Projects / Maintenance

Thu 20 May, HHN day 37: Finished upper section of the mast refurb. Modified rudder bearing bowl. Fitted traveler onto boom. And outhaul piston seal replacement kit is on its way!

Not much to show for my long day today. I am not certain these early mornings are really adding to my productivity. But it’s very pleasant to be out in the fresh warm air by 7am, before things warm up. And indeed, they are warming as forecast and the heat of the day really saps my energy.
All morning the cabin seems to keep it cool from the night while the outside temperature rapidly rises, especially under the tent. But then by late afternoon when it is starting to cool outside, the cabin is by now horribly hot. So it pays to plan where to work at certain times of the day.

I start my day at the top of the mast, determined to finish off what I started there. The 4 backing plates that anchor the mast top bolts are re-riveted back on. And slightly lower down, the halyard guide for the spinnaker gets drilled off, cleaned up, and re-riveted back on with new backing HDPE plastic. Same with the forestay fitting: removed, corrosion cleaned, the stainless fitting polished and reinstalled.

Ray comes around late morning and we have a go at undoing the upper shroud fitting with one of us one each side of the mast, each armed with one of my new home-made large screwdrivers. But while individually they spin the stud, tackled together neither end will release from its nut. Looks like another day or 2 of penetrating oil will be needed, and maybe a wakeup slap with my blow-torch too.

With the sun now blazing, I head for an inside job. A modification on the rudder bearing bowl. The bearing housing is an extremely tight fit inside, in this fibre-glass bowl. To lift the housing out, there are what I call “lift screw holes”, 4 of them. When you screw bolts into these holes they force the bearing housing out and up. Great idea by JP3. But… only a good idea if there is something solid for those bolts to push on.

In Cloudy Bay case, it is just glass fibre and the bolts simply drilled themselves in, rather than lifting the housing. A piece of installing which was not well thought through for future maintenance.
My modification is simple: I make the holes in the fiber glass bigger and place countersunk head bolts in them with epoxy. In the future, the lift bolts will now have something solid to push against – the heads of the screws I just installed. Hmmm, maybe I should apply for patents for some of my basic-sense ideas!

After an afternoon nap, it’s wonderfully cool again outside. A wind is blowing off of the Chesapeake River and it is like a cooling sea-breeze.
Next job is therefore outside, on the boom, re-fitting the outhaul traveler car. I brace myself for the usual fun and games with escaping torlon balls, and that is just what happened. I thought with the boom upside down it should be relatively straight forward (unlike the mainsheet car… where I could not turn the boat upside down!).
But it took 3 attempts before I perfected the technique and finally got all 142 of the little round bar-stewards in, and locked-in with the end fittings, just before dusk.

Good news on the outhaul piston front. My mate Ludvig in Hallberg-Rassy Parts received the correct (we hope!) seal kit from Selden! And as helpful as ever, Ludvig just managed to catch the UPS truck on its way out of Hallberg-Rassy yard, hence he successfully forward to me the Selden seal kit on the same day he received it. Thank you, Ludvig, you are an absolute star!
It’s odd isn’t it, that it takes nearly 2 weeks to get this kit from Selden to Hallberg-Rassy Parts, both in Sweden, yet from Sweden to USA the delivery estimate is just 3 days. When you think about it, the courier service has really transformed itself into an awesome machine over these last years, with all the on-line shopping. In USA you order something and it usually gets to you the next day. And just 3 days from Sweden, including customs, is pretty amazing.

So ended my day… Another hot one tomorrow. I think I will be seeking the cool of the engine room tomorrow, plus some painting.