Winter 2018-2019

For those still interested - boat DID NOT get painted, due to lack of help. Now earliest launch date is late May. That’s how it goes - you miss a three-week window, you wait 9 months.

Yes; basically this means I had $350 to have the boat covered but could find no-one to help paint. I shall hire the lads at the yard to help as soon as I can take off the wrapping. They'll take my money.

Pics do not show it but progress is being made. What you do not see here:

I have been buying and trading sailboat hardware on eBay for years but lately it has become most productive.  Most recently I acquired outhaul blocks and blocks for running backstays.

I designed the in-boom outhaul-rigging system and figured out where and how to cut off the back of the boom (it was designed to reach the aft end of the cockpit, where the mainsheet would go; but having installed a bridge deck for the traveler I no longer need so long a boom and will cut it off more in keeping with the E measurement which is 8 ft.).  You'd better believe I won't cut it off till I have the boat actually rigged with sails on though!

I designed the tang for jiffy-reefing line and for topping lift.   Machinist extraordinaire John Steinmacher promises to help with this.

I have enough winches.  This is important because they all have had to be 1970s-1980s chrome-plated Lewmars, in keeping with the boat as a ‘period piece’; and most people do not replace these - as they are too small to come in self-tailing models, so what would be the point?  Two of the ones I have need to be replated.  Anyone know any decent plating shops?

I cleaned out the whole boat.  This is incredible progress.   The poor boat has been a toolbox/woodshop for so long it’s actually kept work from being done.  Of course everything now is scattered all over the steps of my house; but the truth is I have very little major woodwork left to do and am no concentrating on finishing the plumbing and electrical system, ripping out and replacing a rotten bulkhead to fit in a refrigerator box, and finishing a few things on the deck as well as can be done under the Shrinkwrap.

The daunting storage bill is the worst problem.   Anyone know better places for crowdfunding than GoFundMe?

- JC2

Internal pole lift

Since this boat is so small, it's unlikely I'll ever have a proper whole-cockpit awning without setting it over the mainsail cover.  So when in the ICW or anywhere that calls for more powering than sailing, I won't have the opportunity to set any sail to assist the motor other than the jib itself, which is too far forward to allow the boat to balance under the one sail alone.  What's needed is a smaller sail more centrally set, fore-and-aft, that can pull reasonably well on most points of sail in light air... like an inner forestaysail.  And, more importantly, it will also serve to take over when/if the motor fails.

This is more important than most people realize.  A prudent mariner should never enter a dodgy or unfamiliar harbor with the mainsail cover drawn and snapped closed and the headsail bagged or lashed to the deck.  (I know-- most people will claim that having a roller-furling headsail resolves this.  But the point still bears consideration.)  In such a state, if you were to suffer an engine failure you'd be hard-pressed to get anything up and drawing air before you crashed or went aground.  It's a matter of simple seamanship.

I've had the idea to have a regular spinnaker-pole lift that can also be used as a halyard for a small jib, what I call the 'canal sail', something small but useful to assist the motor, provide safety and redundancy and maintain steerage in freaky currents and conditions.  I decided to use the former winch mount on the starboard side of the mast and to reuse the old Seaboard halyard winch for this.  (The port side gets another winch base and a Lewmar #6; more on this later).

This exit block came from DAMCO (Dwyer Aluminum Mast CO.)  These people are the very best in the business, helpful, sensible and economical.  This block cost $26.00 and handles 5/16" line (actually 3/8" would fit but oughtn't be loaded to capacity).  A Schaefer one is over $90.00.  I cut this hole and mounted this thing using tapped 10-24 screws; it will get removed when it comes time for paint and then reinstalled.

I calculated the location using an original 1973 blueprint of this boat's sail plan which Skip Moorhouse, sailmaker and first owner of Hunter 25 hull no. 1, let me inspect.  Assuming a theoretical inner forestay about 3'9" aft of the headstay, it would land on the foredeck about 4' aft of the headstay plate.  So the place for this block is about 9'7" down from the top of the mast.  In this way I could, if I chose to, fit a tang here to accommodate an inner forestay and running backstays and so configure this little boat as a bona-fide cutter.  I just figure if you're going to install something like this, you might as well make some sense of it, if only in theory.

At the other end I have to add an exit plate on the starboard side, rather high up in order ti lead it down to the winch.  The existing two exit plates are for the two main halyards.

In reusing the old Seaboard winch I have to keep in mind that the handle for it is a hexagonal drive, unlike modern standard square-drive winches.  Apparently in the early days of top-action winches (about 1968-1978), there was no standard top-drive handle format (sounds eerily familiar to the development patterns of other technology!).  Fortunately I have one of these handles; though it might have been easy enough to just use the Seaboard winch as a snubbing winch and use arm strength to cleat it tightly each time-- it's only a pole lift on a 10-ft pole.  But now I have to ensure that I have room on the spar for two handle holders, one for each handle.

* * *