Sailing

Christmas is getting very close now and I am not as close to getting back in the water as I want to be.

Last week I finished the primer & undercoat, and finished sanding the undercoat on Thursday evening as the drizzle turned into rain. Friday I couldn't do anything out there and yesterday I spent the day driving 350km and back for a friend's funeral.

The day was mostly wet anyway so my plan to spend Saturday painting would not have worked out. Today its pretty wet again.

Gavin has pretty much installed the new motor. On Thursday I saw that the motor was fitted, exhaust connected up but the controls weren't finished. Hopefully he is done now.



The rain has eased in the last 1/2 hr but I am getting ready to go out for our family Christmas get-together so it a bit late to head out with brush and roller in hand. We are going to be out of town on the day so this is the last chance before next year.

Last night I went out after work, cleaned up my plugs from the log impeller I removed and got 3/4 of another coat of primer onto the hull. Another 3/4 hour and I'll be ready to start anti-fouling. First coat of that should go on tomorrow. While out there Gavin from Kapiti Propeller turned up and said that he has started on the new motor beds and that my new motor was already sitting inside the boat. He is looking at being finished Monday or Tuesday.

I have sanded about 1/4 of the sides above the waterline ready to undercoat so should get that finished and the first undercoat done tomorrow.



Yeee ha... real progress. Back in the water in 10 days or so is looking doable (cross fingers).



And I have recently located this blog which is a real H28 mission in progress.

By the end of yesterday Dovekie was sporting a freshly pained, spotless engine bay, freshly puttied seams (where needed) and a first cost of primer over the bare wood.

I have also disposed of the old motor on Trademe - a little to offset the cost of lifting out, and started sanding the topsides from the waterline to deck level ready for undercoating. I removed the old speedo impeller and plugged the holes that left and have done one or two other cosmetic things.



Christmas isn't far away now and I'm still hoping I can everything needed to get her back into the water before then......

Well another 10 or so hot hours this weekend and I have pretty much all the anti-foul and undercoat stripped from Dovekie's hull. Some small areas still to tackle with a sanding disk. And on Friday the motor was lifted out ready for a cleanup of the engine bay and the new motor to go in. It's sitting beside Dovekie waiting for someone to want it - we'll see what Trademe turns up. Quite a few views of the auction but no action.

Now I need to scrape loose putty from the seams and redo them, sand, undercoat and anti-foul. In between times I'll clean the engine bay and repaint it. I hope sugar soap will clean the oily mess up well.

Last weekend I spent a day and a half and with some help from Gordon have pretty much stripped the starboard side of Dovekie back to wood. There are still a few patches of colour but mostly the paint is gone. My optimistic view that I could have it finished by now was offset by a busier week than normal at work, some rain, and the discovery that the big patches remaining were pretty well stuck in places.


And its hard to see the difference here - but there is a lot of paint still on the port side.


It is odd. Some fairly big areas peel off with little effort and other small areas take awhile. Anyway I have the undercoat and anti-foul ready to go back on once I have done a quick pass over it again with the sander. That shouldn't take long at all as the scrapers have left it pretty smooth.

I have also eased the motor forward to a point where its lifting lug is under the hatch and so it can just be lifted a little, eased forward a little more and lifted out. Hopefully the truck with hiab will do that later this week and I can dive in to cleaning and painting the engine bay in between scraping and painting the outside. Next week I hope the new engine installation can get under way.

Well I spent a lot of time Saturday and half of Sunday sanding to fair off all the edges of the paint where there were cracks etc. There are a lot of tiny cracks and crazed areas. I cut Sunday's effort short to spend some time with Sammy-J who is now over 16 months old - haven't seen much of him in the last few weeks.

On the way out today I stopped by Resene in Thorndon Quay and had a good chat with Steve about what primer etc to use. I walked out with the anti-foul, primer and undercoat for when I get above the water line in a week or so (optimism...)

Out at Mana I raised the (192kg) motor 50mm onto blocks as a first step in moving it out to allow me to repaint the engine bay before fitting the new motor. Need to decide between the two quotes I have for the motor. There is not much in it really cost wise but one company is much handier to the Mana location so may be easier to deal with although both do work on boats around the Mana Marina.

After raising the motor (and having the exhaust pipe drop onto my finger - ouchhhh) I started a bit of sanding again. Then I thought I would just try the heat gun on the paint again. Unlike the first time I tried it on on the full thickness old stuff, it worked a treat and I stripped a big area on one side back to pretty much bare wood that needs minimal extra work. A light sand and wash off should about do it. I am now thinking of stripping pretty much all of the below waterline area back to bare wood. It will make the next stage much easier and I won't be worried about the tiny cracks etc that I am continually finding, scraping and sanding. I reckon I should be able to have it pretty much stripped to bare wood this coming weekend if I can get in an evening or two this week. Here's hoping.....

I spent yesterday finishing off (pretty well anyway) the messy stripping of the anti-foul from Dovekie. My friends Rob and Gordon spent a good bit of the day sanding and scraping while I did the messy stuff.

I made a couple of long sanding boards and Rob got stuck in with one of those with some success until he stood on the handle I had made and broke it off. Fixed that this morning but on the way back to do a couple of hours sanding I picked up a Worx orbital sander and some sanding pads. I ended up doing most of the waterline on one side and some of the flatter bits too. Looking good. Another day with scraper and sander will probably finish all except some of the more curved parts that will need to be done by hand.

Headed off home early for a quiet 'high tea' celebration of the 60th wedding anniversary of my ex's parents with them, my ex and my kids and grandson. My arms were already starting to notice the sander weight after working at shoulder level for 2 hours.

I spent most of Saturday stripping more anti-foul from Dovekie, and for a change while waiting for the stripper to work disconnected most of the various wires etc from the old motor. I have done 1 1/2 sides now so another 1/2 day should have the first stage complete - then its a few sessions with sand paper and water to tidy it up.

I have now received the quotes for motor replacement and will have to make a decision on which way to go. There is some difference between them but I have asked some clarifying questions and I think there won't be a lot in it.

On Saturday while chatting with the various people wandering past as I worked, a chap who was working on an old(ish) wood launch nearby stopped to admire(?) my work a couple of times and I thought he looked somewhat familiar. On checking his name it turned out that we used to flat together in Knight's Road, Lower Hutt around 1972-73. Small world isn't it.

And talking of small worlds I have received an email from the last long term owners of Dovekie and will phone them in the next few days to learn what I can of her history. I'd like to know what paint has been used where to minimise the risk of covering with an incompatible one. Most doesn't need stripping back to bare wood.

No not that sort of stripping Fred....

I spent last Saturday afternoon and most of yesterday stripping anti-fouling from Dovekie's hull. I am using the Nanoshield Anti-Foul Off product. I expected that it would work a bit like domestic paint stripper I have used in the past. It doesn't. It is quite effective but extremely messy. The end result after painting it on, leaving for a bit, stirring up using a scraper and then scraping off with a paint scraper and then a sharp carbide tipped blade did a reasonable job given the thickness of the coating. In places the anti-foul was straight on to the wood and that came off easily. Where it was undercoated it was harder and the undercoats didn't come off the same. I have a patchy result but I figure that as long as what I have is a good well-adhered layer it doesn't have to be clean wood.

I also spent a little time with my friend Nick's Fein Multimaster tool cutting around my patch of rot. I like it but the small areas to work on make it a bit tricky. As did the wood blade hitting brass screws!

The topside paint is appears to be very hard - possibly an epoxy paint. It is well stuck on for the most part but there are some cracks along plank edges so I'll be needing to sort those out. I don't want to use epoxy paint but it may be all that will go on top. Some research needed there.
I haven't had a closer look into the paint cracks around the stem yet. I'll need to strip those right back to see what the situation is there. Hopefully not too drastic.

Dovekie finally was hoisted on to dry land late yesterday afternoon.

She was booked in to be hoisted out at 12pm but due to a mechanical problem with the hoist in the morning, and having to wait for 3 boats to be put back in the water and another pulled out and cleaned down first it was nearly 4pm before we got started. I had hoped to have someone handy to help walk her round from the breastworks but there was only Neil, the lift driver, to help. Thank goodness for Neil.

To get the anchor warp in position to walk Dovekie around I had to scramble around the deck of the big gin palace that had been put back in the water yesterday morning and tied up right where I had been sitting. Fortunately the wind helped a bit and it wasn't a big drama. It took a little effort on Neil's part to get everything lined up for the travel lift but this is what she looked like once out - before and after cleaning down.

And after.

I found a few spots where the anti-fouling had lifted off - possibly due to poor preparation last time round but no evidence of rot at all. Its blowing a gale and raining today so no work. I enjoyed looking after Sammy J instead.

Dovekie is now sitting quietly against the breastwork in front of the Mana Cruising Club. Gavin from Kapiti Propeller towed me there this morning. With a light southerly wind there was no drama at all - not like most of the rest of the week. We are booked to come out of the water tomorrow at 12:00.

I plan to water-blast from the waterline down before getting to the cradle and then will get a good look at the state of the hull. Time to organise quotes for the new motor now that they will be able to see the whole of the drive train from propeller forward.

I noticed a small hole in the the mizzen sail where it has been rubbing on a shackle under teh sail cover so will pull that off to have a good look at too.

I was scheduled for hauling Dovekie onto the hard on Saturday. When I got down to the marina it was blowing about 40 knots and rising. With the engine having no compression and not even firing I had arranged with Gavin from Kapiti Propeller to help with a tow to the slip. There was no way we were going to try that given the wind so rescheduled for Monday. Sunday was cold and raw - straight from Antarctica. It was slightly better on Monday although the regular squalls with hail and strong winds still prevented us from trying the tow. Hopefully Wednesday!
Gordon came down to lend me a hand and we ended up trying to determine the limits of the little rot patch at the top of the companionway. It looks as though a poorly fitted piece of trim across the forward end of the cockpit allowed water in that over time started some rot. Fortunately it doesn't appear to have reached the cockpit floor planking or deck beam. I need to cut out a section of the framing on one side of the companionway and replace it, and a couple of other smaller pieces forward of the deck beam.
We spent some time figuring out the running rigging too.
I now have found a photo of another H28 with mizzen stay sail set so I have an idea of how to rig the one that I have - it also confirms what the halyard on the forward side of the mizzen mast is for.

Last week I purchased a project in the form of a middle aged H28 ketch - an LF Herreshoff design.

Built of solid kauri planking in NZ in 1958, Dovekie has in the past voyaged off shore and spent most of her life in the Bay of Islands. She came down to Wellington 3 years ago and since then has had rigging and sails replaced.Still needs some work on the motor, wiring and general tidy up/painting etc.

Looking forward to this summer...

Dave Johnstone has posted this clip of last weekends classic boat get-together at Lake Hood near Ashburton (NZ) on 21 March 2010.

It looks as though they had a great time with a fantastic turnout of classic boats.

Charlie Whipple has a new yacht named Endeavour. I like the colour scheme which uses that same colours as Resolution featured. Have a look at Charlie's blog

http://tokyowest.typepad.com/charlies_blog/2009/06/endeavor-260609.html