HG02 said..

That mast looks to be a tad too far forward for an efficient sloop rig.

I am not trying to burst your bubble HG, rather save you some grief.

You have done some backtracking on the steering which is good. Less than 45 foot, tiller steering is quite enough.

Your yacht is designed and originally built as an H28 ketch. I think you should stick to that. Nothing wrong with them. Simplicity is the key for a cruising yacht.

We on Seabreeze have seen you put your heart into Driftwood like few others do with their yachts. Magnificent job. Don't cock it up by thinking you know better than the designer.

I see your choice being to move the mast to the sloop position (major and expensive) or mount the mizzen mast at where it is already set up for (not so expensive). Heavy weather, small head sail and reefed mizzen, the yacht will balance and get you safely to port.

Your choice mate.

Me?? I am just another feckwit stupid enough to own a yacht.

Not claiming to be very knowledgeable on the subject at all....the only problem I see HG might have is not enough sail area in light winds, which will require maybe a bit more motoring than he'd like??
Is lack of sail area something you noticed SA?, & if so is there anything that HG could do to help?
cheers

ordered a boom kicker

After climbing the mast the other day I used muscles I have not used for a while day off today
Was a little bit stiff legged

PhoenixStar said..
Don't worry about balance HG02, it will be fine and even better in fresh winds. Suck it and see, you will be surprised.

Cheers PhoenixStar

I spent about 2 hours adjusting the rigging on my boat.
I noticed that I could point higher on one tack than the other, and that one lower was flapping.
Found out my mast was 25mm put of plumb.
One thing that I could not do was get the lower tensions the same and keep the mast straight. So one is on a lower tension than the other. Took a while but glad it is done.

Is that a nice bit of Oregon or Tassie Oak HG? A couple of coats of marine varnish or some teak oil?

Just spent 3 hours sweating over my engine changing the seawater pump impeller. On the little Sole I need to remove the heat exchanger to get at the seawater pump. Here is how it went!
Arrive at boat at 1115. Open up and clean a little bit (about 1 litre) of water out of the bilge, not bad after the rain we have had for the past two weeks.
Remove engine cover (cabin table).
Unscrew all the heat exchanger clamps, prise the exchanger off.
Dry bilge of rusty coolant.
Remove the impeller cover, six small allen headed bolts, drop allen key into bilge twice. Glad I had cleaned the bilge first.
Try to get the impeller out, won't budge, have a drink of water while I think about it. Crank engine over, impeller moves out. Lever it a bit more and crank again. Get impeller out.
Line new impeller up with the key way and push it in. Won't go. Get down on cabin sole with torch and see I have put it in about 30 deg out. Remove and realign. Spend 30 minutes getting it to go in.
Find gasket goo. Top has rusted through and it is a sticky mess inside a zip lock bag. Get enough goo to coat the gasket face on the cover.
Replace cover with the six bolts, drop the allen key into bilge once. But skin fingers getting the little bolts finger tight. A unpleasant job in the cramped space between the cover and the starter motor, holding torch with right hand and use uncoordinated left hand to use the allen key.
Replace the heat exchanger and tighten up what feels like two dozen clamps. Really only 6 but have to do them twice and check all the others.
Open inlet cock, hear rushing water, engine cock off, find leak and undo then redo the clamps. Cock back on, no water ingress. Very pleased.
Put water in coolant tank, listen for leaks. Silence and nothing in the bilge.
Start engine. All good. Add coolant concentrate and more water.
Run engine, looks good.
Drop mooring and go for a 20 minute drive.
Minimal water in bilge, probably a bit of overflow from me topping the coolant a bit high.
Clean it up and run engine again for 5 minutes. Dry bilge.
1415, clean up and go home.
Is this what all boat owners go through? Why can't it be straightforward?

Having a water pump with Allen key screws is a bit up market!

HG02 said..
Found is more reliable to add some zip ties instead up the suction cap




I'll tidy it tomorrow

Looking good HO2 are you sleeping onboard yet?

I would have tied a thin line to the Alan key instead of doing a Homer trice...?
D'oh!

HG02 said..
Boom kicker fitted tomorrow the main Sail and boom bag will go on
Then I can sort out the vang
That's just the old mizzen main sheet

What size boom kicker did you buy?

HG please correct me but I thought that boom kickers were designed to only hold the boom and not the furled sail etc? Is that why it's adjustable? So you can knock it back a few notches when the weight is off?

As for my boat I replaced the main halyard and moved all the other halyards down a size. So that the old main is now the spinnaker, the old spinnaker is now the headsail etcetera.

I also replaced the trailer winch spectra rope after a nearly catastrophic retrieval last week.... note to self and other TSers. When launching at new ramps? be extra careful with your checklists. The old winch rope had a triannual shortening to remove the possibly? UV damaged length but under a bit of unscheduled (my stupidity) shock loading snapped.

Would a couple of fiberglass battens from a dinghy work as boom kickers or are they too flimsy?

Bit more sanding to go then some West System 207/105 uv resin
Still to polish and cut down an old brass hinge to fit the tops

PhoenixStar said..
Fitted a new dome and O-ring to the Richie compass. What great people to deal with, a couple of emails to find the right parts for the 40 year old compass, a paypal transaction, and a week later the parts are here. Easy to fit the dome, but what a pain filling the compass with half a liter of fluid through a 3/16 inch hole. And getting that last 5 cent piece sized air bubble filled.

Never mind. Should be good for another 40 years.

should see me out Phoenix Some one was throwing out Huon pine veneer into hard rubbish so i collected some
Ill let it go off now and tomorrow Ill give it a sand back and add some more coats its a bit hard to flow coat so its just brushed on all good .
I epoxied the foam onto the fridge bench top and will sand the foam to the same size as the bench top












I've heaps of work to do inside