Jim's blog

Last week I bought a couple of lengths of timber, kauri and mahogany, to laminate up for a new tiller.

The small scale plans that are in LHF's book "Sensible Cruising Designs" specify the tiller butt end dimensions at 2" x 2". The broken tiller is slightly larger than that.

I spent a couple of evenings this week slicing my timber into strips and planing them down to 6mm thick - the first significant use I have made of my De Walt planer that has been sitting under the bench for a year or so. I have also laid out the shape I will form the laminations to to get a nice (I hope) curve on the new tiller. The old tiller used to be slightly too close to the top of the cockpit aft coaming so I have curved it up a bit more than the old one. Hopefully the curve will not spring back too much when I release the clamps.



Saturday - I glued up the first 5 laminations today. First I costed the side that were going to be glued with un-thickened epoxy, and then I spread on a thick mix and clamped it up. I under-estimated the quantity I would need by quite a bit and ended up making 3 batches - very quickly I might add. I managed to get the ratio on the 2nd batch wrong and put in about 20% too little hardener. Hopefully it will still be strong enough to hold it all together.

Most of my clamps are cheap bar clamps, but today I bought a better quality Urwin one with a pistol type grip. It did a much better job of pulling in the tight part of the bends than the cheap bar clamps did when I did a test assembly. I'll get more over time I think although with epoxy I don't want to overtighten the clamps as the joint depends on the epoxy in between the wood.

Christmas has been and gone and I am now back in the office.

We had a great time away, mostly excellent weather, and spent a lot of timing sitting and reading, or walking on beaches.

Yesterday I worked a short day and in the afternoon picked up a couple of lengths of timber, mahogany and kauri, to laminate up for a new tiller for Dovekie - a high priority now to get the wood sliced and a template made up something like this

I spent a bit of time yesterday fitting the new nav lights to the side of Dovekie's cabin, refitting the stove and then tidying and cleaning up a bit into a state that sailing could be contemplated. (Nearly) All my tools are at home now and I'll just take of the ones I need each time I go out.

This morning Jo and I headed down to meet Gord at the Dovekie's marina berth, a little later than intended but the weather was holding up. The clouds were obscuring the sun pretty well and the wind was fairly gentle. The idea was to head out around Mana Island, anchor in behind for a cup of tea and Xmas cake, and then head back home for lunch.

I got sails, halyards and things set up while Gord moved the anchor back into position up forward and connected the chain to the nylon warp, ready to drop once we got to a suitable spot off Mana.

Reversing out of Dovekie's berth is simple. She won't turn in reverse - at least not the direction she needs to, so its straight back, then forward with tiller hard over. With little wind the bow came around nicely and we didn't need to do a three point turn. The tide was coming up the channel so it was a slightly slower trip out to the bay than it can be but Mr Volvo played nicely and pushed us out. Gord pulled up the sails and we reached out almost due west at 5+ knots in 10-15 knots of (variable) wind.

Once off the top end of Mana we headed downwind along the west side. There was a bit of a swell and short chop that Jo didn't really like but we got down far enough to start turning and noticed the white caps coming closer with the flood tide up Cook Strait heading against the wind.

Just before we got into the shelter of the island and headed for the anchorage and a cuppa, I found that I was holding the tiller in my hand and it wasn't connected to the rudder any more - in fact it was broken off and the stump end looked really rotten - BUGGA! The tide was pushing us toward the rocks at the south end of Mana and we couldn't steer. Gord jump up and dropped the sails, closely followed by the anchor. I jumped up and dived down into the cabin to grab a length of rope to lash the tiller back onto the side of the rudder, and made sure the VHF was on channel 16. Jo wondered what she was doing there at all and kept out of the way while I proceeded to slip coming out of the cabin with my piece of rope as a wave went under us, and head butted the mizzen mast while I scraped the skin of my shin on the top of the companionway.

It didn't take long to get the tiller lashed to the rudder head, decide it would cope with the load, start the motor, lift the anchor and get under way again. The lashing slipped and needed to be tightened several times as we motored back to the berth. It wouldn't have been quite as much of a problem if the offset propeller didn't keep turning us off course to port all the time so needing constant pressure to go straight even when the waves/swell (now coming abeam us) weren't trying to do the same.

Luckily the tide was almost full in the channel so there was only a little current to worry about and the jury-rigged rudder coped with that just fine. Likewise getting into the berth was a cinch with no wind to blow the bow off.

Not a great trip for Jo's first on Dovekie but a good run for the new motor.

I'm glad the tiller didn't break when we were close in a lee shore as we came around the south end of Mana - the water gets deep quite quickly so my 100 feet or so of anchor warp would have been struggling to hold us.

I'll be able to refit the tiller if I shorten it a bit but it is getting a bit rough so I'll get started on making a new one. I'm thinking light and dark woods laminated into a neat curve and varnished - or maybe not.........

A lot of people just seem to fit nav lights directly onto cabin or hull sides without worrying about the requirements for correct alignment to meet the rules.I have made up a couple of angled blocks for mounting my port/starboard lights on the sides of the cabin that give a much closer approximation to the correct alignment than if I just screwed the lights on - and the new location is easier to wire than the old one.

Looking closely at the inside of the cabin top while painting some of the repaired areas I am convinced that Dovekie was built without the raised cabin top and that it was lifted at a later date. There are glue lines across the cockpit bulkhead that match the lower cabin top lines and are symmetrical side to side. They also match bright wood stripping along the sides between the cabin windows at the right height.

I saw some recycled oregon in a front yard while walking the other day that could serve to make a new mizzen boom. I knocked on the door to see if they would sell some but no-one was at home. Will have to go back again.

Made some good progress in the weekend with fixing reefing hooks on both sails, rigging the main sheet, fixing the patch in the coaming, painting the interior of the starboard bulkhead etc.

Having decided to fix a cheek block for the mizzen sail reefing line I drilled a couple of holes for the screws and found the wood coming out of the boom was sodden. Looks as though I have a bunch of rot and I am trying to decide whether to make a new boom as it's only 3 metres of 3x2 with a bit of shaping, or whether to pull the current one off and see whether it is a bad as first impressions seem - and what are the main boom and the masts like!

Anyone got a few metres of nice clean old oregon with close annual growth rings to spare?

Over the last couple of months there have been several young seals living in the Marina. Sleeping on the end of a pier, and swimming around chasing fish at other times.

Couple of weeks ago there was a dolphin under the road bridge nearby too.

Dovekie is coming along well now.

I have finished painting the cabin top/side/cockpit and still need to run around the deck to seal of the tiny cracks along the planking. I am very pleased with the colour of the non-slip areas of the cabin top - Altex Kumeu White. There is no water leaking in so I am hopeful the putty between planks is sound (apart from a few places I have replaced).

I have undercoated the inside of the cockpit bulkhead where i replaced a big patch of ply and need to get some top coat on - another short job but just one on the list.

I refitted the winches on Saturday after cleaning and re-greasing. They spin well now. Still need new jib-sheets and to set up the reefing arrangement.

The floors from the stern and port side lockers are at home for painting. They don't need much so I'll do them one evening, or two counting undercoat.

The angled blocks for mounting the nav lights on the side of the cabin top are roughed out but need a bit more shaping before fitting. Looking at some on other boats I seem to be over-thinking it but there is no point in having them if they are not set up correctly. Maybe it's not so important when you are bobbing around all over the place and a few degrees of alignment are academic.

Mel bought me a GrabOne voucher for a discount in the Barton Marine shop so I went in with her and Sam yesterday to buy him a junior sized life-jacket in preparation for his first time out sailing. Will need to make that a calm day so he isn't put off. Maybe after Xmas.

I spent a good deal of last weekend doing things other than working on Dovekie. However I did get some work time down there on Monday after a brief visit on Sunday with Sam. There a a couple of baby seals living in and around the marina and they were sleeping on the end of C pier. Spon after Sam and I got to the boat I noticed that one of them was playing around not far from us so Sam had a great view of the baby seal. He now associates that with 'grandad's boat'.

When I finally got down there on Monday afternoon there was one of the seals chasing small fish all around the pier I am on. I first noticed him about 5 meters away gulping down a fish, later with another fish and a little later again I saw him chasing a fish just below the surface and not quite catching it. The fish were maybe 180mm long so not exactly a big meal.

Once the seal was out of the way I managed to sand and get a first top coat over the cockpit floor, seat fronts and tops, and sanded and undercoated all the cockpit hatch covers. Also got a coat of undercoat on one side of the cabin top.

I picked up some plated brass fairleads and a cleat at a good price on Trademe last week so have to figure exactly where they will go.



I have removed the old side nav-lights as the plywood supports were rotting a bit. I found that there wasn't as much bedding under them as there should have been and one of the screws pulled straight through the cabin top so I need to fix that too.

Lots of little jobs but hopefully sailing as soon as the next two top coats in the cockpit are dry (and they are water based so one good day will suffice for that).

And there is still no water coming in after some pretty heavy rain so pleased with that.

I have finally got some paint on the new cockpit work. The new grand-daughter has been a big distraction over the last month, and I have spent quite a bit of time looking after grandson Sam at weekends. He now understands 'grand-dad's sailing boat' and is keen to visit. Maybe this coming summer he'll come out with me on a good day or two.

Saturday afternoon I did a bit more sanding and then primed the repairs in the cockpit of Dovekie. I had hoped to get a second coat on today but the rain prevented that.

Hopefully next weekend I'll get the cockpit painting finished. I did find another tiny area of rot at the edge of one of the seat top lockers but that should be easy to repair. No doubt there are others I haven't located yet.

Friend Gordon has run a sander over much of the cabin roof and some of the fore-deck so that is the next target. I'll do a quick pass over them with a finer sander, hand sand edges and corners and get some primer and undercoat on those pretty soon now. Here is a pic Gord took recently.

I found the problem with the house battery was that the new voltage sensing relay that was fitted with the motor didn't have its earth wire connected. A quick fix and I hope the long time spent mostly discharged hasn't hurt the battery too much.

I still need to sort the nav lights and the main sail reefing out but that shouldn't be too complex. I have made up new handrails for the cabin roof out of kwila. They have come up really nicely and are much more solid than most that are around at 65x35mm rather than 50x25. I'll bolt them through the cabin roof beams so they will be a lot more useful than the old ones that were just screwed in and getting loose.

I'll also remove the old job halyard that has been getting in the way a bit. The original fractional rig was replaced with a mast head roller furler so the old halyard is redundant. Sometime I'll need to figure out how to rig my spinnaker. If it was flown from the same point as the head of the jib it will be too small and there is no fitting for it at the mast head.

I went out to Dovekie last night to check the mooring lines and bilge water after the few days of stormy wind and rain we have had, and was pleasantly surprised.

There was almost no water in the forward area of the bilge and only a litre in the aft section. That is excellent given the weather we have had. There are still a couple of leaks around the hatches that I haven't got to yet but they will be taken care of by the glassing and painting I will do. The rot areas in the cockpit are basically watertight now.

The mooring lines were OK but I have to put plastic tube around one of the aft ones that is rubbing on the toe-rail. It was going through a fairlead but the angle of it with the wind we have been having (more westerly than usual) has resulted in some chafing. It now runs straight out over the toe-rail but still rubs a little.

Unfortunately I found that my house battery was a bit run down due to my leaving the main switch turned on at the weekend and the depth sounder running it down. There must be something else as I would have thought that the depth sounder by itself wouldn't run it own that fast. Anyway the new motor has a 114A charging capability so a brief run should top it up well. Hopefully that will be on Saturday when the forecast is very good for some time under sail. The 50+ knot winds of the last few days were not encouraging at all.

So I finally got around to cutting out the rot on the forward port corner of the cockpit. Like the corner on the other side the rot extended into the ply of the bulkhead. I removed the Formica lining on the inside and found several interesting things. There was a cut-out in the bulkhead for an instrument of some kind that had never been repaired. Just covered over with the teak panelling on the outside and by the formica on the inside. I could see straight out through the gaps between the panelling so water has been running down against the ply for a long time.

There was another hole about 3 inches in diameter that had been patched - probably a small compass from way back.

I also cut a small square out around where the corner of the seat top outside aligned with. I found that there was some rot inside the ply, but it wasn't too bad. I have soaked it in preservative and penetrating epoxy so hopefully that will, together with stopping the water getting in, keep it from getting any worse until some time in the future when someone will pull it all apart and rebuild it properly.

I have bought two pieces of kwila to make new handrails from. Its a quarter the price of teak and I'll see how it goes. I am making them really beefy compared with the old ones, and will bolt them through the cabin roof beams instead of just screwing them in. Cutting out the first two was easy with a good hole saw. I bought a new Bosch 60mm hole-saw and it cut through the 31mm thick kwila very cleanly, if somewhat slowly to stop my light-weight drill-press from stalling. Ran the router around the edges and they are very cool looking. I still need to figure out the right angle to suit the cabin roof and plane the bottom to suit, round off the ends, drill mounting holes and give a good all-over sand to smooth out the few rough parts.

I have also turned down the heads of some screws a size up and a little longer than the originals to refix the sail track to the mast. That seems to have worked well.

Looking at LED nav lights now, a bosun's chair to get up the mast to fix in place, and thinking about what else I need before venturing across Cook Strait.

Dovekie is not quite the original H28 design but pretty close apart from the raised coach roof and a few areas the have been glassed.

The issues I have with it are not with the riveted kauri hull and frames which (apart from a couple of broken frames) appear to be in good nick and pretty much water tight. What are problems is where the cockpit floor and seat were built from ply and some epoxy and glass, and where the compass was fitted through the plywood cockpit bulkhead.

I have rot in three of the four corners where a steel nail was driven down through the seat frames into plywood (2x2 nailed into 1/2 in ply - who would do that???) Water has got in around the nails, run down into the ply and spread sideways. In each case the rot is in only one horizontal ply. The vertical ones appear to be wet near the nail but solid still. The wood appears to be different in each ply but the glue seems to have prevented the rot going across between plies in most areas apart from close to the nail. One nail went through into an original deck beam which is the only structural part that I have found with rot.

The cockpit floor has been glassed but it hasn't been taken up the sides at all - just a filler coving which has now cracked away from the vertical sides and getting a little wet. I am in the process of fixing the rot and am cutting out the filler (thanks to my Bosch multitool) and will redo with a glass layer a few inches up each side.

The compass was fitted to the cockpit bulkhead and not sealed properly. The ply was quite wet and had been repaired before but the rot I found was due to the cockpit seat problem above.

Interestingly the side decks are planked and caulked and also appear sound in the areas I have stripped of paint so far. There is a lot to be said for the old methods.

Jeezzz - a bit of a rant - I needed to get that off my chest - its been frustrating dealing with a number of individual small problems that all could have been avoided, are all individually not difficult to repair but which add up to quite a bit of work.

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I need a tender for Dovekie - and there isn't much room to carry one on deck.

An inflatable has some advantages from the ease to carry perspective but I am less happy with an inflatable's ability in windy conditions.

On the other hand a rigid tender is easier to row in the wind, can be towed easily but is less convenient if you want to carry it.

I have the free plans for the D4 Dink which is a 2meter stitch&glue pram dinghy. It seems well thought of from what I have found through web searches. I also like John Welsford's Tender Behind. It is similar to the D4 Dink but a bit more complicated to build I think as it has more panels and maybe stringers.

I have rowed a Tender Behind a short distance and while it wasn't going to set the world on fire it was good and stable to climb in/out of from a boat and easy to manage in and out of the water with wheels on the transom.

Not sure which way I'll go yet.

Time has been slipping by. I found I was unable to log on here and have just reinstalled Serendipity. Fortunately I didn't need my backup as it just used the existing database, except for replacing the admin user rows in the authors table. There is still some tidying up to do though - plugins to re-enable etc.

I haven't done as much sailing as I had hoped in Dovekie as I keep finding little areas of rot. 3 of the 4 corners of the cockpit were rotted from seat top to floor and I have cut out and repaired two of those. The other will keep until the soft area of paint covered wood annoys me too much. And there is an area of the coaming inside the port side spinnaker sheet winch that is rotten. When they fitted the roller furler they removed the spinnaker halliard block so I can't raise the spinnaker anyway - the sheet winches are not useful.

The is a little area of rot inside the stern locker in one corner of the cockpit. It is on the underside of a deck beam and the top of a post. I have cut out the worst of it and will paint on rot killer, saturate with Everdure and patch it up. I'll bolt in a couple of strong pieces of tanalised pine I think to brace up the beam. I have found a couple of small leaks around staunchion bolts so I'll need to pull those and reseat with new bedding compound.

On Sunday while contemplating how to rig reefing tackle at the mast I found that the bottom 200mm of sail track has pulled off. The screws/nail have just pulled out so I need to remove the mainsail and sort that before I head out again.

Once the immediate problems are solved to the point I feel happy taking her out into Cook Strait again I'll start stripping paint from the cabin top down the sides and across the decks to get that back in good shape.