C22 Keel Mated to Boat

Got to the club a little after 7am, they had a 90 ton crane in to put all the docks in, launch the work barge, and shuffle a couple of boats around.   At the end of he day, they would hook my boat up to the slings, lift it in the air.  We would place the keel in the cradle, and lower the boat onto it.

I was going to paint the keel with POR-15, but the cure time said 3-5 hours.  Decided not to paint it because I didn't want a keel wet with paint when the crane was ready.

I worked a couple of hours on the crane crew putting the docks in.

After lunch, I pulled all the studs, and coated them with some anti seize to prevent galling betwen the stainless and cast iron.  I fashioned up some stainless backer plates; much easier with the keel in the shop.  Also cut some 2" angle iron to clamp to the cradle to support the keel.

Barney lifting keel into the back of the hydro truck

Lifting keel off the hydro truck

Crane setup in laneway

2" angle clamped to the cradle holding the keel up

Lined up perfectly

Boat is not levelled, but looks good

Rich took some photos during the lift.

CS34 Replacement Batteries

Picked up the new Crown 31DC36 batteries from Pat Sturgeon and took them to the boat

Nice carrying handles

A little wider

Same width

Fit perfectly in the battery box

The old batteries had a rating of 88 amp hours each for a total of 176AH.
The new batteries are rated for 130 amp hours each for a total of 260AH.

C22 Keel Stub

Took some pictures of the sanded keel stub.

Notice how the starboard side of the hull is sanded

Notice how the port of the keel is slightly off center

Notice how thick the fairing is on the port side

And some pictures of the bottom sanding

Picked up a new can of POR-15 from Port Whitby Marine; it was too cold to paint.

C22 Keel Work

Got to the club a little after 10am, John opened the shop for me.  Slight change of plans: next weekend they will have a 170 ton crane in to move a couple of boats around, put the recently completed dock 6 sections in the water, and launch the work barge.  We will use the crane to lift the boat off the cradle using proper spreaders and slings, use the hydro truck to set the keel in the cradle, then lower the boat on the keel/cradle.

I used the handheld grinder to fair the keel for about an hour; looking pretty good.
Also used a random orbit disk sander.  Then washed the keel with a degreaser, and rinsed it with some fresh water I brought in a 5 gal plastic bucket.  I then coated the keel in an autobody rust prep (basically phosphoric acid).  It was brushed on, making sure to get in to all the crevices.  It took about two hours to dry, so I went onto removing all the 5200 sealant on the keel stub.

In places it is 3/8" thick

Also took some 1/2" and 5/8" drills and reamed out the holes to accomodate the new studs:

It was slow going removing the old bedding using a wood chisel and hammer:

Back to the keel: when the acid wash was dry, I rinsed the entire keel in fresh water.

The rust prep turns any rust into a grey oxide that paint adhers to

Keel is very pitted on the one side

Closer look

Back to the keel stub:

Here it is completed before sanding

This exposed the fibreglass laminate on the bottom of the keel stub.
 I did not get a completed photo after sanding.

Time to paint the prepared keel with the POR-15 paint I had bought online.  Normally, you can open a paint can with a screw driver in about 3 seconds.  Something is wrong with the paint can: could not open it!  The lip of the lid just folded up, even tried gripping it with vice grips!  The lid is sealed to the can:

I had purposely bought this online from the Canadian distributor in Grimsby, because the product is not available at local retailers.  Kinda euchred!

So, I went to Martin's (Port Whitby Marine) to get some epoxy fairing material, and low and behold, they stocked POR-15!  Went to pay for it and some epoxy fairing, but didn't have my wallet; tore the car apart; could not find it anywhere!  Grrrr...

Went back to the club thinking I left it in the shop; was not there.  Tried to open the can for another half an hour; no dice.  This is really screwing me!

Went back to the boat and sanded the bottom for a couple hours.  This operation is going to take a lot longer than I thought; only got perhaps 5% of the hull sanded.

When I was cleaning up afterwards, I found my wallet in the grass underneath the cradle; it must have fallen out of my jean jacket pocket when working under the boat.  Glad I found it.

WHAT A FRUSTRATING DAY! 

What should have taken 3 seconds took several hours, and the keel is not painted.

Have to work after work a bunch this week to get ready for the crane on Saturday.  The keel needs to be painted, 1/2" studs added, the shrink wrap removed, and the cradle leveled.

Got the following response from the company this morning:

Sorry for the inconvenience of the situation , if you mail the can back I will refund the amount of your order and the return shipping .

The factory uses an interference lid for shipping purposes and every once in a while this occurs .

Thanks

 Stevens Auto Electric & Machine Ltd.

In the meantime... I'm cleaning my gun.
      Mark Knopfler --- Get Lucky Album 2009

CS34 Single Line Reefing

Could not figure out what the two padeyes are on the mast just above the boom:

Did some searches on the ISOMAT site and they are called "autoreef fairleads".  Could not figure these out until I came accross this diagram:

Click for a larger version

This is great! 
There are blocks inside the mast and I will have single line double reefs! 
No going forward to reef!

View from bottom of boom at gooseneck


Look at the lines at the top of this picture.
Left is the line that goes back to the cockpit.
Right is the line that goes down to a block at the vang, then up through the auto reefing fairlead, then up to the appropriate reefing cringle.

KEWL

Battery Load Test

Went to the boat after work with a carbon pile battery load tester.

Previous owner Dave had the batteries charging for the day; voltage was registering at 12.6V with the charger off.

The house batteries are rated for 600 cold cranking amps (CCA).  I isolated each battery and hooked up the load tester, and brought the resistive guage up to 300 amps (half the CCA).  A good battery after 15 seconds should register above 10V.  Well, both failed miserably; they were down to 8V after about 5 seconds.

Ordering two CROWN Group 31s to give a house bank of 260 amp hours.

Dave had a guy out to replace the cracked engine hoses and a leaking coolant fitting.

Companionway steps removed

12V TV

The new boat comes with an amplified mast mounted TV antenna.

Adding a TV was not in scope for this year, but the Rigging Shoppe had a display model on sale for $300 off.

It is a 22" Majestic 12v flat panel with a built in ATSC tuner and DVD player. 

http://www.majesticausonline.com/product.php?id_product=101

Tried it out at home and the picture quality was pretty good.

The unit draws 1.6A@12v.  Not bad considering I have seen inverters use between 8 and 10 amps to power a 60watt AC device.  So watch a 2 hour movie at anchor and use 3.2AH vs 40 AH of power (or 1.6% vs 20% of a 200AH house bank).
Will be good to watch local weather reports and/or local news programs when cruising, or watch a DVD if the weather is terrible.

LED Lights

Went to the new boat and took out bulbs for the anchor light and interior lights to see if I could find LED replacements.  I didn't bother with the steaming or deck lights, as there will typically only be used when under motor.  Because the boat is covered, I could not get to the nav lights (bow and stern).

The anchor light is a Perko unit with two 31mm festoon incandescent bulbs in it:

Cap and lenses removed

http://www.perko.com/images/catalog/pdf/Figs%201183%20to%201197%20Inst%20(1183INS1).pdf

Was able to get LED replacements for it with dual superbright cool white LEDs in each.  The current draw is a just 0.04A each.  The incandescent bulb I removed is rated at 10W (1.67A) each, so the LED replacements would use less than 0.64 amp hours vs 17.1 amp hours for an 8 hour overnight anchor.  The bulb I did removed was FUBARed, so it had to be replaced anyways  They were expensive at $20 each, but worth it for overnight anchoring. Made in China, so I can just imagine the markup!!!

The new boat has five interior overhead lights: two in the salon, two in the galley, and one in the head.  Each of these fixtures has two switches on it and three bulbs inside.  The one switch controls one of the bulbs, while the other switches the remaining two.  The bulbs are Ancor 12V wedge base interior bulbs, similar to what you would see in low voltage landscaping lights:

Ancor #520194 are rated for 0.27A (3.8W) and cost $2.49 for a pair.
This seems right, as I verified that each fixture was drawing 1A of power (0.27A x 3 bulbs).

A similar LED drop in replacement is $11 each.  Since there are 15 of these bulbs, replacing all is cost prohibitive (almost $200).  The LED replacements typically use 1W, so there is not a great electrical savings here, and they would not all be on at the same time.  There are lots of different colours (warm white, cool white, red, blue, etc).  There are also several varieties with 2/4/6/10 LEDs in them for more light.  Perhaps even go with a couple of red LEDs so that night vision is not affected when going below when underway.

There are also some brass reading lights in the salon and V-Birth, and well as some dome lights in the NAV table and rear cabin.  Think I really have to use the boat for a while to determine which interior lights are used the most.

Once I have the boat in water in Whitby, I will experiment.
Will also research some online suppliers.

Bottom Paint

Went to the Rigging Shoppe on the way back from a meeting in Toronto.

Picked up a gallon of white InterProtect 2000; should be more than enough to refinish the keel/rudder and touch up the existing hull.  It was on sale for $109 from $119.

Picked up four cans on VC17; should be enough for Still Time 1.0.
It was on sale for $35, regular $60.

Keel Progress!!!

OK, so six weeks until launch, time to get the keel ready to re-attach.

Got to the club at 10am, and started into it.

Borrowed an air impact metal stripping tool from Dave from Newcastle to strip the keel.  To tool has ten steel spikes that vibrate and rotate to remove material from metal.  Loud as heck; not much dust.  Gloves, eye protection, and hearing protection are a must!

Here is a YouTube of it in action: http://youtu.be/urVkpjJPjnM

Took about three hours to strip the keel down to the bare cast iron; it worked well.  I then used a grinder for about an hour to clean up the keel.  There are a lot of imperfections in the cast.  On one side of the keel, there was about 3/8" of bondo (probably applied by Catalina at the factory).

Starting the stripping

Stripped Keel

Still have some more cleanup to do before painting and fairing the keel.

I then moved onto the final stud with the easyout in it.  I first attacked the bottom of the hole with some hardended steel punches I had picked up.  This significantly broke up some of the easyout material.  After about another two hours, several drill bits, I cleaned out the hole and measured: 1 1/8" (the other holes were 1 3/4"). 

Decided I would just tap it:

Took my time using the tapered tape, cleaned out the hole again, then went to the bottoming tap and voila, tapped hole!

On the left you can see the threaded hole

Went about to cut the rest of the stainless steel studs to length:

Keel with all studs inserted

Have to:

1. Locktight studs to bottom of their holes
2. Finish rough fairing
3. De-grease keel
4. Paint and Fair Keel
5. Drill out holes to 7/8" in boat
6. Mount keel

Pleased with the progress.

Will take next weekend to get the keel prepped, holes drilled, shrink wrap off, and boat/cradle leveled.  Shit, that means I need to re-finish the teak crib boards this week. Also need to fabricate some stainless backer plates for the inside of the boat.

Hopefully use the Hydro truck the following weekend to lift the boat off the cradle with slings and place it GENTLY on the ground.  Place and support the keel vertically in the cradle. Lift the boat onto the studs for a dry fit.  If all goes well, bed the keel in 5200 and tighten up the bolts.

That will leave three weeks to fair the keel joint, epoxy coat (Interprotect 2000) the bottom and keel and apply anti fouling paint (VC17).

New Boat Batteries

Instead of working on the keel, decided to take Rita and head to the new boat in Etobicoke.

The weather was sunny, 18 degrees!

Under the cover on deck, it was very hot.

However, inside the boat, it was a cool 1 degrees.

Initially, there was not enough juice to run the stereo (kept on cutting out).  Battery meter was saying 11.5 volts.  Hooked up to yard power and charged the batteries for a couple of hours.

I bought a hydrometer to test the batteries.

Starter Battery (cell. specific gravity):

1. 1.275
2. 1.300
3. 1.300
4. 1.285
5. 1.300
6. 1.300

Could use an equalization. Anything above 1.265 indicates a charged battery.  This is what I expected as the starter battery is one season old.

On to the house batteries.

House Battery #1

1. 1.125
2. 1.100
3. 1.125
4. 1.150
5. 1.100
6. 1.125

 House Battery #2 

1. 1.125
2. 1.125
3. 1.125
4. 1.125
5. 1.175
6. 1.125

Anything under 1.140 indicates a discharged battery, yet they have been charging for almost two hours. This may have to be adjusted for temperature, but the starting battery was fine!

I'm thinking the house batteries are toast!  They are at least 6 years old.

In the salon are five ceiling lights: I verified that these lights draw one amp each!!!  So I had these on, along with lights in the nav station, head, and rear cabin, and confirmed they were drawing 8 amps using the Link 10 battery meter!  Definately need to upgrade these lights to LED.  I am thinking they are 12W halogens. A quick internet search showed there are drop in replacements for these.

Did some measurements to see if they battery compartments can accomodate four 6V golf cart batteries.  Initial thoughts are they are too tall.

Rita and Bogart had a snooze while I worked on the batteries

Keel Me

Picked up a 17/32" drill from the tool store in Ajax.

Got to the club at 8:30am. Lots of activity in the shop with the dock rebuilding going in high gear.  The drill press was being used, so I helped out where I could.

Walter had given me various TORX sockets.  He uses them at the farm to successfully remove studs.  I drilled a hole slightly smaller than the inside diameter and pounded the TORX bit into it.  However, the bit just spun in the stud.  It was worth a try.

Tried for over an hour to drill out the broken off "easy out".

Rich and I spent about an hour drilling and tapping the remaining three holes.
I dropped the old 1/2" stud into the hole for comparison:

I have purposely made the new studs longer.

Ending up drilling down almost 2" before tapping with a tapered tap.  Cleaned out hole, then finishing it with a bottoming tap.  The 17/32" pilot drill make tapping much easier.

Spent the next 4 hours trying all kinds of drill bits, including cobalt, and dremmel bits to try and get the easy out out.

You can see the easy out in the bottom of the hole (darker)

Nothing doing.  That "easy out" material is TOUGH.