Progress!

There has been a tremendous amount of progress in Koan land over the last week. Dan helped me route the cables through the mast, and I spent what seems like endless hours at the masthead installing the VHF antenna, windex and an anchor light. At this point what remains to be done is to route everything through the deck and to its final terminal spot. That's going to involve drilling a fairly large hole, filling an old one, deciding on some hose to protect the cables, possibly moving the mainsheet turning block so it's not in the way, and finally crimping everything to its final place. Phew! Even so, I'm delighted to be done with going aloft!

The neck of the goose

The car on Koan's gooseneck is another mechanical fitting embodying who knows what kind of history. The assembly is supposed to be made of a car, a pin, and a piece that swivels around the pin. The swiveling piece is made of a different metal than the stainless of the car and pin, milder steel maybe? I just can't see it being aluminum, but maybe it is... In any case, by virtue of corrosion between the pin and swiveling piece, these three pieces are now one. In addition, it's clear that the swiveling piece has a groove worn into it, from being mounted proper-way-up. So when I removed it from the boat, it was mounted upside-down, presumably to even the wear by exposing the other bearing surface.

The reason why it would be nice for the two seized pieces to be moving independently again is that, when they fused, they didn't do so at a 90 degree angle, but a little bit, maybe 10 degrees, off 90 degrees. You can see that in the picture. That means the shackles that go through the two holes in the pin (one to hold the tack of the main, and one to hold a block under the boom that redirects a reefing line) are off 90 degrees, so they're subjected to torque. The one holding the tack is showing it, because it's bowed out to one side. I don't think they're anywhere near breaking, but I don't like it, either.

No amount of penetrating oil and prying has managed to break these two pieces apart of course. Heat might do it, but it might also make things worse, or break something, in which case the boat will be unusable.

Proctor Masts still exists, and, mercifully, I believe they have a shop in California. So I'll contact them for a replacement, but they've been known to quote people prices that essentially mean they're re-tooling just to make the one piece you ordered. So that may not work.

From the WTF department

I went to the boat this morning planning to take off the mainsail and figure out how to build an outhaul, since our boat came without one. I left with the sail off, as planned, but also the boom off and fully disassembled. In the process I ran into some lovely examples that belong in the WTF department.

Take for example the installation of this turning block. Three philips machine screws, one hex-head. Brilliant! (Turns out the hex-head is there because the threads on the old hole must have been messed up, so the hole was over-drilled and re-threaded. West Marine does not carry philips in 5/16-18. Nevertheless, I will look for them elsewhere. Also the hex head was probably 1/2-1/3 of an inch longer than the philips screws. Sigh.)

And check out this fabulous installation of a horn cleat using two -- wood or sheet metal? -- screws that are at least 1/2 inch too long for the job, and too coarsely threaded.

I'm sure this installation, which is the gooseneck side of my boom, was also made in response to some dire mixup. The old holes must have been stripped of threads, so instead of overdrilling and rethreading -- which I can see is tricky, because the holes are so close to the edge -- the genius here drilled new holes. 2mm too close to the edge. Brilliant! And then used five machine screws and one sheet metal screw. This is so fucked up I don't know how I'm going to fix it. I'm thinking of returning to the original holes and tapping them properly. At least that way the cap doesn't leave a 2mm gap when you put it on the extrusion! Note the complete absence of anti-corrosion measures in this area. The aluminum is practically crumbling, in the area of the boom subject to the most torque. Oy vey!