Maintenance / Repairs

I’ve been threatening for quite some time to discuss the repairs to Aletheia and the new rig she’s going to get after her dismasting. Well, I’m comfortable enough with the plan moving forward to finally share some of it with you, so hang on to your seats ladies and gents; this is about to get radically different from what you’re used to.

First, a sneak preview of the new rig design, courtesy the naval architecture expertise of Tad Roberts, my architect:



That’s right, folks, she’s going to be a schooner when this is all said and done! And not just any schooner, but a Chinese lug sail, also known as a “junk” rig. This rig is notable for its lack of stays, its simplicity, reliability, and ease of singlehanding - all important advantages for the type of sailing I’m planning to do.

The first and most significant bit of reconstruction necessary for this conversion was to relocate a hatch which is in the center of the cabintop. This isn’t a big deal, but it does involve a bit of fiberglass work and some nasty grinding.

First step was to cut the hatch out:



After that I ground the interior and exterior skins on the cored deck back about 3” in a bevel to provide for good bonding strength for the new fiberglass:



This required me to build a temporary “grinding booth” inside the boat using a drop cloth to contain the horrid fiberglass dust. I’m very glad that part is done now!

Next up I’ll be filling in the deck core and putting a fiberglass laminate on each side for strength. Once that’s done, I can do some final reinforcements to the deck structure in preparation for installing the mast partners.

No worries - the rig came down only on my terms! But yes, a huge part of the prep for this trip has been completed, and it took me nearly a month to finish, but finally I can stop spending time fretting over it and actually sit down to tell you about it! This will take a couple posts, and beware, this one is long and full of images, but hopefully you’ll find it somewhat fascinating as it’s not often a non-cruiser gets to see this side of boat work. So come along, let’s go head over to the shipyard where the masts are laying, and take a look…


My boat looks silly without her masts

For those of you who aren’t used to such intensive boat work, taking the masts down on a larger sailing vessel is typically done at the beginning of a term of ownership as a matter of proper course and prudence and thenceforth about every ten years or so as a precautionary maintenance item. Of course one would inspect the mast while it is standing on the boat much more frequently than that. Since I have been somewhat neglectful of my duties in this regard up until now, it was high time that, before I embark on a long voyage, I pay my proper dues. So down they came.


The mainmast masthead, just after I removed the VHF antenna.

Once they were down, it was a very significant amount of work to properly overhaul them - and try as I might, I still don’t think they are perfect. I did my best with the time, money, and resources I had available and I am definitely confident that they are MUCH stronger and in better shape now than when I took them down. Without going into excruciating detail, here are some of the highlights of what’s been done to them.

Basic Maintenance

Typically when dropping the masts, one would look them over thoroughly for signs of corrosion, weak or damaged fasteners, evidence of excessive stress like dimpled metal when it should be flat, and other obvious problems. All major fittings are removed such as the mast head (the portion which holds the sheaves for the halyards), the spreaders, and the tangs for all shrouds. These are the major structural components which keep the rig up and allow the sails to maintain their shape and efficiency, and so they are of critical importance. Most corrosion is caused by galvanic action between two dissimilar metals such as stainless steel and aluminum contacting each other in the presence of seawater. This is all too common on most masts, since bolts and smaller fasteners such as tang plates are typically stainless steel and the mast itself is, of course, extruded aluminum. The common fix is to insulate any large objects (the tang plates, for instance) with nylon washers or a durable sheet of plastic, and to apply a goop called Tef-Gel to the threads of any screws or bolts that go into or through the mast.


Typical corrosion spot behind the spreader tang.

In my case, there was some corrosion in a few places, though not enough to be worrisome, which I was able to address by insulating the problem fitting with some nylon washers, plastic sheeting, and Tef-Gel.

However, there was one area where the corrosion was a serious problem:


Yikes!

Yep, that’s the bottom end of the mast, where all the weight and compressive force meet. It’s pretty critical that this part be solid, and in my situation, well, solid was about as far from the case as possible.

This was caused by the mast sitting in a stainless steel step on deck, which was not drained properly nor was the mast insulated in any way from the stainless plate.

The only fix was to cut about an inch off the bottom of the mast and route out some new drain holes:


My buddy Alex doing the deed with his spiffy skilsaw.

I learned a neat trick from the rigger who helped me out with this: apparently you can use standard woodworking router bits on an aluminum mast to make gorgeous holes, cutouts, and other openings. Once I saw how nicely and quickly it worked, I’m sold on this trick. It makes using a Dremel look like the hard, long way.


Pre-drain-holes, but muuuuuch better.

After that, I cleaned up the mast and the step and gave both the bottom several inches of the mast and the inside of the step a heavy coat of etching primer and two heavy coats of corrosion protective paint.

Structural Upgrades

While the mast was being refitted, I took the time to strip off the old rigging which I was replacing, and to replace the stainless steel mast tangs with upgraded titanium parts to fit the new deadeyes for the upgraded rigging. This might sound straightforward but it represented a huge challenge: the bolts in my mast didn’t always match the holes for the tangs! I should note the tangs were what were properly drilled, my mast had sizing all over the place and it did not look like a thorough analysis of load weak points was given at the time of construction. One one shroud, the weak point was the clevis pin, on another it was the bolt holding the tang, on yet another it was the tang itself. Just no consistency at all. The new titanium tangs from Colligo Marine really kick ass and I am thrilled to get a chance to try them out.


Old rigging wire and spreader tang about to be removed.

This mismatch was solved in three major ways. First, where the mast was larger than the tang, but the tang could safely be drilled out to match the mast, the tang was sent to a machine shop and drilled. There was no way I could have drilled the titanium, so I had to send it to a local shop. Lazlo, the machinist, was absolutely amazing and did excellent work.

Next, where the tang was larger than the mast, I simply drilled the mast to match the tang and upgraded the mast bolt. While this typically means that I am adding an overbuilt part and taking a weight penalty by doing so, I am saving so much weight switching to the lightweight synthetic rigging that another few grams on a larger bolt doesn’t make much difference. Not that it matters much on a 6600 kg cruising sailboat anyway!

Lastly, and most time consuming of all, were the tangs at the spreaders. On both masts the spreader fitting was welded or integrally made a part of the lower shroud tangs. I spent some quality time with a chop saw and a metal blade slicing the old spreader fittings apart and isolating the tang portion from the spreader support portion. After this bit of metal trickery, I was able to mount the new tangs on a larger bolt which just barely fit. Fortunately, no further fabrication was required… here.


You can see the new tangs just to the right (e.g. below) the spreader fittings here. You might have to click this image to see the full width.

The last major structural upgrade I made was to add a compression post between the spreaders. This is a typically critical modification made to prevent the inward force on the spreader from crushing the mast in severe conditions. My boat did not have this support and so I reamed out one of the spreader bolt holes just large enough to drop a thick-wall aluminum pipe in and have it come to rest on the other wall of the mast. By running the spreader bolt through this pipe, the compression load is taken up by the pipe and not the mast wall. I did this to both the main and the mizzen mast.

Fabrication

However, my fabrication efforts did not stop there. During my previous removal of all fittings and fasteners, I noticed a serious stress indicator on the forestay tang.



Note the oblong hole in the tang where a clevis pin went. Apparently the stress on this tang was so great that it exceeded the yield strength of the tang metal and permanently deformed the hole. This has weakened the tang, and it’s also evidence that the tang was not strong enough to begin with. So I went to source a new one.

Turns out nobody makes the part. Fabrication to the rescue!

Again sparing a lot of the details as to the why’s and wherefore’s, I had some chainplate stock left over from the chainplate replacement I’ll tell you about in another post, and using a combination of grinders, somewhat cantankerous old drill presses, and a copious amount of head-scratching, mathematical calculations, and consultation with the local rigger for sanity checks, I determined that the best route was to simply drill two chainplate bars and run the clevis pin between the two holes. So that’s what I did. Should be about two to three times the strength of the previous fitting at minimum.

Electrical Upgrades

My work with the masts wasn’t limited to just metalwork, fabrication, and preventative maintenance. I was also very interested in replacing the traditional bulbs on the mast lighting with LEDs for a huge power savings as well as greater visibility. The masthead lights are used for both navigation and to give notice when I am at anchor, so they are quite critical! In addition, there are other lights on the mast which are required when the engine is running and yet other lights which simply illuminate the foredeck so I can work in the dark.


New Bebi 2NM LED lights in the Aqua-Signal housing. Warm-white LEDs, so the green looks green and not blue.

In addition to the illumination, the masthead is where the VHF radio antenna goes, and that was in sore need of replacement.

On the mizzen mast there were no lights that needed work, but a bunch of wires indicating a forest of antennas had previously graced the top of this mast needed removal. My plan was to put a wind generator atop the mizzen in lieu of further radio communications, and so I removed the mizzen masthead and took it to a local welder who did a great job welding the requisite pipe onto it for a wind generator mount. The wiring for this was simple, or so I thought, and so I ran a twisted pair of wires up the mast and reassembled all of that.


New wind-gen mounted on it’s spiffy pole atop the mizzen.

I should note that running wires up a mast is not something one does haphazardly. In my case I needed to run 8 wires for power/lighting and 1 heavy cable for VHF up the mainmast and have various combinations of these wires exit the mast at no less than 4 separate points along the way up. In addition, I did not want the wires to hang loose inside the mast and clang around. Some folks prevent this by riveting a PVC pipe up one side of their mast as a conduit. I was wary of putting further holes in the mast, so I did the next best thing: tie three heavy-duty zip-ties around the cable bundle every half-meter or so, with each zip tie pointing in a different direction. When you shove this mess up inside the mast the wires end up suspended by the zip ties more or less in the middle of the mast and nicely cushioned by the spring of the ties. This prevents them from slapping all around inside the mast when the boat rolls around at anchor.

In order to get the cables to come out at the right exit points I used the existing wires as chases and pulled a separate chaser line of nylon cord to the foot of the mast from each point. I next laid out the entire bundle of wire alongside the mast, marking where each pair or set of pairs would exit. I zip tied the bundle together, and attaching each wire to the appropriate chase line I was able to iteratively snug up on each chase line and “slurp” the whole snaky assembly right into place. I would like to say it worked perfectly the first time, but it didn’t. I ended up having to remove the spreader bolt as somehow I got one conduit line on one side of it and the other opposite, forcing the entire bundle to get jammed right as the next set of zip ties hit the spreader bolt. After that it was pretty much a cinch. Another day of switching out the lighting, securing and corrosion-proofing the electrical connections, and generally ensuring it was a job meant to last, and I was done and onto the mizzen. Fortunately I only had to pull the old lines and run a single pair up the mizzen, so that was pretty simple after having done the crazy bits with the mainmast.

Thus endeth the prep work

So far, what I’ve described took about three weeks of at least half-time work and many of that was full-time days of fabricating, cleaning, measuring, prepping, etc.

I’ll come back shortly with more to this story, including a whole saga on chainplates and a nice interlude where I introduce the slickest rigging material you’ve never seen, before we get around to putting the masts back on the boat.


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The electric re-powering continues apace, with another major step completed this past weekend: the removal of the existing upper diesel tank to make room for the batteries. Incidentally, this tank used to be the primary water tank for the boat - and I wish it still was, since I wouldn’t remove it if so!

The tank was ensconced under the cabin sole, so the first step was to drill out the bungs, remove the screws, and pry up the center of the cabin sole to access the tankage:



As you can see, the tank is pretty firmly held in place by several significant fiberglass straps and is trapped further by the floor stringers. Fortunately in my case, the fiberglass straps were all on the top of the tank, and the floor stringers are not integral to the hull structure, so I can cut and replace the straps and stringers without much problem.

Cutting the fiberglass straps and the end cap loose was probably the hardest and most annoying part of the process. It took nearly 3 hours of various contortions, hand saws, power tools, and other devices to get through the tough fiberglass in a safe manner without damaging the hull. With no welded on lifting tabs or other help, we threaded a soft shackle through the eyes on the access/inspection port and lifted the tank in that manner. Fortunately the access port was strong enough - I was not concerned about the shackle as it has close to 3000 lb breaking strength!

Once the tank was cut free as best as we could determine, my friend Ed and I hauled on a 4:1 tackle slung to the main boom and our combined weight easily popped the tank free after a few tugs. After that, the tank could be lifted with a firm grip and one hand. We cut the first few stringers as well in the hope that we could get enough angle on the tank to avoid cutting the rest:



Sadly, we needed to remove all of the stringers thanks to dimensional constraints. Ed shows off his “fierce” look here, as we prepare the hoisting strap:



After freeing the tank from the stringers and fiberglass, she lifted neatly out of the companionway.



We used the main boom as a crane and swung the tank over to the finger dock.







A quick cleaning made a big difference in the sludge and dust left behind (pardon the blurriness):



But then I went and ground down the hull so I could mount the battery tray, and made an even bigger mess:



After cleaning again, I was able to glass the mounting blocks to the hull:



I used 404 high density adhesive filler to help bond the mahogany blocks to the hull. There’s a nice 1/4” fillet on the top edge and a finger fillet along each side and the bottom. Having ground the hull side down to bare glass, there should be plenty of mechanical “keying” between the two surfaces for a good solid grip, and I’ll further distribute the load and reinforce the bond by tabbing the blocks to the hull with several layers of glass. After sanding/filing them down to a nice level surface, I”ll seal their surface with thickened epoxy, and then bolt down a plywood plate to form a base for the batteries. The batteries will be strapped to the plate, and will then be effectively an integral part of the hull, allowing them to remain stable and secure in the event of a knockdown or worse.

The reason I’m bolting the plate down rather than further glassing the plate in place is that I want to be able to remove the plate in the future for access to the diesel tank stored below it. I’m keeping that smaller (40 gal) tank in place in the event that I wish to add a genset, diesel heater or galley stove at some point in the future. 5/16” lag screws into an epoxied matrix in the wood should hold the batteries in place just fine, even upside down.

In the future I may also get a poly tank for water storage (probably about 40 gallons or so) to fit up forwards of the batteries.

Stay tuned…


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Wow friends, have the weeks flown by! Now that I’ve put a huge amount of effort into the boat recently, I have something to announce: I’m repowering Aletheia with an electric motor instead of another diesel! Yes, we’re “going green” with our propulsion. I could write a diatribe on why (and, probably, will do at some point in the future). But this post is mostly to introduce the idea, talk about the how, and give you a little bit of an update on what kind of progress has been made and what will be about to happen.

First, the idea in general: after the incident with the “Perkebeke” (my old Westerbeke 40 / Perkins 4-108 engine) I mentioned a few weeks ago, I did a cost analysis of both repowering as well as repairing and maintaining the existing engine a few years into the future. Since I’ve always sworn that if I ever were to repower, I would go with an electric motor, I took a good hard look at those options as well. It turned out that repowering with an electric motor would be about break even with the immediate cost of repair and a huge gain on forward maintenance. Add to that my inherent unhappiness with the diesel (leaky, smelly, noisy, and generally a huge pain in my ass) and the choice became dead clear. So I called up Scott at Electric Yacht, who was exceptionally helpful and knowledgeable. I’ll talk more about why I chose EY in the future, but let’s just say that its my belief that they have both the currently most practical solutions for boaters as well as a very fair price and superb support.

After placing the order for their 180ibl motor, I listed the Perkebeke on Craigslist, where a number of individuals contacted me within a day or two - who knew these engines were so desired? I was able to sell the old engine and my offshore spares kit as a set - saving me the hassle of individually parting them out and saving the buyer a nice chunk of change for my convenience. All in all, it was roughly an even swap for the electric motor setup. When you factor what I’d already budgeted for more spares for offshore, even the batteries were a break even. And that puts me ahead of the unanticipated repair cost already. Triple win.

Pulling the old engine was dead simple: we towed the boat over to the hoist that the smaller J/24’s use for getting in and out of the water, lowered the hook down the companionway hatch, a few bolts later and a little swearing, and out she popped.

The old engine, recently freed from the boat. She should have a long and prosperous life as the prime mover for a water taxi company in New Orleans!

Once the boat was emancipated from the engine, I took it upon myself to rid the bilge of 33 years of slime, grease, and nasty seaborne organisms that had populated its depths.

The old, nasty bilge - AFTER a couple hard scrubs with TSP!

The process took 3 entire days of cleaning, rinsing, vacuuming, sanding and stripping, acetone washes, and more, in a seemingly never-ending procession of getting the majority of the bilge down to bare, prepped fiberglass. Finally I felt it would hold a new coating, so I put 5 coats of epoxy in the lower half, and coated the upper half with a one-part polyurethane topsides coating for durability and easy cleaning. I should note that before you intend to recoat oily, dirty, slimy fiberglass, not only should you wash the oily slime off (which will take quite a lot of effort and some serious cleaners) but you should still dewax, sand, wash, rinse, dewax, and solvent clean the surface again - preferably a few times, just in case the oil and nasty junk has penetrated surface cracks. Without the benefit of bilge pumps to keep the bilge dry (since they kind of have to be gone and out of the way to clean and paint anyways) I used an ordinary shop wet/dry vac to slurp up the soapy rinsewater. Naturally I did NOT dump it overboard!!

There’s a bit of a color difference between the tinted epoxy and the shiny topsides paint, but the extra immersion resistance of the epoxy is worth a slight cosmetic difference - and besides, its a bilge!

The end result is really satisfying, especially after such hard work:

Finally! A clean, shiny, and most importantly, visible bilge - makes it so much easier to both find things you drop, and know when its time to clean again!

I’m now just waiting for the motor to arrive to begin the next phase: electrical prep and mounting the engine to the prop shaft. Stay tuned for more in this exciting transition!


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I know. Another couple weeks without an update! Tragic!

Fortunately, I am not in any way slacking on the productivity end of things here, just the writing about the productivity. And of course interspersed with all the productivity has been a great deal of sailing - racing, anchoring out, dock parties, you name it. I have some very very big news coming up (which if you’ve been reading my Twitter feed, over there on the right, you already have a hint of). Also, I have been twiddling with some geek-tastic microcontrollers and, thanks to the great folks at Blue Sky Energy, created a fantastic little datalogger for the IPN network that they use on their MPPT solar charge controllers, such as the SB3024iL. I’ll spare you the geeky details, but lets just say that the device reads the digital data from the controller directly and logs it to a standard Micro SD card, the contents of which I can then generate pretty charts like the one right above. Yep, that’s an actual “day in the life” of my boat’s electrical draw. Well, one “Solar Day”, I’ve left off the pretty consistent and boring nighttime slow drop of the battery voltage, but you get the point. I plan to turn this gizmo into an even more useful tool for boat power tracking and analysis: stay tuned!

I’ve also installed perhaps one of the coolest tools a boat data geek could like: a Brookhouse iMux Wi-Fi enabled NMEA multiplexer. Let me just say: this thing is the best NMEA multiplexer I’ve ever seen, and that’s even before I get to the WiFi part. If you have NMEA data on your boat, you should absolutely get one of these. More details later, but ‘nuff said.

BTW: Major hat tip to Bob Wise and Steve Roberts for the idea and initial encouragement on this project, and a special thanks also to Rick Cullen at Blue Sky for the superb help with interfacing to their gear - they have a fantastic datalogger of their own for those of you who want a pre-made solution. Of course, I have to do things the DIY way more often than not…

I have some news forthcoming on the engine situation: while this will certainly be some extra work and expense, I have a strong feeling that it will be one of those “for the better” type situations in the end, and speaking of work, I have a lot of it to get to before I get to tell you about the more exciting aspects of this new project. Thanks for reading, and stay tuned!

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