I had the boat hauled out for the survey at the start of December. Since mid January, I've been thinking, "just another two weeks and it'll finished for sure." It pretty much eaten my weekends between then and now and has been a big source of tension between Wendy and I.
So what's happened in the last months? Here's a list of the work that the yard did:
- Pull mast, install rigging, re-install mast and tune rigging
- Install new VHF antenna
- Repaint bottom
- Service propeller
- Install mast boot
- Fabricate new backstay chainplate
- Replaced two broken ball valves
- Install dripless stuffing box
Things the yard said they'd do and decided they couldn't get around to:
- Relocate propane tank
- Install a sump pump for the shower
Things that went wrong:
- When the boat was on the hard, I tested the through-hull ball valves. One of them had become jammed. Closer inspection revealed that in this and in another, the stem from the handle to the ball had sheared. I can't underestimate how serious a problem this could have turned out to be -- the valves gave the appearance of being closed when, in fact, they were open to the sea. Its the kind of thing you'd hope that your surveyor would spot. I figure she *must* have at least exercised all the handles... but then, if she did, I'm not sure how the problem developed while the boat was out of the water.
- I didn't get the yard to agree to a time-line for the work they did -- so, it took from December to May for a half finished job.
- Either the yard or the riggers mis-measured the original rigging and so new SS wire was cut too short for my mast. Luckily, I'd asked the the riggers to keep the original rigging so they were to (eventually) able to fix the problem.
- The yard's crane squirted oil all over my deck leaving quite a few large stains.
- I broke the bleed valve banjo bolt when I overtightened it. It took over a month dealing with parts distributors to get a replacement that didn't fit.
- I wish I'd completely de-rigged the mast and put the contents of the boat and the sails into storage. Would have made working much easier.
- I broke off the masthead fly while working on the mast.
- A friend of mine, Paul, noticed that the yard hadn't tightened one of the locking nuts on my forestay. Furling up the jib could have unscrewed my forestay...
- The mast boot the yard installed was a pretty shoddy job. It had split along the length of the boom-vang bracket a week after they fitted it. I brought it up with them and they wrapped more tape over the top. Not sure whether it will seal. We'll see. Looks pretty ugly.
Other work we've done while the boat has been out of the water includes:
- Installed new lifelines
- Removed SS mast fittings, sanded, primed, and painted mast beneath, and rebedded fittings
- Installed new anchor/tricolor light
- Design aluminium riser mount for masthead light and has it machined
- Installed new steaming light
- Ran new electrical wiring from thoughout mast to distribution panel
- Rebedded all chainplate covers
- Replaced wiring from bilge pump and float switch to distribution panel
- Replaced masthead sheaves with roller-bearing sheaves
- Replaced two fraying wire halyards with rope
- Polished topsides
- Greased mast track
- Replaced masthead fly
- Replaced docklines and fenders
- Repainted mast-step (and replaced lucky coin)
- De-rigged and rerigged boom
- Changed primary fuel filter
- Had new banjo bolt fabricated
- Replaced engine fresh water pump gasket
- Pumped out leaked coolant from bilge
Wendy, Jonathan and Eric have helped out with a lot of this. Russ has also been a big help and constant source of advice. He also found the new halyards on Craigslist and put in eye slices and shackles.
When I got to the boat, I was happy to find that the yard had heard that we'd got the engine running earlier in the week and had moved the boat out its place 3 deep in a raft and onto the long dock. We had to wait a hour or so for the tide to give us clearance. The engine fired up nicely and after swinging after the nose at the dock, we made our way into the channel. The new sheaves and newly greased track worked great and the main went up very easily. We received some cheerios from people at the dock who'd been watching the work on the boat and made our way out into the Bay and up to Alcatraz.
The boat seemed to handle just fine. The new rigging looked great. Russ noted that the lowers looked a little slack, but the otherwise the mast looked pretty fine and Jonathan noted that the helm felt more balanced than it did previously. Weather was overcast with a brisk breeze.
Up around Alcatraz we cross the path of the Master Mariner's Race where all the old woodies compete. We followed the race for a while and crashed their finish line before putting the boat back home in Emeryville.
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