusty local marine suppliers do not have sufficient wire to fulfill
our requirements (430ft of one size) so we're still waiting for them
to get new reels delivered. This isn't such a problem as we still
haven't dragged ourselves back over to Dickinson to fit the mast
track and a few fittings yet.
Drilling holes in the tops of the chainplates for toggle pins; borrowing a pillar drill press has helped us massively.
One of the problems to
consider post splash day was what to do with our old boat cradle
(that rusty old big metal stand which Impetuous had sat upon for the
last 18 years and that we got transported upon). We wondered if
someone would want it. The un-relished plan was to cut it up with an
angle grinder and take it for scrap if not.
We offered it to a few
people and got a bite from local character (legend) Bob Marsh, to
whom we suggested that when he pick it up he might bring along one of
those bronze turnbuckles he has lying around his place (at this point
we were still 3 short from our full compliment). He has a yard full
of boats and can sometimes rent out cradles but at this proposal he
left crying you limey's!
We heard nothing for a
week, but luckily the yard didn't seem too anxious about it lying
around in the way; they are remarkably patient and accommodating towards us. We heard a whisper in the fullness of time that Captain
Randy was interested in the cradle; with this our ears pricked up, we
waited for him to call. Lots of people call themselves captain
around here. As far as we can tell it is nothing to do with the
military, but some US coastguard qualification they wear as a badge
of honour.
When captain Randy came
by, Duncan was out shopping. Once he got the idea that he didn't
need to keep looking around for a man to speak to, we were able to
come to an arrangement. I said unfortunately it was promised to Bob
in return for turnbuckles but that as he hadn't come to pick it up
yet... Captain Randy interupted that he outranks Bob, therefore he'd
take it and we can have turnbuckles from the resale shop no problem.
I wondered if Bob would be disappointed, but the Captain said he'd
call Bob and let him know the score.
A few days passed and
we heard nothing, so we went to the junk shop (sorry 'boaters resale
shop of Texas') and set aside our needed three bronze turnbuckles.
These had been more highly priced than those we had previously bought
up. We labelled them for the Captain to collect and amazingly he
did! We couldn't be more delighted with our deal; rusty junk for
exactly what we needed. Everyone came out smiling. Even Bob, who
just yesterday brought us the turnbuckle we had coveted for nothing,
so now we have a spare. He's taken a bit of a shine to us!
Yes maybe we took it to an extreme but for now they look pretty cool...