Sun 2 May, HHN day 19: Prepare to re-install the goose neck and vang fittings on the mast and try again at unscrewing both the outhaul and backstay pistons, without success.
Up before the alarm this morning. The birds are singing “Happy Easter to all Orthodox people”. I’d like to be included in the celebrations, but I’m actually rather unorthodox. No doubt Oana will be enjoying coloured eggs this morning, from her parents.
Another rather bitty day today. First job is on the aft deck, where it is a wonderful temperature just as the sun hits the shrink wrap. I install helical inserts into the newly painted backing plates for the goose neck. Quite pleased how easy they are to install. I lock them in with red Loctite … like they ain’t coming out again!
By mid-morning it’s already greenhouse temperature in the tent so time to move outside. The C-Spanner I bought for the outhaul piston is worse than useless. It was advertised as for 1.75-to-3-inch diameters. The piston is 3 inches, but I tell you this spanner is so small it’s only just about up to the job of removing the back from your wristwatch! So, I apply to Amazon to return the poor little thing. Returns for Amazon are amazing. Just take the item, not even packed, to the UPS store within a month and give them the returns bar code that Amazon have sent me. So simple.
Still, without a good C-Spanner, my mind sets about devising another method to remove the end off the piston. In the yard I find a heavy-duty piece of fibre glass tube with exactly 3 inch ID. With some rather precision drilling and tapping, I manage to screw 2 x M6 bolts through the fiberglass tube and they locate perfectly into the 2 holes made for a C-spanner. Now I can put a serious pipe wrench onto the fibre glass tube and hopefully, just slightly hopefully, the end will budge.
I epoxy the bolts into the tube threads and wait all day for it to cure. And in the evening I try to undo it. But it still does not give. I need someone to stand on the other end with a cheater-bar. Just like we used to do in the oil field – brute force and ignorance! But jumping up and down on a cheater-bar does often produce a result….. or an injury!
While hunting for the pipe, I noticed guys were working in Weaver Boats today (Sunday). So I cycle down there with the backstay cylinder. It’s made of a light anodized alloy so I certainly don’t want to put it in a vice. But I do find a perfect size wood to jam in one end, and that wood goes in the vice. Though try as I might, neither end of the cylinder will budge. The session ended in defeat with my special tool bent! Looks like this one will need to go to a rigging company to be done. I’m beaten. I could get rougher with a pipe wrench, but for sure I would only ruin the cylinder.
Rest of the afternoon is on the mast. I finally get to install the gooseneck backing plates, then mask off both gooseneck and vang areas to paint the corroded aluminium with Zinc Chromate. This paint needs to go onto bare aluminum with zero oxidation. So, a last-minute fine sanding is needed before applying.
The smell reminds me of my year after school when I worked for a company that serviced executive aircraft (I was floor sweeper and general dogs body!), but there was always a smell of Zinc Chromate in the aircraft, because all aluminum on aircraft is painted with it to stop corrosion.
As I cover the area to be painted with a white sheet with a hole cut in it, I joke to myself that I should have been a surgeon – it feels like I’m putting an operating gown on my patient (the mast!).
In between spray coats drying, I get under the mast and reinstall the spinnaker pole fitting to its track cars. I feel like a garage mechanic lying there working under the mast. But I’m sure even the worst garages don’t have gravel on the floor with sharp edges! That was some back massage.
Once all the masking tape is off the mast, I’m pretty pleased with the painting. I could now reinstall the actual goose neck and vang fittings, but I’m waiting for delivery of some HDPE plastic sheet to go under them (to separate the dissimilar metals). And in any case, the vang one needs to be half unbolted for me to get the lower furler swivel back inside the mast. And I don’t plan on doing that until autumn.
Lastly, in the evening I go back into the recently beautified engine room bilge. Beautification is how Oana calls it whenever we paint or varnish just to make something look nice 😊. Now all the paint is dry and I get the new PSS seal in place. Servicing this PSS has been a bit like servicing a broom by replacing both broom head and broom handle. It ended up with a complete new PSS!
Not a bad day on the whole. A few jobs ticked and I think I can almost see the light at the end of the tunnel now … or is that just another train coming to hit me!
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