Daily maintenance log

I'm trying to do a little project every day I go down to the boat. I walk the dog there, leave him to play on deck and I fix something little. Yesterday I installed the new winch handle holder and put a coat of cetol on the traveler support. Today I cleaned and greased the cabin-top winches. 

Stateroom lights v4.1 and new winches

Stateroom lights v 4.1

Success at last!

The new winches

Stateroom lights, v4.0. Sigh...

I'm building a pair of stateroom lights from scratch to replace the ones that used to be there and that were so hot that they melted their housing and burned the upholstery behind them. Because of said upholstery issue, the dimensions I have to cover are very specific. And I want LED, and I want a switch. You'd be amazed how hard this very simple list of requirements is to satisfy! Here's my 4th version, still messed up. And since I went through the trouble of fully installing them before figuring out how messed up they were, I now have the additional problem that the wiring will be too short when I cut it to remove these and rework them. Le sigh!

Hopefully v.4.1 will fix this.

Awesome vintage photo

Posted by Jonas Wiren in the IF Sailors group on Facebook.

IFBoat interior (from '70s brochure, I presume).

Mast rewiring done!

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.