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 They estimated, with materials, the job would cost about $1200. That's not bad, but Gena wouldn't have it! She marched of to a local scrap dealer and found all of the pipe, unions, couplers, and elbows we would need. She then cut and fit everything and took sections in for them to weld. Over a couple of days the job was done in time for our next outing. She toiled late into the evening to get the insulation on, and make the aluminum casings for that out of duct aluminum. Perseverance!

  Lucky that space under the steps to the poop deck is there, and empty. A good space to add almost 2 feet to the height of the system.

  The exhaust works great! No more smell from the leaky flex pipe, and we can rest comforted that only a knock down would allow water into the muffler's catch...if the compression allowed it that far.

The camera must pivot and rotate as well. I made all of the stainless framework before we let the welder and cutters go, and Gena gave me some gears from her ancient Meccano set (circ. 1950's) which may be valuable now. They are very heavy duty, not a toy really.

This wouldn't do for us though because of the HF antennas on both aft stays. I don't know how much the would affect the tuning, or SWR, but because my tuner is the automatic/memory/frequency style, I didn't want to chance it.

I also think it might put some unnecessary strain on the aft stay it was attached to. Vibration from wind?? The cable rusting under the attachments?

Ok, I just think it looks stupid really. Being an X-CB'er from way back, I like things that stick straight up like antennas. OMG! What am I saying!

These brackets are simple enough, but I had to stare at the photo for a while.

The top bracket has the U-bolt plates welded at 90 degrees. One for 1" the other for 2".

The bottom is basically the same but angled from the center. I was pretty happy they fit!

Looking at the tall skinny photo to the right, you can see the orange holder the pole sits inside of. I clamped this with some hose so the clamps could be tightened enough for grip, but not to crush. The section inside is very heavy, probably has steel rod inside of it. This makes the pole float upright.

The cap at the very top has a fine string tied to it, then to the nearest backstay. When thrown overboard, the cap pops off, and a bright little flag unfurls. Pretty cool huh?

The rest of the boat needs some work, due to damage from the move, rub damage from trying to figure out the rig and lines, and just specks that somehow were missed during the painting and haven't showed up until salt water hit them.

We can feel OK with this as many a metal boat building guru has exclaimed " coat and re-coat steel until you think you're being ridiculously overcautious, then give is a couple of more!" This rule seems to stand for many things when seriously cruising. We were told that of the manual pump-flush style toilets. Pump until your arm is sore, then pump until you think other crew think you are losing your sanity, then pump a few more just to be sure! We installed an electric with a maciator just to be sure. :)

  Well, back to the waterline. (I do carry on in person as well, I can't help it)

She smoothed it more anyway.

In the photo (right) you can see the blue Ceram-Kote on the side and how it has dusted off nicely in the UV. This is why we have decided to put something more customary, hence predictable, on over it.

We considered using the Ceram-Kote "thane" proposed by the company, but it would be difficult to find/get posted/ get sent by UPS so we're going with Interlux Brightside single part paint.

The nasty thing about Brightside is it's  "bright", meaning high gloss. This makes us a bit nervous because, lets face it, we didn't spend 500k$ and a year fairing her. 

I won't make the same mistake twice! If you look at the photos below, you will notice the water line becomes quite large as it curls under aft. This is so from a side perspective, it appears to be totally even. As I was laying out the tape, I kept trying to imagine what the heck I was thinking when I did the other waterline? I can only attribute it to "rush, rush, rush" and I knew what I had done afterwards, but had to accept it.

The method I used was this. First the proposed line height  closest to vertical must be measured. Then find an object ( I used a pack of cigarettes) that can be slid easily along the top of a small level. Then use this object on top of the level ( top corner of level to the bottom of the line) to mark the top. As the boat curves under ( a bit near the bow, but a lot aft ) the object will move out further and further. The line is only 3" amidships, but almost 1 foot aft. If you look hard at the photos at the bottom of this section, you can see it is in fact even. Some people curve the  line up into  a bootstrap shape to avoid this potentially touchy area, but I know it wouldn't "go" with any of the lines on our boat.

Anyway, the young apprentice came over and buttoned it up. He was using a TIG welder. What a nice piece of equipment!! If we had know (a) that TIGs aren't just for aluminum and (b) that they are under $1000 new and (c) could weld stainless without spatter, we would have bought one years ago!

I am also very surprised that nobody in the forum has mentioned TIGs. I helped my X study for his welding courses, but never saw anything that would portray that SS could be welded this way. Of course back then they were prohibitively expensive. There you go.

The following coats will take care of the transparency issue. When I put lots on, I caused lots of problems. The paint wanted to run, it bubbled excessively, especially under the foam roller which I traded for a short pile type of roller, and it took days to dry. I kept having to go back 10 feet to flatten the bubbles and fix runs. The first time with this stuff was really touch and go.

Over the hull side/waterline painting week, I learned this:
-Don't put it on thick. Spread it out as much as possible. I used only 1 quart on each side believe it or not!
-If it's going to be hot, do the sunny side first. This way the paint won't go on too thick (as it does when the hull is hot)
-If you spot a mistake, don't go too far back or it'll mess up the pattern.
-Using a roller will not leave a dimpled look on a smooth surface. This paint is self leveling. A roller does allow even dispersion. Because the original surface of our boat was dimpled, so is the Brightside.

  Gena made sure to mask the bottom of the waterline to get the anti-fouling paint on. We looked at several different types of anti-fouling, and decided to go with Micron CSC for it's seeming compromise between ablative and hard coats. For us it's the right stuff. But the type of paint  so much depends on whether a boat will be sitting at a marina most of the time (or at anchor) or underway more than not, or in  a river, or may need to be hauled out in the near future.

CSC is less environmentally disastrous, so I can sort of sleep at night, sort of. At least tin has been banished. That has probably saved a lot of fish and coral worldwide.

This stuff is $300 bucks a gallon, and it took 4 gallons to do this. It'd better last! We were lucky to have found some on sale at Nikka in Steveston for $200, but then add the GST, then the PST and 12+ rollers and 5 cans of Xylene for thinner. It all came to over $1000 again. I always say ( and have said many times in the past few years ) no matter what you want done to a boat, it ends up costing a thousand dollars. I hate being right!

The waterline and sides cost about $300, but we had to buy a random orbital sander and $30 worth of Canadian Tire disks which turned out to be garbage, then another 10 good disks from Rods Building Supply in Steveston, etc. So about $500 was spent there. It's only money.

  If doing the sides, the bottom, and the waterline wasn't enough, why not do the bulwark rails top side? We just have way too much time right?

  I noticed these little dots of rust forming in various places, mostly on the starboard side along and on the bulwark rails. At first I blamed Gena for not cleaning up after drilling holes for deck hardware, there are a few areas nastily stained by steel dust/condensation rust, but these looked deeper into the crevices. Then I noticed a few tiny cracks in some areas. Probably from shrinkage in the cold Alberta winter. There's not many, but the dots kept me busy with tape and pen for about an hour. They are tiny, but should be dealt with. As we have heard, the small rust spots should be fixed quickly before they become big rust problems. We have some spare Ceram-Kote white, so Gena whipped me up a tiny batch after I sanded around all of the rust "zits". They are so small, they don't even show up in the photo above.

There were also nasty scrapes from where the solent stay ( still under research) was tied on to the rail. Many things are coming to light when dealing with the sea. Anything that rubs turns into a mess in a very short time...

When we got to talking about the rails, Gena proposed that we over coat the whole thing with white "Color Your Hippo" left from the decks. Why not I thought. That is yet to be done as the clouds in the background decided to dump water on us for the last couple of days. That's ok, we need a rest. As can be seen, even though the original W.L. showed the aft to be sitting too low, the new waterline, that was marked from the sludge build up while in the water for a month, shows pretty parallel with the lines under the portlights. It also looks much more realistic!
The Interlux Brightside is slowly hardening into a high gloss dimpled  yet smooth finish. No wonder car enthusiasts are using this for paint. Our worries about the hull looking ugly with a high gloss were unfounded. Granted, it's not perfect, but it looks  fine enough for us. ( Nobody was bursting out laughing as they walked by)   Our temporary neighbor, Nigel, the owner of a fine Ferro cement schooner he built some years ago in Zimbabwe explained how he carefully administered his 2 part coating in 1 foot squares with first a roller, then a brush, carefully dragging the paint out until the foam brush "squeaked" then he'd stop. His boat still looks awsome years later. We want to sail first, then make pretty later, once that becomes more important.
As he is into his 70's, we probably have a ways to go before that. I only hope we will still be sailing by then, with the kind of experience we can only glean from  an old salt. I tried the foam brush thing and indeed it does squeak. I threw away the brush and continued rolling.

Gena stol;e the zipper, and removed the Zeus snaps (even though they weren't used) but best of all, it gave us a good idea of what we needed to do to get the proper fit.

  The old cover was short by 3 feet. This is likely because our boom is extra long by 2 feet. The forward size was also too small and couldn't wrap around the boom. This is because of 3 reasons:
1) The Batt-cars stacked go much higher than your average track slide style. We never even thought of this until we saw them on there!
2) Because of the above, the battens also sit higher and can't bend into the boom/mast corner very well.
3) The sail is at least 12 gauge and besides folding bigger, the lower batt-cars are far enough apart that the sail hangs over quite a bit, thus creating yet more bulk.

  Back to the cover, any "rub" areas, like the bit that covers the head board up top, and the aft corners of the boom, was doubled up with leather or extra layers of SunBrella . the open flap above the zipper was closed with to velcro tabs, and the top has a rope woven through. This may become a hook in the future because it's really hard to stand off the side of the mast and tie a knot up there with nothing to prop against. Gena held my butt, but had to stand on the bumrail herself to reach me!

The original configuration for that sail was for a furling, and also was too long for our inner forstay by a few feet. We were thinking about using a furling on the inner, as many people do these days, but decided the extra windage, and needing to protect the leech and the foot with sunbrella, wasn't worth the effort. (Not to mention the extra cost!)

This means grommets, hanks, and re-enforcing will need to be added, as well as moving the tack and clew re-enforcing plates to the new position. A big job, but hey, there's lots of time now!

Moving up the foot required the plates from the original foot be duplicated (as we have no idea how much is required, best to copy!) the sewn on in the new position. After getting to 10 layers or so, the machine was grunting a bit. A few #18 needles were broken, and a #20 bent. Sail fabric is *so* dense. You have to sew it to believe it! This machine can easily sew 16 layers of Sunbrella, but 10 layers of sail canvass is about it. I tried pushing a regular needle through 1 layer and it was bloody hard without a palm. It gives you a real appreciation of how powerful sail sewing machines are.

  Some web strapping that was removed from the original tack is hand sewn on to the new tack. The "awl" shown has a spool of waxed twine inside and has a large handle with which to push the triangle shaped needle through. A very useful tool for jobs too big for the sailors palm.

This web was sewn on with 3 sets of stitches each side, offset from one side to the other.

The thread used was nylon for the heavy areas, and polyester in the less crucial or long runs (as nylon shrinks supposedly)

The smallest corner of the clew has been doubled up with some leather to add yet even more rigidity, and 3 straps to spread out the load.

Notice the marks for the two grommets ( photo below)  in the strap weren't continued. That would weaken the strap too much for only an adjustment cord, so it was moved inward instead.

  For a good book on sail making, we would recommend "Sail Makers Apprentice" to get a really good idea on how much one needs to do to build a good sail.

Some of the techniques are a little strange from what I've read, but they are time tested and true based on ancient and modern sailors experience. Best we listen!

Ian with ocean rigging found us a track stop gate for the bottom of the track. This is so the storm sail can be loaded on without being hoisted up. This way, it'd be ready for the "big blow" if it happened, and easy to engage.

Unfortunately, the gate wasn't big enough for the slides. The slides that may have fit are expensive and rare, so changing the gate seemed to be a good solution.

  Notice that everything for coastal sailing (recreational, day sailing etc.) is readily available. But when it comes to the extra heavy duty stuff, track, clevises, bolts whatever, everything is hard to find and expensive. Supply and demand I suppose. This means that either most boats doing blue water are owned by rich people, or most boats doing blue water are under rigged for blue water cruising! Hmmm.

  One of the things I can show off is the boat wiring program I wrote. It, like everything else, isn't finished, and may never be finished as every time something electrical changes on the boat, it must change to be up-to-date. It is, in my opinion, a very good idea though.

  The complexities of wiring and electronics in our boat is quite vast, and amounts to a lot of paper in the form of service manuals, drawings, handwritten sketches and attempts to record the breaker configurations and distribution of power, NMEA, Ethernet, video, coaxial and signal connections. Every time we need to know a circuit to hook in something new, or troubleshoot etc. It's an hour job to decipher all the documentation in order to find the thing!
The last time we were on the boat, early December, we needed to find a breaker for something that needed to be shut down, and it took only seconds for me to find. It was awesome!

  Sound effects, smooth graphics, and cool look aside, the program is, and has already been, very useful. I can start it up and find any circuit in our boat in seconds based on position in the boat, or if there's a button, using that. Most of the inner circuits are nested ( some pretty deep) but, because it's modular, can provide endless data to the most minute detail on any system in our "ship" just like on Enterprise.

  The sample has blank spots, is missing a lot of the cool effects, and some of the more detailed schematics etc, so if you want more, then the full version is worth the download time. Each time I update, there will be more and more. In the .zip file is a shortcut, or you can click on the test2.exe directly after unzipping it.  To unzip, just right click on boatwiring-web.zip in explorer wherever you downloaded it to, then select extract files.

A handle was sewn to the top so they can be easily pulled off in a pinch, but also so a rope can be strung through them if we're in a particularly windy place, although I couldn't imagine wind catching these being so tight and all.

We were unsure of how they would fit / look because the boat isn't here, so we had to wait for our next trip out.

I wonder if we should embroider "DD" into them?

The smaller covers for the mainsail sheets had to be done slightly different.

The solution was to just Velcro the bottom together. (Photo left)

Cool!

It consists of a round cylinder shape on top, then a box shape for the mount, then a curved cylinder shape for the bottom. A short cord sewn on is used to secure it. (photo left)

Ya gotta love it!

Now the only thing remaining is the windlass cover, which may take some planning and snaps, and the bimini of course. Guess you can say she'll have it covered soon enough! ( sorry couldn't  resist that one! ar ar!)