Fog and Rain Slowing Me Down

The fog this morning was so thick I could cut it with a rigging knife.  It had also left things so humid that the boat was completely soaked in water droplets.  The deck was so wet that even when I toweled off a section to work on a new rivulet of water would run through the cleaned area within a few minutes.  This pretty much stopped me from working on the stanchions first thing.

Instead I spend some time replacing the dodger clips.  I'm not sure why anyone would install chintzy plastic clips for something like a dodger, but alas, there they were in all their cracked and faded glory.  I bought a bag of 25 twist lock clips from Sailrite which are all stainless and much higher quality.  The hole pattern is ever-so-slightly different than my originals, but close enough to work.

I ran into a few holes that had been stripped out over the years of over-tightening.  These will be drilled out over sized and then filled with thickened epoxy.  After a good drying time I'll re-drill them and install the clips.

Last night was the first good rain Ravat has seen without a tarp cover.  My makeshift cockpit drains did their job well.  Unfortunately, the many holes in the cabin where grab rails pass through let water in.  To address that issue I lightly countersunk the interior side of the holes and filled with thickened epoxy.  That will stop the rain from coming in while I'm doing other things.  The grab rails can't go back on until the panels are back up, and that will be a while yet.

I did manage to get another set of stanchions mounted on deck before the storms kicked back in.  I have also packaged up my original life lines and prepared them to be sent to Rigging Only in Massachusetts.  After researching life lines on various forums I kept seeing this company's name popping up both with favorable pricing and excellent quality.

My original lines were 1/4" plastic coated.  I will be replacing them with 3/16" uncoated 1x19 316 stainless lines and machine swaged fittings.  This is in keeping with current safety best practices.  They also look very cool.  I'll be anxious to get them back, as I'll no doubt have all of the stanchions ready by then.

My final act of boat-buildery for the day was some work on the stanchion backing plates I've built out of 1/4" fiberglass board.  This stuff is almost ipossible to cut, but will do the job very nicely.  I needed to make the non-gate stanchion plates 1/2" narrower to fit properly.  I also needed to adjust the shape of the gate stanchion plates to ensure they'd go in level.  I then pre-drilled the holes, and now all should be ready to mount as soon as I have the over sized bolts they'll require.  That's an upgrade I feel very good about.

The weather continues to look promising for the weekend, so I remain optimistic that I'll be able to get the barrier coat applied soon.  She's going to look incredible!  And once that barrier coat goes on I will reward myself by installing the new Ravat graphics on the stern.

Electrical Planning: Wiring Schedule

Having nearly completed the structural work, inhibited only by temperatures, I am now moving on to the electrical, plumbing, and mechanical systems.  The electrical system seems to be the one which is most demanding of my thoughts at the moment.  I have discovered that most of the wires in the boat are not correct in one way or another.  I believe I have located one or two which are terminated properly, and we wont' even discuss the rat's nest that sits above my engine bay.  Time for some radical refitting.

The first thing I did was to rough out a list of every major electrical component I have on the boat, and any items which I intend to realistically add to the boat within a reasonable time frame.  I then started messing around with options for combining these devices into circuits based on load, locations, or use.

The next step was to grab some images from Google and start putting these into a diagram which includes a DC panel, and each device.  The devices were then "wired" with lines on the diagram to show circuit paths.  After ensuring I hadn't forgot anything, power consumption per device was recorded.  This was mostly done by downloading user guides or specification sheets from vendor web sites.  In some cases I found a device which was "close enough" to what I have, or perhaps a bit more powerful to be conservative.

The final step involves estimating wire run lengths.  This is critical because ABYC codes require that an appropriate gauge of wire be used with respect to lengths of run and amps of load.  These wire gauges are identified using voltage drop tables.  Since my boat is about a 30 minute drive from my home, and I can't be there all the time, I needed an alternative model to plan these wire runs.  I ended up creating a roughly dimensioned drawing that would get me "close enough" to pick wire gauges.  I have posted a PDF version of the Rough Internal Dimensions Drawing on this site for reference.

The final drawing tells me the length of each cable run, how many amps the circuit may potentially carry, how it is fed and grounded, and the size of fuses.  The drawing is evolving frequently, but I'll try to keep the on-line version relatively current.  I have also uploaded the Ravat Electrical Plan file as a PDF document for reference should anyone else feel like refitting a CS27 and find it useful.

First on the agenda is getting the AC charging system installed, and the batteries reinstalled.  This of course is awaiting weather warm enough to allow me to paint the aft cabin bulkheads and cockpit lockers.  Hopefully the weather will soon cooperate and release its tenacious grip on winter.

A Little Progress in a Lot of Places

I've been nibbling away at the to-do list a little bit at a time.  No big items to cross off yet, but a big push forward along a very wide line.  

• I have completed the re-installation of the transom steering quadrant cut-out, this time through-bolted and bedded in butyl.  The transom area is also fully potted in thickened epoxy, so it's solid as a rock and watertight.
• Backing plates are installed on the toilet intake, head sink drain, and waste discharge holes.  I used 1/2" FRP sheets from McMaster-Carr to save laminating time, and they came out great!  Much, much better than the rotten plywood I peeled off the hull.
• I fought a brutal battle with the cockpit drains.  The through hulls were installed with locking nuts rather than proper seacocks, and when the boat was built they gel-coated the threads.  This made it impossible to remove the fixtures.  My recourse was to break out the big Sawzall and cut a star patter in the through-hulls after slicing off the in-line valve.  A quick grind with the Dremel took care of the mushroom fitting, and a few hammer taps later it all came out.
• The jib tracks were reinstalled using 3m 4200 because I didn't want to wait for the butyl to arrive.  My mistake, my regret.  I have a mess to clean up now, but I hope they will remain sealed.  If not I'll clean them up and use the butyl.
• Another few blisters I'd missed on the hull have been faired.
• The long stress cracks on the keel-hull joint area are now repaired.
• The rudder hardware is 90% faired over with my favorite 3m Premium marine filler.

My next milestone will be installing the backing pads on the cockpit drains, rebedding the drains in the cockpit sole, and getting the new seacocks in place so the rain won't fill the bilge.  Pumping the bilge is a colossal waste of boat building time!