Friday 13 Nov, HHN, boat winterizing day 44:
Bit groggy this morning. Maybe something to do with the wonderful Rye Whisky that Joe and Suzanne gave me. It was true nectar and also damned strong! In my cloudy haze prior to breakfast I see an email from my man in Hallberg-Rassy Parts, Ludvig. At long last he has some tentative replies from Selden. But frankly they raise my blood pressure.
For each of my requests they have what I only think of as stupid responses. For instance, “We don’t know what seals you could want for the assembly 501-483.” This assembly is the hydraulic boom piston. Now, I believe even a child could imagine what seals would be needed inside a simple hydraulic piston! Clearly, they couldn’t be bothered to look up what 501-483 actually was. Another one: “To make a quote for replacement hydraulic hoses, please tell us the end fitting style and the hose length?” Well, dummies, I sent you photos of each end fitting, plus the rig serial number that denotes each and every item specification on the rig, plus I already gave hose lengths in my request. Aaaaargh! Clearly Selden only cares about selling new rigs to yacht builders like Magnus Rassy, and don’t give a toss about existing customers. Infuriating!
With one coffee down and trying to forget about Selden for a while, I’m back to my full alertness and get on with my day. Today is a full-on spreader day. First, I let Steve (East Coast Rigging) know that I’m coming over to his workshop to use his pneumatic rivet gun. Before I leave here, I really want to reconstruct the 2 top spreaders for which I made lots of plastic metal-isolation pieces last evening. If these 2 spreaders go well, then I’ll consider doing the same with the lower and mid spreaders too.
As I arrive into Steve’s workshop, I’m greeted with my spreader pieces all neatly arranged on a work bench covered in a pristine white protection sheet with the pneumatic rivet gun and rivets all ready to go. Who could ask for more? What service! I cannot imagine similar service centers in Annapolis even allowing customers into their workshop, let alone putting on a spread like this, and supplying rivets and gun! I really appreciate these guys.
Steve’s manual rivet gun that I used at the boat was pretty good, but his pneumatic one is a dream. It has zero “kick” and sets the rivets perfectly. To compensate for the added thickness of my isolating plastic pieces, I have to grind off 1/2mm from the ends for the aluminum strips, but this is good as it exposes fresh metal and smooths off what was otherwise a corroded and pitted end-face. I thickly coat the internals of the aluminum and the externals of the end fittings with Lanocoat and insert them. Then more Lanocote on each rivet.
It takes some time to reinstall each fitting, but the result is very pleasing. Not exactly like new, but significantly improved on the corroded condition they were in, and more importantly, good for many more years forward. The only disappointment was that I used ALL of Steve’s rivets before I had finished. But did manage to get all the 4 mast-ends fitted plus one spreader almost complete. Steve will order 400 more rivets for next week. The cheapest I could find these large rivets was $2 a piece, but Steve can get them for $1.
This really boosted me. Clearly this is what I will be doing on all the spreaders. Can’t stop now! And as I head back to the boat the sun comes out and the afternoon proves to be very warm. So I improvised a workbench in the sun and set about dismantling the 4 mid and lower spreaders. Drilling off each rivet head, punching them through, then pulling apart. Interestingly, with the spreaders sitting horizontally in the intense rain of the last few days, they have a lot of water inside them. The result of this is that the white aluminum corrosion has softened to a putty-like consistency and the end fittings can be easily removed compared to the battle I had with the top spreaders. In 3 hours I have all 4 spreaders completely apart. Again, when you do something for the first time it’s tricky (upper spreaders) but once the lessons are learned it’s much easier going forward. Reminds me of another saying that I live by: “For the second time to be easy, you must endure the first time”.
So by sunset I’m ready for a corrosion clean up session tomorrow, and more polishing of stainless fittings, ready to put these spreaders back together next week – assuming we have rivets available. While videoing the dismantling operation, a young guy working on a very old catamaran opposite me spots me talking to the camera and asks do we have a YouTube channel? We get chatting. He and his Italian wife (she is from Sardinia) actually live and work in China, near the Vietnam border, but had headed home when Covid hit. They are now living on a boat in the marina belonging to a friend and they are both quite taken with living aboard, so he is extremely interested to hear about our adventures. His wife and Oana are about the same age. We joke, because I chose younger than myself and he chose older (he is likely only 30 max). And just as we are joking on this subject a new boat arrives on the travel-lift and they chock it in the space next to Cloudy Bay … and its name is “Ohana”! Not quite Oana, but close enough to be spooky!
In the evening I continue with my packing project for the Sailor 250. I put it on Ebay last evening and already had an offer submitted today, so it’s hopeful there are buyers out there. I rejected the offer though. It was too low compared to the value.
4 more days left. Really need to get my finger out now, but I’m very motivated.