The Stuffin Box: 2007

I've been doing a lot of research on how maintain my boat. I figure that if I write it down somewhere, I'll remember it a lot better.

I need to rebed the chainplates on my boat. Everything that goes through the deck is a place for water to get in causing rot and corrosion. Waterproof seals are needed. One thing that's been puzzling me a lot is exactly what this involves. Here's what I've found:

clean the surfaces to be sealed (the deck hardware and deck). These need to be squeaky clean to ensure a good seal so use wire brushes then polish with acetone.
apply masking tape around the fitting and the deck. This will keep the sealant in the seal and nowhere else (e.g. on the deck and the fitting) and will make the cleanup easy.
lift the fitting, and squirt in the sealant on the deck and on the fitting. For through-bolts, squirt a ring of sealant around the bolt.
wait for the sealant to partially cure (30 mins for silicone), before tightening the fitting on the deck. This is to ensure that the sealant is compressed between to the fitting and the deck and not squirted out.
Wait for full cure (usually 24 hours) and clean up. Carefully cut around the edges with a knife and remove the tape.

Marine silicone sealant works well for most purposes, although silicone cannot be used for sealing certain plastics.

I've just bought a Newport 41 from a friend of mine. She's a sailboat that friendly enough to deal with the regular 25-35 knots we get here in San Francisco Bay, old enough so that I can maintain her myself without descreasing her value. She has enough standing room and space enough to be liveable. And, perhaps most importantly, I can afford her. Having moved to the US from the UK means that I've had trouble getting boat loans. My credit union agreed to finance 50% of this one.

I've got half an idea of moving into the boat in a few months. We'll see how it goes.

I had the boat surveyed about a month ago. Although there's quite a list of issues (which is what you'll always get if your surveyor is good), the surveyor like the boat quite a lot. So, after some wrangling with the bank and emptying my piggy bank of savings, I bought the boat.

What work needs to be done?

Plenty! The boat's hauled out at yard at the moment. Here are my immediate plans:

Replace the standing rigging. She was originally a racer-cruiser design and so was originally fitted with beautiful solid rod rigging. The purpose of the rigging it to support the mast. From the top of the mast, "stays" support the mast fore and aft and "shrouds" from each side. Rod rigging has the advantage of reducing the weight up high. This in turn keeps the boat more level and allows it to sail better (faster and closer to wind).

However, the rod looks like it dates back from the boat's original construction, making it over 25 years old. Some people say rod rigging can last pretty much indefinitely. Unless it has been fractured, shows signs of pitting or corrosion then, in theory, it should be sound. However, the downside of rod rigging is that it is generally very hard to determine when it is time to replace it. Rod rigging failure is generally catastrophic - happening without warning and in heavy wind conditions. A fully loaded sail pulls tons of force on the rigging. If it fails, the mast will likely break. At best, repair would be extremely expensive. At worst, it could lead to fatal injuries. So, clearly some serious thought required about this.

Replacement rod is prohibitively expensive these days (x3 the cost of replacing it with stainless steel wire). I'll be refitting with wire.

My surveyor recommended replacement, as did the original riggers and my local rigger (all of whom have either liability or financial motives from recommending replacement). It hurts the old salts at my boat yard and sailing club to see my rod rigging go and recommended keeping it - other than its age, there's really little evidence that it needs to go. I think they feel the boat will be castrated. Frankly, I think this is the wrong way to think about it. This boat's competitive racing days are long gone, and the safety of the people who sail in her are my responsibility.

Replacing the rigging will be very expensive. However, it's cheaper than a new mast and buys peace of mind and confidence to go out to places where fears about the integrity of the rigging would otherwise prevent me.

Move the propane tank to the stern locker. Unlike in Europe, boats in the US generally use propane as fuel for the galley stove. Propane has a higher calorific value than natural gas, meaning smaller gas tanks, and also produces less water vapor (and so condensation), thus keeping the interior drier. However, unlike natural gas, propane is heavier than air. Leaks flow into and fill the interior of the boat, causing explosions the next time any electrical switch it used. Propane tanks should be kept in lockers than contain a dedicated drain in the bottom that leads directly overboard. The boat does already have such a locker. However, the drain in the bottom of the locker leads overboard at a point above the top of the locker. This is so stupid it is untrue. Leaking gas will spill out of the top of the locker before it reaches the overboard drain. However installed this needs beating around the head.

I'm going to get my yard to relocate the propane tank to the stern locker and have them add a new drain through the transom.

Replace the lifelines. Lifelines are steel wires that surround the topsides of the boat to keep people from falling off the boat. They're rusty and its time to replace them. This should be done as soon as possible -- while the boat is out of the water, it's quite a nasty fall to the concrete below.

Replace the stuffing box with a dripless one. The propeller shaft connects the engine to the propeller. The engine is on the inside and the propeller is on the outside. The shaft passes through the stuffing box and the waxy-fiber packing material inside wrapped tightly around the shaft keeps the water on the water outside. Well, almost. Older stuffing boxes (like mine) require a small amount of water to seep in in order to lubricate the packing material. This leaks in to the bilges (the lowest parts of a boat's interior) and sits there until it is pumped out.

It turns out that the aulminum fuel tank on my boat also sits in the bilge. This is daft design flaw that ensures that, unless the bliges are kept dry, the fuel tank will eventually corrode away.

So, a dripless stuffng box it is.

Mast work. Since the mast needs to be pulled out in order to replace the rigging, now is a good time to do work on the mast. Hopefully, it'll be another 10 years before it needs to be pulled again. I'm going to replace the wiring, install an anchor light, replace the VHF antenna and maybe replace the wind instruments. There's a few spots of corrosion too where steel fitting have been mounted onto almunium plates. These probably

Similarly, while the mast it out, now would be a good time to pull out, clean, inspect and rebed my chainplates. The chainplates are stainless steel fittings that connect the rigging to the hull through the deck. Chainplate failure has the same consequences as rigging failure. The plates pass through the deck and the portion inside the deck should be inspected.