Sunday 13 August 2017

Erection problems

So I'm being kept away form the water by jobs on the boat that need to be done while it's warm. Too warm it would seem, even for 10am on an otherwise wet month of August. I was worried that my West 205 epoxy, with a use by date of 01/01/2012 would not go off. I shouldn't have bothered looking for a local supplier of glue. As I can confirm that even if the hardener is dark brown the stuff goes off much quicker than you want it too!!! More of that in a bit...

So jobs to do. It's been awhile since I've sailed, and to be frank the uniqueness of rolling the boat over for the small performance gain I have decided is not worth it. This may have something to do with age? Needing to save as much energy as possible? ;-) or just that the foreshore in the UK is never really conducive to this procedure. Oh and the fact that the original downhaul line was about to break. Which meant it needed to be changed anyway.


Unfortunately this meant 'Drimmeling' out the spinnaker piston lock that the mast was originally built with, so I decided to put a mast head sheave box in instead. Tick.

After spending the requisite - almost £30 for a 10ps worth of injected plastic. Just because it is to do with sailing. I installed the mast head sheave. Meaning that I now have a conventional external main halyard system. No more rolling the boat over. Tick.

Next carbon over the holes that the old halyard system used. As a test for the super out of date epoxy. To my surprise the glue worked fine! Ace, my wallet is relieved. I think it's important to seal the mast. Especially the opening at the mast head. This should stop / slow the water coming in the mast when capsized. Giving me a little extra time to get not the board.

Doh! Whilst transporting the mast I seem to have lost the rotating mast foot. Balls! This is a problem, I'm hoping it fell off in the boat park. Otherwise it's air freight from NZ time, as they are not an off the shelf item.

I'm really do hope I can find this sucker, as I need to get my water wings before October and the Lyme Regis S.C Nationals. It's been quite a while since I last sailed (4?5? years!), and I know fitness is going to be an issue as I know I have a complete lack of it. My back isn't getting any better with age. Sitting at a desk all day, Scoliosis, tight hip flexors from a reasonable youth athletics career and falling out a tree all cause me quite a bit of pain. One of the reasons I went for the 3.7 in the first place. Hiking killed my back.

Back to the jobs.

Now to replace the 'intermediate shrouds'. Originally #384 had 3mm wire inters bonded to the mast. After a while sailing the boat the electrolysis created between the carbon and the stainless corroded the wire at the intersection. Causing the wire to break. At the time I decided to replace these with SK78, believing in the hype about it's, No / V Low stretch qualities. This resulted in a loss of power. As they did stretch.


Guy who I bought the boat back from had had some wire inters made up. So whilst sorting the mast it was a good time to put these on.

Now for the big test of the glue! I shouldn't have worried! I was intending to sink the hard eye into a bog mix of glue, by wrapping it down with peel ply. I wasn't working slow, but it seems 10am sun shine and a black mast was to much for my filler mix, and it went off before I got the carbon top layer over it and wrapped it down. Meaning I now have a large bump on the front of my mast.

Oh well I'm sure it will be secure enough. It just doesn't look very pretty. At some point I may cut it back and re-do it, but for now it will have to do.

Need to get on the water.

BTW - if you see a brass fitting that looks like this at B.S.C it's from my mast!!! Send me a message here!













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