Getting close

So I took a few weeks off. Work is busy, I was a bit burned out after putting in alot of time over the summer, and there is a real hesitation to FINISH as I dread finding out what is going to break first. But I'm over all that now and making the final push.

Rudder w/ tiller handle, extension and pintels/gudgeons all in place

Boom, gooseneck, mainsheet blocks and bridle done

Piles of halyards ready to be fished through the mast which has spreaders finished and halyard sheaves all cut in

The punch list:

run halyards and measure sails to be cut down

pour lead keel bulb and attach to keel

get keel into boat and beef up keel box

GO SAILING......hopefully only a few weeks away at this point!!!

rudder, hardware and mast...

Have been working on a couple of things at once:

Rudder is shaped, glassed, beefed up around the gudgeon location and painted (first coat)

I have also been installing the Ronstan hardware. Here is some of the cockpit bling. I went w/ one access port and 2 speakers (thanks Chad for that idea).

Finally, I got the mast stood up fully rigged w/ the standing rigging. It looks like all of the rigging came out right. Time will tell as I tune everything, but at this point, it looks pretty good. Unfortunately, I didn't have the camera handy so pics will come later....

I am still short one boom.....need to work on that soon!!

Bow sprits and beer caps......

I got the bow sprit sorted (mostly) tonight.

And counted bottle caps. Progress continues......

Plugging along

HUGE day Saturday this past weekend as John Perrault came by and spent the ENTIRE day (in sweltering heat) helping me build and rig the mast. We got all the standing rigging sorted and 4 of six shrouds installed. We had it up more than once but as both of us were scurrying around lifting, balancing, sweating, measuring, sweating, lowering, cutting, raising the mast (and sweating) there wasn't much leisure time for photography.

Here's a picture of the mast laying down next to the house:

I also built the trailer:

And CAREFULLY lifted the boat up in the air (scary):

And placed the trailer under the boat:

I got a HUGE amount done this weekend. Thanks again to John, I would be no where near this far if not for him.

Oh yeah, and today was the boys first day of school:

Cool home made bling....

Still working on the bits and pieces to put the mast together.

Saddle to hold the shrouds to the chain plate and the forestay fitting:

These pieces have turned out really sweet.

I am really not set up for metal fabrication.....this is a pretty down home effort. For instance, I cut out 4"x4" squares for the saddles. I then clamped them to the workbench with 1/2 the saddle protruding off the edge of the bench (on a 45 degree angle so I could fold corner to corner) and grabbed the corner that was hanging off w/ some vise grips and began to fold it over. This is 1/8" stainless steel and is really stout material. Fortunately I have a shelf on the bottom of my worbench full of tools or I would have simply lifted the bench off the floor. So I begin to wrestle with the piece and slowly get it to fold to about 90 degrees and then ever so slowly to about 135 degrees.....not quite a taco, but getting close. The problem is the radius of the curve is too large. I need to get a tighter fold. So I stand back, scratch my head and think, "what is the maximum preasure I can bring to bear on this with what I have on hand....". Then it dawns on me, use gravity, and something heavy.....REALLY heavy. The heaviest thing I own is my car. And it is no light weight import. It is a Lincoln Towncar. (And yes, I have heard ALL the jokes about chauffering to the airport and how many bodies fit in the trunk....). So I put the saddle just behind the front tire, with a piece of wood above to spread the load from the tire and below to keep from marring it and SLOWLY back up. I get the car fully on top of the saddle and.........NOTHING!! My little vise grips and wood clamps had folded that metal as far as it was going to go. Fortunately, my neighbor showed up just about that time and I KNOW he has a beefy bench vise. 15 minutes later I have 2 saddles w/ just the right bend!!!

The mast is NOT going to fail because of chain plates or the connection to the shrouds!

Someone put FOAM in my mast....and I'ld like to BEAT THEM SENSLESS!!!!

Had planned on running internal halyards, but didn't expect to find large chunks of closed cell foam all the way up and down the inside of the mast. They simply would not have provided a great deal of flotation, and they weren't fit tight enough to keep water out.....they were just some idiots bright idea....probably some hack home builder......

So I spent the ENTIRE day creating ways to extract the crap.

Thought one: pour in solvent to melt it.....but every thing I tried (including walking around the hardware store openning every type of nasty chemical I could lay my hands on and dripping some over a sample) proved that this is PETRIFIED foam.

Thought two: stand the mast up with something in the top end and bounce the mast to push the foam out. I started with smaller items and eventually had a section of lead pipe, probably 20 pounds worth of concentrated battering ram....and got nowhere.

Thought three: use long sections of 2x2 to insert and pound it out....again, no luck.

Thought 1.5 (forgot this one already)....shop vac on one end and compressor on the other.....you can guess how that worked.

Finally I created a 15' long drill bit using conduit, expansion bolts, cotter pins and an agressive wire brush on the end, and slowly drilled the foam out.

Here is the contraption:

And the mess:

BUT VICTORY WAS MINE!!!!! I can now run my halyards THROUGH the mast.

I also received my latest package(s) of goodies. Really cool web tie sheaves for the forestay adjustment, the GREEN and black fiberglass sleeve material for the prod and my $50 headstay bolt....long story on why one bolt cost so much....but let's just say it is EXACTLY what I needed, and they are hard to find.

Still putting together metal bits and pieces, but hopefully I am close to assembling the mast.

what I can and can't do......

Here is the mast base and halyard organizer (what I can do)......

And the standing rigging I ordered (swaged, which I can't do......)

Just about all the parts for the mast are done.....may assemble tomorrow! This won't be the lightest mast in the fleet....but should come in under 40 pounds all up. Hopefully that doesn't wreck the "righting moment" equation (in other words, I hope the mast isn't so heavy it tips the boat over by itself!). But I will feel confident sailing it around SF Bay, which is worth ALOT in and of itself!