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Maintance & Repairs #1

The trip to Wallaroo

After 3 seasons in the water it was time to get to grips with modifications that had been put in the too hard basket, pull the boat out of the water to re-do the anti fouling, some thru hull provisions and repair some of the damage. It was also time to prepare the boat for the Around Australia rally that I intended to participate in which included getting the boat to Category 1 Safety standards which are part of the entry requirements.

The initial step was to slip the boat, and Wirrina doesn’t offer this facility. A fellow F41 owner, located in Wallaroo South Australia, offered to haul the boat out for me with a jinker he had build for his boat. This was an attractive offer as the trip there and back, 1 ½ weeks of sailing and fishing would be a nice bonus, in lieu of the day trip to Adelaide where the commercial slipways are located.

For the trip to Wallaroo I had 2 crew, Peter and Graham, who’d promised to do lots of work once we arrived in Wallaroo. A beautiful sunset before we left the marina held the promise of a great trip ahead. The next day we departed on our initial leg, 30 Nm to Boxing Bay in Kangaroo Island.

From there we crossed the Strait and headed for West Cape bay on the bottom of York Peninsula ( 40 Nm) and although we had a good sail in the 15 – 20 knot winds, the weather forecast for the next few days had turned more ominous with winds in the 30 – 40 knot range forecast starting in another days time. The swell had picked up already and our entry to the bay was initially trough 3-4 m waves followed by lots of foam on the surface (caused by plankton getting crushed against the rocks)

The following day we crossed over to Whalers Bay, Thistle Island, 35 Nm, to shelter in it’s lee from the predicted winds and had some great fishing on our arrival.

In anticipation of the storm we treated ourselves to a steak dinner and when the forecast winds arrived during the night, there were no drama’s despite a nervous captain.  We’d also taken special care in setting the anchor by ensuring the CQR was in clean sand and burying it deep by pulling it in, with the motors. These days I much prefer the Stockless anchor from Marsh Anchors http://www.industrialsprings.com.au/anchor.htm but the replacement for the one I’d lost in January hadn’t arrived in time for this trip. It sets in weed and sand and doesn’t release even when the wind shifts 180 degrees during the night.

The next day we spend fishing in the lee of the island in fairly calm waters and the following day we were treated to a demonstration on how to go about fishing by a pack of dolphins. The photo’s don’t do the event justice as the dolphins had a real pattern and purpose in their actions which you can’t capture on camera.

After a late breakfast we departed for Reevesby Island, part of the Sir Joseph Banks group, with a 20 -30 knot following wind, we had a great sail all the way, averaging above 10 knots despite our fouled hulls, covered the 32 miles in just over 3 hours and got there early in the afternoon for some more fishing and a walk on the beach.

Despite it’s reputation for great fishing we didn’t do to well so we proceeded to Pt Neil the next day.

We sailed to Cowell the following day after and anchored in a little bay just inside the entrance of the main bay and proceeded to the township and jetty the next day. After some shopping we left and headed for Lucky Bay where we were due to meet David who was sailing his F41 across the Gulf to meet us. Misinterpreting a marker I managed to hit a bommie with the SB rudder, which caused the steering to stiffen up, which on inspection (by going for a swim) appeared to have bend the shaft, causing it to rub against the hull surface, but didn’t do to much damage to the blade itself. Another job to be added to the list during the haul out. We met up with Playtime and then sailed across to Wallaroo the next day. It would have been nice to compare the performance of the yachts but it wasn’t a contest as we couldn’t raise our full main because the clew eye had blown out on the second day of the trip and we were forced to sail with a reef in the main.

Haul out & Clean

After a night in the marina, I dropped the SB rudder out and we then motored to the boat ramp early on the Monday morning where David was reversing the jinker down the ramp. Positioning the jinker centrally (there was only 300 mm between the boat and the ramps either side) took some doing but once in position, putting he boat on was straightforward.

It was still hard to judge the best position lengthwise as it was feasable to go under the bridge deck to check the marks due to the slippery nature of the ramp.

Pulling the boat out, despite a few creaks, caused by the stiffeners being compressed a little went well and we then proceeded to and parked in an area that drained into a wash down pit

My immediate priority was to get the rudder shaft, straightened and I was lucky David knew of an engineering shop equipped to handle the task and he lend me a vehicle to get around in.

Peter and Graham proceeded to scrape and water blast the hulls, using the Gernie waterjet and generator I’d brought along for the task. The generator was also vital to recharge the batteries whilst on the dry as I couldn’t run the engines out of the water.

They followed the cleaning up with a light sand to rejuvenate the copper exposure prior to the application of the new ablative antifouling paint, Altex No 5, a Kiwi product with a good reputation.

Transom Repair

Once the rudder shaft was straightened I returned to the boat and commenced the repair work to the transoms as I would need to maximise the curing time for the resin, fairing and paint coats. I started by removing the hardware and then grinding off the paint and fairing around the damage on the Port transom, followed by cutting out the damaged laminate and removing the crushed foam.

The damage to the SB side was far more cosmetic and didn’t require the removal of a lot of foam. The photo shows the initial removal of the damaged laminate which I did with a diamond cutting wheel (ceramic tiling tool). This is followed by grinding out the surrounding fairing and tapering the laminate to receive the repair.

To replace the foam I build it up with a bog mixture that contained a fair amount of glue powder to give it some strength and managed to rebuild it to profile in 2 applications.

 This was followed by fibreglassing the repairs, fairing compound and of course sanding. After nearly 3 days the result was starting to look the piece and I was running out of time so I applied 2 coats of epoxy high build by the end of the day.

After sanding the high build to a smooth surface I applied the 2 pack poly urethane by foam roller ( up till now always sprayed but the instructions were adamant it could be rolled). It went on well except that the foam roller started to disintegrate toward the end and left little lumps behind. I managed to get rid of most of these by buffing the surface quickly on the final day.

John, the crew for the return journey, had single headedly applied most of the antifouling to the hull and we had also completed the 3 new thru-hulls and grounding plate for the HF radio. We’d also removed the daggerboard and it was transported home in my ute with the departing crew.

Daggerboard Modification

Form the outset the daggerboard had given me grief because it didn’t have enough tolerance. It would move it up / down but only when everything was in its favour, the slightest particle would cause it to jamb and it would take a lot of work / detergent to get it moving again. On one occasion I’d taken it home, ground it down severely on the rub marks, well into the fibreglass, resurfaced and repainted it, only to find it still jammed.

The 250 high mini keels function fine in speeds over 10 knots, but lesser winds the boat drifts considerably so with the Around Oz Rally pending it was time to tackle the problem head on and remove the laminate completely on one side and remove 6 mm of core.

To remove the laminate and have a gauge on the amount of material I was removing I ran a circular saw with the blade set to 7 mm depth in a pattern over the surface. With cuts at 400 cts I was able to lift the laminate off either side of the uni strip. I left the bottom of the daggerboard, ie the bit outside the hull to original profile as it will hopefully stop the board slopping around in the casing.

Along the uni strip I had to run saw cut at 100 mm and 70 mm spacing’s to then lift piece by piece of by chisel and considerable force. The layers of the uni cloth did help to lift it off level and to finally finish it I used a belt sander.

The cedar core was reduced with a power plane and sander, after which it had to be faired to repair the surface where to much timber had come away initially. The back edge was re worked with glue mixture as it had moved in 20 mm in the process.

In re laminating the board I used 3 layers of 220 carbon uni to replace the uni glass some front end reinforcement and 2 layers of 600 double bias over the entire surface to re establish a laminate as close as possible to the original specification

The board was then faired and I was pleased to see how fair the new surface had ended up.

This time round I applied 2 coats of epoxy high build, using a scraper to distribute paint and full pin prick, hollows etc. between coats. The resultant surface fairness was as good as the original, but a lot less work.

The 2 pack poly urethane was put on with a very short nap disposable roller and with the right amount of thinners in the mix resulted in a surface finish which resembles a spray finish.

I applied Cop-N-Cote (copper suspended in epoxy antifouling) below water surface line as it is a far harder, more durable finish then the ablative antifouling which is quite soft. Below the hull line I applied the Altex over the coppercote. In the photo you can see the copper exposed by burnishing (sanding) the coating.

Postscript

The Around Oz Rally was cancelled and due to a scheduled shoulder operation I had to abort the return journey before the winter and Alcatraz didnot return to Wirrina until early Oct 2010. On return the rudders were dropped out, to get the bearings replaced, the mainsail and boombag removed for repair and quite a bit of work to get ready for the next trip which all going well I document for the next update.