Third time's the charm

After a few days of break during which Grandpa got repayment for all the time he put into the boat (we reroofed his house), we returned this morning to the task of moving the boat.  Chantal, the owner of the yard, assigned us two guys:  Jean-Marie, an old salt who sailed around for 30 years and his young assistant, Luc.  Here was the team that was to get us out of the hole, literally.  

They got there at 9, leaving us plenty of time to empty the storage box again and move everything from around the boat.  First job they did:  Dig holes where the travelift had sunk in last week and fill them up with gravel, then they installed long planks in front of each wheel fo the lift, hoping that this would prevent it from sinking again.  The whole thing took about one hour and a half.  Jean-Marie, driving the huge machine, cranks it up. Nothing.  Nada. Zip.  The travelift raises the boat easily but refuses to budge forward even an inch.  The wheels inexorably sink in, crushing the planks that crack like matches.  After many frustrating tries, we give up for now.  We have to put the boat back down and reblock it because it actually moved back a foot, towards the ditch:  Doesn’t look too good at this point so we all go to lunch with our tail between our legs.

1pm comes around, we pull the travelift from there, dig and fill the holes again but this time the gloves come off.  We’ll apply an idea of Grandpa:  Not only do we block the path under the poor planks transversely like a train track but we put up a little ramp at the back end.  The lift will climb back up that ramp unloaded, we’ll block it up and then it’ll lift the boat.  On signal, Jean-Marie will give it a little reverse, we’ll pull the blocks and all forward: down it should go.  Once in movement, there should be no problems.  It works 100%  We were so paranoid when we built the ramp that the lift doesn’t even sink an inch when it lifts it’s 20 tons load.  How nice it is to see one’s boat move, be it on a travelift!  She’ll move to her new spot, in the center of the yard, where the ground is firm and her back end won’t be in a ditch

First though, we have to pull the centerboard out of there.  We originally were thinking to do this at the initial spot but Jean-Marie wanted to get out of the hole first; And how right was he.  So once she was sitting in the middle of the isle, we slid the pallet in its spot (oh, let’S hope those slings are solid…) and start to play around with the board in its well to get it down, softly if at all possible.  It’s child’s play; We spent a lot of time last week toying around with the board, moving it up and down in its casing and now it pays off:  Done in less than 20 minutes.  The lateral supports are installed and the boat is lifted up and backed up in its new berth.  Jean-Marie will pick the board up and drop it next to the boat with a fork lift soon after, and he’ll move the stairs/storage box next to the boat by the same token.  Nice!  That would have been quite a long haul by hand.

The whole ting took all day, we weren’t done until 4pm.  The board is quite rusted, especially the top that’s unreachable from under nor form the access hatch inside, but nonetheless, there doesn’t seem to be anything major, we should be ok with a good sanding and painting.  Same for the well;  At first glance, no patches to weld… We’ll see after sanding!

Here's a little video of the day's work: http://youtu.be/jXOLoAF3zcI

Rematch

False start today. Grandpa Germain came down from Magog last night specifically so that we could start work at the crack of dawn. The plan was to lift and re-block the boat at 10am, in conjunction with the removal of the dagger board.  In preparation, we had to clear the boat of the dodger and bimini frame, davits, 330ft of 3/8 chain, the workbench and stairs.  Everything was done in time, including re-thinking the interior-board lifting/dropping contraption.

Despite our preparations,the owner of the boat that was already on the travelift didn't show up until 10h30, which delayed us by over an hour.  In the end, the lift freed up at 11h30, the workers told us we’d need stop for lunch in the middle of the job, got the lift in position , installed the slings and took the tension and that was it for the morning.

Upon our return from lunch, the owner of the yard met up with us, explained that the ground was too soft, that the travelift will sink, the guys didn't use support planks, it rained too much, blah-blah-blah..... can’t do it today. We have to wait until the ground dries up, we’ll try again next week.  Grrr.  Smells like, “We’re running late and we promised the lift to someone else this afternoon” but hey, it’s true that everything tends to sink in around here and what’s the point in arguing.  We’ll have to revise our plans. 

We’ll spare you the first 4 lines of this post again in reverse: We put everything back.  Then we decided to use up our bad mood on the centerboard.  We soon realized that the foot (the part that’s aft in the trunk) is light enough to be moved by hand. Not like taken-for-a-walk moved,  but enough to wiggle the forward top end that’s stuck and that does the trick: It moves, just enough to get stuck on another obstacle, a steel stopper plate welded across the bottom that defines where the board stops after it rotates.  Plan B; we lift the foot all the way into the trunk, hoping to slide the board out head first. Plong! Bit of a hard landing, but it's good thing done.  The boat will still have to be raised to free it completely, but at least we know that nothing major is stuck.

Then, for a distraction, we decided to toy around with the hydraulic system. Pretty simple after all:  A 1200w 12v electric motor on a pump runs oil in a closed loop.  When we use the windlass or bow thruster, we actuate what’s essentially a valve, which in turn diverts the flow to another pump: the windlass/thruster motor.  So it’s really like having a 12v motor on each of these units but without the hassle of voltage drop associated with running 100A in a long electrical cable.  After looking around for the on/off switch and testing around with a multi-meter, we succeed in starting the pump motor but a snapping sound can be heard in the background.  We find that it’s the ACR, the automatic-charge-relay, a device that puts the house and starting battery banks together for charging and takes them apart for discharging. It opens and closes continuously, and it’s very hot. Mmm…  What was supposed to be hydraulic turned into electric, and we pull out the multi-meter and schematics.  We’re not convinced that the motor should be drawing from the starting batteries, which is how it’s set-up.  The battery holds reads 12.65v but as soon as we put a load on it, it  drops to 9v.  A little search online reveals that the jury’s still out on that one but it seems a majority of people thinks windlasses/thrusters should draw on the house bank. We agree and Kivioq was setup that way.  Another good find: 1200w is not unusual for a windlass motor on a boat this size (which we were wondering); Moreover, thrusters came come equipped with 3kw power plants. 3000w! One more thing learned today (Grandpa Germain used to be an electronics technician at Hydro-Quebec, eh hem), a motor that’s underfed in tension (voltage too low, like in the case of a dead battery) will have a tendency to heat up.  A bit counter-intuitive but it explains why it started to smoke up last year when we started it up.  Nice scare!  In the end, what it smells like is new batteries… but not this year.

Hatch boxes and welding preparation

The dagger board is still stuck this morning but we installed supports from inside to be able to control its movement once the boat will be raised.  There isn’t much more to do but hope that everything goes well when the marina guys are here with the travel lift (at $125/hour).

One of the problematic points in the rust department is around the forward starboard hatch. 

It is right on deck and must be constantly soaked in saltwater because from inside, we can see something leaked.  The rust in one of the corners turned to a big gaping hole when we put the pick and hammer to it last year.  We had then closed it up temporarily with foam and epoxy  but the time has come to figure out what’s happening in there.  After the removal of the overheard panel, we can see that most of the vertical portion of the hatch box is rusted through.  The culprit is the same as the salon windows:  The hatch was screwed right into the wood frame, which was used as backing.  At least half the metal between the hatch and the frame is gone.  An idea pops up, and that’s a good thing because that state of affairs would normally be pretty discouraging:  Jean-Pierre the welder has in his shop the capability to do laser cutting from a computer file.  JF has been waiting for a long time to experiment with this technique, which is very precise and offers limitless possibilities.  Using Rhino3D and AutoCAD, it is relatively easy to draw a hatch box, have it cut and fabricated at the shop, possibly out of stainless steel and to insert in into the precut deck.  Since JF can draw the plan and the cutting file, as well as the cut-out in the deck, the cost might actually be reasonable.  Moreover, the wood frame, even though it suffered some water damage, is salvageable.  After sanding and varnishing, it could potentially be reinstalled.  This time though, the hatch will be bolted through.  The wood frame will be routed out to leave space for the nuts and so it’s easily removable for inspection.  Mmm… Interesting.  

The first hour after lunch is dedicated to the design of a new hatch box on Rhino:  Because the measures have to be taken off the deck and hatch quite precisely, it’s better to do this at the boat on the laptop.  In parallel to this, we realize that a mushroom vent is installed a few inches behind that hatch, probably due to the fact that this room was originally a second head.

 No need for this anymore, since it’s liable to receive a lot of spray too.  We’ll remove it at the same time.  Jean-Pierre had suggested to cut any patches with radii around, to relieve structural stress.  We ask the question on the Westlawn forum, the Yacht Design school where JF is studying.  The answer is given by Dave Gerr, the school director:  Affirmative;  Sharp corners would increase local stress threefold over the overall plate stress.  Ouch!

Then, more prepping for the welder’s visit.  We pull off insulation from under two spots that rusted through the deck, which received temporary patches last year.  It took only one hour, much less than we thought.  We’re starting to dig this metal boat thing.

OneLove, pedigree.

It might be of interest for some to have a description and a more detailed history of OneLove.  Gilbert Caroff designed the Super Disko in 1984.  He describes her: “Super Disko is a development of Ile Disko.  It is a big 42footer or a reasonable 46footer, with fine entrance and elegant slenderness.  On the water it is a pretty boat, classic.  A reminder:  “Disko” has nothing to do with the dance, but with Disko-Island, a big island on the west coast of Greenland.  As easy as it is to get to Disko Island, going north of it warrants a specific preparation of the boat and great caution”.

From the drawing board:

LOA                                        45.75ft

LWL                                        35.75

Breadth                                    13.75ft.

Draft, board up                         3.28ft.

Draft, board down                    8.7ft.

Engine HP                                40 to 80 hp (OneLove is equipped with a Perkins M80Turbo of 78hp)

Displacement                        25000/28000lbs (OneLove is said to weight 42000lbs, that seems like a lot…)

Ballast                                      9240lbs

Water                                      150gal. (OneLove has 200gal. in two tanks)

Fuel                                         100gal. (OneLove has 300gal. in 4 tanks, tbv…)

Foresail                                    849sq.ft.

Mainsail                                   473sq.ft.

Staysail                                    376sq.ft.

Mast height                              65ft.

Displacement length ratio (which establishes performance vs. comfort), using a displacement of 16 tons: 349, indicating a large displacement hull, slow but very comfortable.  Definitely a cruiser.  Anyway, if you want to go fast, buy a plane ticket.

The Sail area over displacement volume is 19, which corresponds to a powerful rig for a 35ft LWL hull.  That’s a good thing because the large displacement would be sluggish in light airs unless we can put up some canvas.  One has to be careful though and reef/furl early in order not to lose control of such a big rig.  The staysail will help in that respect.

The plans for OneLove were originally purchased around 1990 by one Jean Pelletier, who built her and sailed her for a few years.  She was chartered in the Bahamas and on Champlain Lake for a few years but was foreclosed by the bank and sold to a doctor in 1997 who sailed her many years between Key West and the Bahamas.  She was put on a truck and hauled back up in Canada around 2011 to be put up for sale.  We bought her in 2012.

She is rigged as a cutter with the main, staysail and genoa all on furlers.

A particular feature of this boat is the hydraulic windlass and bow thruster, with the main pump driven by an electric motor.

She is a steel construction with radius chines, deck salon, pilot house and hydraulic steering.  The accommodation was completed with great care, probably by a professional carpenter, judging by the quality of the finish.  Stowage is studied thoroughly and no space was left unused.  On the other hand, the majority of the accommodation was nailed in place, not screwed, which could indicate said carpenter was not a marine-carpenter.  Major mistake in that department form the build:  The hatches and windows are all screwed from the outside into wood backing frames.  Since it is impossible to insure water tightness of the sealant on an exterior screw that has been turned, panels have to be through bolted and tightened from the inside only, making sure that the bedded bolts do not turn.  Consequence: After less than 20 years, the varnished wood frames A)leaked, B)hid the leaks and the worst, C) kept humidity against the metal cabin sides.  More on that in a future post but the frames are rotten, and the steel is corroded through in many places and will need to be replaced.

Interior divisions are pretty standard for a boat this size:  Captain’s quarters in the back under the cockpit, galley and helm station to starboard, head and salon table to port.  Going forward, two steps down, 

a second small salon (and future lair of Shannan) with bunk beds to starboard, then two more bedrooms, the one to starboard, originally a second head will become the workshop and the one to port will be the boy’s quarters.

It must be said that the pictures above do not represent the boat in its actual state, they were the pictures that were on the ad in Yachtworld.com when we bought her.  Still far from a bare hull, they was quite a bit of water infiltration and much of these beautiful wood trims are rotten and will need to be replaced.

July 18th-19th

Yesterday, we were finally looking forward to a full day of work, uninterrupted by sunshine.  It materialized but we still had to put up a sun shade.  Uninterested in a cumbersome structure, we wanted a setup that could be put together and struck down in minutes.  

.  A couple of ropes and a tarp did the trick:  What a difference!  The plan for the day was to prepare a pallet to receive the dagger board when the yard employees lift the boat up next week.  That pallet will carry a weight of about 300-400lbs, plus it must be assembled on the spot:  We’ll slide the pallet under the boat before they lift the boat up.  Then, as the boat is raised, we have to get under there and install the lateral supports while the yard guys wait, i.e. rapidly.  They will therefore be bolted on, with holes pre-drilled on one side; We will drill the other side once the board is on there, in order to achieve a tight transverse fit.  The lateral supports are built simply:  A wide 2x10” base for stability, a 2x4” diagonal because that’s where most of the load will be and a couple of 2x2”s each to hold them up.  Another 10 minute job, as Grandpa would say, after it took 5 hours.

As for the dagger board, we are stuck.  Actually, it’s the board that’s stuck:  It won’t come out completely:  Its axis removed, it moves up and down at each end but after about 5 inches of travel, the forward end sticks and won’t come down any more, even after a generous spraying of WD40.  It might only be possible to remove it from the lowered position.  Perhaps not all the way lowered but enough so that the foot clears the boat so we can slide the whole board back.  We’ll only be able to verify that once the boat is in the air, which is not our favorite option right now.  We discussed this issue this morning with Mr. Gilbert Caroff, the (retired) Naval Architect that designed the boat.  That was the highlight of our day:  Quite a guy really; 6000 boats built on his plans, inventor of the modern twin-rudder sailboat.  In his opinion, the dagger board should be able to come out from the horizontal position but as his clients sometimes modify the plans during construction, it is not impossible that it might be different in this case.  We’ll see Monday!

Here’s a view of the Richelieu River from the cabin.  It is quite a perk to live so close to the boat.

Yesterday, a hard-chines metal boat anchored off across the river overnight.  He surely came from Champlain Lake, six or seven miles upstream.  Makes us dream…  Too bad, even with binoculars it’s too far to read the name on that beautiful yellow hull.

To rest when it's too hot

For a few days now, it’s been too hot to work around the boat in the afternoon so we get up early and stop around lunch time.  That schedule gives us time to perform other chores:  Classify the bins that are now stacked in the cabin:  Books, marine maps, logbooks, and construction logs etc.

One of the happy finds in that hunt: The electric drawings.  That will save us heaps of time when the time comes for electrics.  

.  We’ve also took the opportunity to go to Trois-Rivières to pick up the trailer that will serve as mobile storage space for the next few years.  Renting a similar space for 2 years would cost more or less the same as buying a closed trailer.  It’ll be filled up here and then stored at Grandpa’s place until our return from Japan.  It must be said that in 2004, during Kivioq’s refurb project, we had bought from a friend a very similar trailer and that it had proved very useful.  JF ahd promised himself to someday  get another one.  Trailer: Check.  That being said, we wanted to get the smallest possible trailer that would fit the bill, because of storage fees and gas-mileage.  We therefore had a little fun with Rhino3D and built what they call, at work, a “load plan” (another hot afternoon’s work well used).

Grandpa and Lucie being once more conscripted for 3 days, the staircase and workbench are now painted the same color as the boat.  The bright side of this is that with one coat of Rostoleum primer and one of paint (found during the emptying of the boat), they should last many years.  The dark side is to have found color-matched Rustoleum paint aboard.  Ok, for newbies, hardware store paint is like watercolor for metal:  It’s cute but useless.  The only paint that will effectively protect steel from corrosion is two-part epoxy paint systems, so we cross our fingers and hope that no one had the bright idea to paint our boat with watercolor.  Then we had the visit of Jean-Pierre, Grandpa’s friend and a very experienced welder, who was nice enough to come and evaluate the work to be done:  Not as bad as we expected, Jean-Pierre doesn’t seem fazed at all by the big gaping orange holes around the deck and cockpit.  Decidedly, we have a lot to learn about metal boats.

This morning, one of the jobs reserved for cool mornings:  Install an acrylic window to get used to the caulking and the procedure.  OneLove has a portlight above the companionway hatch cover which we had removed last year because it was leaking badly.  

 .  It is small, rectangular and horizontal, therefore perfect to learn.  On various blogs and forums, we more or less found a consensus:  The two best products to use in rebidding acrylic (and polycarbonate) windows are Sikaflex 295UV and Dow 795.  They both seem to have the votes of pros but the Sika has to be used with a primer paint, which protects it from UVs, to which it is sensitive and it is also quite a bit more expensive.  Another facet of the test is about the bolt:  Modern technique warrants gluing only.  No bolts or any mechanical fasteners;  And the argument is solid:  The same sealants are used on skyscrapers, car windshields and portlights of most production boats.

 .  That’s all good but it’s wuite a leap of faith to leave the already-cut holes empty of bolts on our boat.  In this case though, the portligth will not be subjected to any shear load, beign embedded in the deck and being covered by another acrylic panel, both part of the companionway hatch cover system.  So, we installed the window with Dow 795 using no bolts; We’ll see after the 21 mandatory drying days if we can push it out by brute force.

Lucie took the opportunity to clean up the boat from the bottom up, shop-vac, bleach and all.  The harvest was a good one:  Two Oreo cookies and a candy, which JF and Grandpa gobbled right away…not.  They were probably from the 80s.  It might seem counterintuitive to clean up a boat that we’ll mess right back up but on a long term project, you have to stay motivated, and God knows that a clean space is good for the spirit; Plus you just seem to think better and to foresee the completed project.  Anyway, breathing mildew is not doctor recommended and the boat is full of it right now.

Another project that we keep for fresh mornings:  Preparing the cockpit lockers for the welder.  The ladder suffered badly from corrosion and we need to removed blown-in insulation around the weld area because foam has an infamous tendency to catch fire very easily.  

During that operation, we discovered secret compartments, sealed up with fiberglass.  We’ll close them up properly, with steel!

Last week' work

After a week vacation in Florida on Grandpa’s Pearson 323 My Girls (it is worth noting that Grandpa’s got two sons but only one daughter…) and another one relaxing at Grandma’s, work has got to start on the boat.  We are lucky enough to have 4 months off work, therefore we rented a cabin very close to the boat, on the bank of the Richelieu river.  Match plan:  July, August, September and October full time except for various little trips and family obligations.

We are, to say the least, a bit scared:  The work load is huge and we've never really worked with steel.  A hole that would take 5 minutes to patch with fiberglass in kivioq’s hull is keeping us up at night.  Half the people on the forums say steel is the best material ever for a cruising sailboat, the other half say it’S the worst ever, it won’t stop rusting and you’ll never get ahead of it.

So, in order to calm down a bit and gain perspective on the situation, we took advantage of the fact that our boat ladder went MIA, we built a set of wood stairs with built-in lockable storage box.  Then Grandpa and Lucie weren’t even back from Florida yet that we put them to work.

3 people, 4 days, 21 Rubbermaid bins and 2 gallons of paint later, the stairs are painted and the boat’s empty.  Now we have to find some form of storage because the cabin is a mess.  All the bins are stacked up inside, as well as fenders, spreaders, anchors and anything that wouldn't fit in a bin.

Dagger board removal and sandblast prep

Today, the weatherman says we’ll have a heat wave so we decided to get to work on the boat early and stop before we start to bake around 11 and to go back late in the afternoon, when the worst of the heat is over.  We’ll do “office work” in between.

We took an appointment with Chantal, the owner of the yard, to raise the boat and re-block it on the 22^nd, because it’s so heavy it sinks into the loose gravel.  We’ll grab the occasion to get the dagger board out from under the boat, to prepare it to get sand blasted.  Since we don’t have the original drawings of the boat, that date’s a Damocles sword over our head:  we have no idea how the board is setup in there and nor do we know how to disassemble it.  So this morning after tea we got ourselves to the boat to scratch our… heads.  Our doubts are mostly centered on the pivot axis of the board.  Do we need to take it out after they lift the boat or should we get it out now, maybe just loosen it?  That board is a dagger, not a keel so it doesn’t have any ballast in it but still, at 7 foot long, it weighs in at around 400lbs;  Better be careful so it doesn’t fall on its side when they raise the boat.

  

Well it was once again much simpler than anticipated.  First we took weight off the axis by using a car jack under the board,  (more specifically Lucie’s Hyundai Accent car jack.  Don’t worry Lucie, it’s rated at 3000lbs).  Then after unscrewing entirely what I thought might be the axis but was in fact the board brake, we finally realized that the big cylinder which we had access to from both sides was actually the axis.  Moreover, it came out almost by itself with the gentlest of hammer hits.  That is one pin:  It’s got to have 4 inches in diameter and weight 20lbs.

The board is now free to drop under the boat.

Introduction

Hello and welcome to our blog.   We purchased last year a 1994 steel centerboard sailboat, model Super Disko 45 by the famous french architect Gilbert Caroff, to eventually go cruising full time as a family.

The Boat is well equipped but will need a lot of work even though she is less than 20 years old.  She has a lot of rust, with holes in the swim platform, on the deck and around the salon windows.  She is currently dry docked in St-Paul-de-l'ile-aux-Noix, in Quebec, Canada very close to Champlain lake NY.  She was originally named Purusha, then OneLove.  We will rename her in due time...

She is our third boat, the first one being another centerboard sloop, this one 37ft fiberglass named Kivioq that we redid from keel to masthead.  It was a beautiful 2 years of work to get her back in the water after 12 years; and we sailed her for 6 afterwards, including 5 of living aboard.  She's now in St-François lake, near Montreal, where she's part of Premier Vent sailing school after sailing up from Florida in 7 days!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtQs9xxgoPU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MCj-rYDbtI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmurJLWCGC8

Then there was Budwig, a montgomery 17, designed by the famous Lyle Hess, that we towed around the US behind our truck for a year.  What a great boat!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sk5YFafYUmM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYhL1etgMn4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltq6MilHtEw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oxG3JTIayc