Urchin's Keel Bolt Travails Part 3: Victorious!! :D . . . .

[Charles Brennan]

The Plan:
Keel bolt assembly installed on Tuesday.
Wash boat on Wednesday.
Splash the boat on Thursday and test to see if I am ever going to have a dusty bilge again, in my lifetime.

The Reality:
TWO FRICKIN' WEEKS, LATER . . . .
Turns out the keel bolt should have been the least of my concerns.
A sailboat shows neglect faster than any other contrivance of Man and Urchin is better at that, than most.
Took the rudder out to begin washing the boat and noticed a significant gouge in the rudder blade.
Needed immediate sanding and varnishing. Two days worth.
THEN I noticed the Forespar Tiller extender socket on the mahogany tiller had stripped out the wood screws and was very loose.
Mixed up some penetrating epoxy sealer, strictly according to the instructions. 
After a week of being a gooey mess, I reluctantly accepted the fact that the catalyst had gone bad in the ensuing years since I first bought it, and had to be dug out and replaced with a fresh batch of epoxy.   

And it seemed like every item I pulled out of the boat, needed repair and/or refurbishment and somehow, a simple boat washing had turned into a Spring Refit.
Still dunno how that happened. 
Shook the fire extinguisher to uncake the powder, tossed all the expired sunblocks, insect repellents, first aid kit supplies, flashlight batteries, fan batteries, expired safety equipment and everything else on my boat that had succumbed to accelerated entropy and then took stock.

Interior paint and varnished brightwork and oiled brightwork was in good shape and only needed washing.
I needed to do something about getting curtains for the port lights.
My port light replacement project had obsoleted the curtains my wife sewed up for me 35 years ago and probably just as well; the fabric WAS starting to get a little crumbly from exposure to the sun.
I needed some way to hold the curtains to the boat and stole an idea from SCA's Captain Pauley and ordered some wooden drawer pulls.
My initial impulse was to finish them bright with varnish, but realized the next time I re-painted the cabin, I would likely drip paint all over them.
BUT!! If I painted them the same color as the cabin . . . . .
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They really soaked up the paint into that wood.

At first, I thought maybe there was maybe a silicon-based wood sealer and that's why the paint seemed to "drip off" the knobs.
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Nope, just needed two coats.
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I intended to put SS 6-32 screws on the port lights corners with finishing washers and then use SS 6-32 barrel bolts on the knobs.
You'll notice that they appear to already have threaded inserts, but I was in no mood to deal with 4mm X 15mm screws, much less trying to find them in 316 Stainless Steel, so I drilled them out, so the 6-32 screws would go right through.
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My next problem was how to install them singlehandedly, without someone on the outside and someone on the inside of the boat?
After some thought, I decided to drill .125" holes instead of .156" holes, like is usual for 6-32 screws.
Then I tapped 6-32 threads into the fiberglass of the cabin.
Squeezed some 3M5200 into the finishing washers and screwed the screws into the hull, until snug.
Then I applied a bead of 3M5200 around the base of the knobs, inserted my barrel bolt and threaded them onto the screws that were protruding into the cabin.

Came out good:
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I'm going to stretch a bungee cord around the knobs and the hemmed curtains will have the bungee cord threaded through them to hold the curtains in place.


So now it is just washing, scrubbing, bleaching, scrubbing and sanding with a fine grit, all the mildew off the plastic stuff.
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SIMPLE!!
I even broke down and washed my fenders! Normally, I leave them as grundgy as possible in a passive/aggressive attempt to keep Law Enforcement Officers away from my boat.
As soon as they announce they want to inspect something, I hang those grimy things over the side and then, there is NO WAY they want to tie up next to me!

Yayyyy!!!
Got the boat all washed and ready to go!!
And then a two-day cold front appeared and all my ambition to splash the boat, dropped with the temperature.
But Florida, being a state whose Weather is even more fickle than its Politics, meant I didn't have to wait long.

So off I went to Cedar Key.
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Gotta LOVE a freshly-washed boat, even knowing you're immediately going to trash it, again!

This soured the day for me, a little; no idea how that scrape occurred between home and Cedar Key.
I kept trying to tell myself, that would buff right out.
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Once I got rigged, launched and under way, I felt that: "AHH!" moment known to all sailors, where you can physically feel your blood pressure dropping.
I spotted a West Wight Potter 15 tooling around in the Bay.
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Looked like he was heading in, while I was headed out.

Yup, definitely heading back to the barn.
I wanted to come up alongside him and chat, but was disinclined to follow him into what I knew were shoal waters because I was frankly, too damn'ed lazy to crank up my centerboard.
That's how chill I was.
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There was also a Hobie Cat zipping around, but by the time I got the phone out to take a pic he was well over the horizon; so, no pics.
Before I knew it, I was at Atsena Otie key, site of the upcoming Cedar Key Small Boat Meet.
(First full weekend in May.)
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Nothing like a coupla hurricanes to change the topography. 
That nearly straight beach used to be a cove with a shoal point that jutted way out, to protect the beached boats from wave action.
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As this pic from a few years ago, shows:
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That whole bar, north of the boats is now gone, except for that small stub you can see in the previous pic.

So, Charles!
Did it WORK?!?!?!?
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Like a Champ!!
Nary a drop of water!

Figured I'd try again in an hour:
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(That dangly thing on the end of the bolt, is an errant thread of 3M5200.)
STILL dry as a bone!!

Color me HAPPY!!
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Only fly in the ointment, was that it was a fairly calm day and the hull wasn't working overly hard to weather, so this wasn't a very stringent test.
At best, we'll chalk it up as: Proof of Concept.

And it only got calmer:
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But I was so glad to finally be out sailing, I thought I'd sail until dark, but it started clouding up and rather ominously, so I decided that prudence was required, if I didn't want to break anything before the Cedar Key Small Boat Meet in a few weeks so I chickened out and came back in.

BTW, how's the bolt side doing? Hadn't even checked it!!
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Also dry!
Maybe using a rubber gasket half again the diameter of the old one and half again the durometer rating and twice the thickness of the old one, is the key.
We'll see.

The final reward for the day, was seeing some dolphins cavorting, in the Bay. 
While I was out sailing?
Heck, no!!
They were 100 feet from the dock after I tied up!
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Retrieving a boat at Cedar Key by yourself, is not for the faint of heart.
The power boat boys don't have too much of a problem.
They pull close to the dock, drop off the driver, who puts the trailer into the ramp, while the other boater drives the boat up onto the trailer.
This is because the Cedar Key ramp has no docks adjacent the ramp area.  They are separated by pilings with floating docks that stop short, about three pilings worth.
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On the other side of those pilings is the actual dock.
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(Above two pics from a few years ago, for purposes of illustration.)
And there is NO good way to hand the boat around the docks, around the pilings, onto the ramp and then to the trailer.
This is because the dock stops short about three pilings from the end of the ramp.
Either, they need to make the dock about 15-20 feet longer, or they need to remove the last three pilings.
Any way you look at it, it's a bear.
ESPECIALLY, if you're singlehanding.

So I decided if it worked for the power boat boys, it might work for me, too!
I tied off to the dock, went and got the truck and the trailer and backed it in.  Then I ran around back to the dock, started the motor, and drove the sailboat between the "goal posts", temporarily tied one of my stern lines around one of the goal posts and hopped off the bow onto the trailer, attached the winch cable hook I had previously pulled slack from, back at the parking spot and made my way up to the winch and retrieved my boat, like a BOSS!!

All in all, a GREAT Day!!
Charles Brennan

[rfrance0718]

 Charles, that really is a pretty little boat. I would probably be better off with something easier to tow around. My Starwind was easy and had similar lines. Thanks for your narrative.

[Timm R Oday25]

I'll take a day like that anytime . Dry .. drama free..

[Riley Smith]

YAY! No drip! Sometimes the universe smiles on us. I usually say that's because it is planning a double-barrel full of fun NEXT TIME! Yeah, that blood pressure medicine is the best there is.

[Zig Zag]

Great job Charles --- She's ready for the FL120 now.

[Doug SC]

I think I saw Urchin smiling! I really enjoy your reports. Thanks!

[Wayne Howard]

There is nothing better than a dry boat on a large body of water.

[Zig Zag]

There is nothing better than a dry boat on a large body of water.

Got that right --- don't ask how know that.

[Travis Chapman]

Proof of concept is a step in the right direction! Guess I have no excuse to delay ordering parts for mine now. Better than the inglorious fiberglass work to resolve the drips I have now. Great pictures as well!

[Spot]

Achoo!
(from the dust in the DRY bilge)
Nice job Mr. Brennan!