Wednesday 29 April 2015

Re-masted and Afloat

Every spring I spend a few weeks and a small fortune in a marathon of boat maintenance projects. As all my time, effort, and money go into this I seek consolation in the thought that next spring there will be little to do. Unfortunately, during every sailing season something either breaks or turns-out not to work well and the list of jobs for next springs starts to grow again.
This year was not different, but finally on the grey and windy afternoon of the 29th of April, Mekicevica was re-masted and re-launched for another season of sailing adventures.
Mekicevica and crew, ready for another season of sailing adventures.

Monday 27 April 2015

New Winches

Another item on the maintenance schedule was the replacement of the winches. The old ones were... old. More important, as it as usual in ye olde days, both of Mekicevica's headsail-sheet winches turned clockwise. This meant that the starboard sheet had to be wrapped such that it often caused over-ridding. Very often after a tacking to port the sheet would get jammed, requiring us to bear away until the main-sail took the wind off the head-sail allowing the sheet to be freed. Not only annoying, but once in a blow on the Waddenzee when sailing with reefed head-sail only and not much room to manoeuvre, we ended in a tricky situation.
After spending a lot of time thinking-up clever ways to change the way the sheet was led to the winch, I discovered that these days you can get winches that turn anti-clockwise. Problem solved!
I installed two new winches and while I was at it replaced the jam-cleats as well.
New starboard sheet winch. Note that it turns anti-clockwise.

Sunday 26 April 2015

The Big Mast Step Project

As it seems to happen often at these latitudes, early April puts on a show of summer weather making you think: "Oh, no! Sailing season is here and I still have a mile-long list of maintenance jobs to do!"
Of course, once you finish these jobs the weather turns nasty, but that is another story.
Top of the list of the maintenance this winter was the mast step.
When we got a new mast for Mekicevica, finding exactly where to fix the mast step was a bit of guess-work. As it turns out, my guess was wrong. I put the mast too far forward (by a few cm), and not in line with the supporting bracket. Because of the sailing we do, often involving fresh winds, the rig needs to be tight, and this caused compression on the deck.
The effects of mast compression became worrying.
It also turns-out that the Mantas only have a wooden core in one place: under the mast step. Possibly because wood is a great material to take compression, unless when t goes completely rotten, as was the case with Mekicevica. First step: get the whole thing out!
Rotten wood core removed.
After hours of sanding and cleaning, a new wood core went in and was set in place by copious amounts of epoxy with high density filler.
Core replaced and epoxied in.
After days of sanding, priming and painting, the mast step was re-installed.

As a bonus, the original Manta mast step was reused as fixing points at the mast base.
The finished product: not only stronger but also much tidier.