Well, we are starting to see some signs of spring in the boat yard. You know, the sounds of sanding, scraping and polishing! I normally like to be ready to sail by around April 1 here in Virginia, even though nice warm sailing days still are still elusive early in the month. So I need to get started myself.
This quarter we have an article on replacing the bearings in the Shaeffer furlers that were standard on many of our boats. Second, I will share my findings and a response I received from Westerbeke on my raw water pump seal failure. Lastly, I also will provide the quarterly summary of Yahoo discussions that I started in last quarter’s edition.
I hope that you have a great sailing season in 2011 and I look forward to receiving many future helpful and informative technical articles to publish here in Mainsheet.
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John Welch, Dragon’s Lair Hull #7, League City, Texas
My wife and I are preparing our boat for cruising once we retire. One of the modifications we felt we needed was a wash down pump which, when we have chartered, we have found a useful tool.
I purchased a Jabsco Washdown Par Max 4.0 Washdown kit model 32900-0092 from West Marine. The current price at West Marine is $199. The pump produces 4.0 GPM. When I purchased the boat, I had a ¾” bronze full flow safety seacock/thru-hull installed just forward of the keel which provided a water source for the system. If hauling the boat to install a thru-hull is not an option, another approach would be to place a “T” and a shutoff valve in the water intake for the AC unit. You will need hose, stainless steel nuts, washers and bolts, clamps, sealant, and electrical wire to
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BACKGROUND: Recently on the Catalina Yahoo web site, there was some discussion about the 3100 Schaeffer genoa furler that many of us have as factory equipment. My furler on C’mon Wind (Hull #255 vintage 2000) had been getting increasingly harder to turn over the last three years. When new, it was wonderful never requiring more than a modest effort to unfurl or furl the 155% genoa. I never used a winch. But age had its way with the furler and after several attempts at freeing up the lower bearing assembly, I recently gave up. [Editor’s Note – Remember never to lubricate the Torlon bearings with lubricating sprays, etc. Just flush with fresh water – Steve] I called Schaeffer Marine inNew BedfordMA (508-995-9511) and talked with Dave Anderson. He told me that Schaeffer had re-engineered the lower bearing unit into a single piece. So for $110,
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I have been having ongoing problems with the raw water pump leaking on my Westerbeke 42B. The engine has about 450 total hours, which is pretty low considering the age of the boat. The raw water pump started leaking two years ago during the 2008 season. On the Westerbeke, the pump housing has a set of weep holes which will theoretically drain any water that gets past the internal shaft water seal. This serves two purposes. First is to give you a visual indication of a leak, although the pump is unfortunately located directly over the forward port engine mount which will start to rust from the salt water dripping out of the pump. Second, the weep holes should keep salt water out of the pump bearings, which are protected by an oil seal on the other side of the weep holes.
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When we moved up from our Catalina 30 to a 380, the extra room and ease of boarding certainly made life easier for us, especially given our crew includes a 50lb Portuguese water dog. The two nice state rooms and ample salon means there’s even room for friends. This allowed me to justify a larger more stable RIB to carry all the people, pets, and supplies. While the 11’ RIB tows well, its bottom quickly fouls with growth if left in the water. I also don’t like hoisting a 120 lb. RIB on and off foredeck, squeeze around it, or trying to spot objects in the water over it. Towing the dinghy also overly complicates arrivals and departures, or docking, since we must reposition the dinghy often. My initial inclination that davits weren’t in our future dissipated quickly, and it
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It is hard to believe that summer is over and we are heading into the fall sailing season. We had a late start this year due to family matters. Then the proliferation of 100+ degree days made sailing and any exterior projects very uncomfortable. In fact, I just got my new 135% genoa up, which was delivered in April, on a relatively cool day this past week and used it for the first time today. Definitely makes tacking down theYork Rivermuch easier and adds about 5 degrees pointing capability versus the old, baggy 150.
I will report that one of my winter projects has performed wonderfully over the summer. That project was adding a vent in the starboard lazerette with a 12V pancake exhaust fan wired to run with the refrigeration compressor. This simple project has completely eliminated the “boat smell” that used to emanate from the
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After about 10 years of light use of our shower, the sealant failed at the bottom of the wall in which the shower door is mounted. This resulted in water getting trapped along the bottom edge between the inner and outer seal of that wall. This only became noticeable when I was trying to replace the factory-installed sealant that had started to crack along its full length just below the shower door area in the head area. When trying to remove the old sealant, the Formica covering the area blistered off because the water leak had broken the bond between the wall material and Formica (see Photo 1). The real damage probably occurred during winter lay up when the boat is blocked nose up. This nose-up attitude causes any small amount of water or snow leaking into the shower
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My boat did not come with any type of latch or bumper to keep the head door from swinging into the shower doorframe. So the door was always left closed. However, while in a seaway, the latch would work and the door would eventually swing open. The head door handle would then start banging into the shower door frame and eventually put a dimple in the shower’s aluminum doorframe. This did not seem healthy to any of the parts involved. I evaluated the cost and appearance of standard doorstops available in marine and hardware stores. Nothing looked right and the marine stuff cost well over $50, more than I wanted to spend. After some creative pondering, I came upon the idea of using a white eraser. I cut it to a pleasing shape and mounted it to the shower
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I get tired of the tangle of genoa sheet tails in the cockpit. They usually end up at the ends of the “T”, but they still get under foot and in the way. I also find the cockpit bins are too far forward to stow and easily reach winch handles from the helm area when tacking short-handed. I started looking at various options for pre-made sheet bags and various winch handle holders, but did not find anything that fit the bill. I have a canvas sewing machine so I also looked at making the bags mysef, including a kit from Sailrite. However, I quickly figured out I could just buy the materials and save some money versus the kit. Plus I could custom fit the bags to the “T” ends and include a pocket for the winch handles to
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This month we have two articles regarding portlight and hatch issues that tend to plague our C380’s. First, is an article from Captain Tim Porter on sealing those bothersome leaks around the Lewmar side ports. I can relate to this one and remember the rainy delivery cruise up the ICW when I bought Blue Heron. My crewman assigned to the middle cabin had a series of plastic cups positioned under the ports to collect the drips so he could keep his bunk and gear dry. We weren’t able to get pictures of the fix in time for publication, but I think Tim’s description is clear without. Second, is an article from Captain Skip Wilkins on replacing the plexiglass companionway slider with Starboard. It is a different approach versus trying to retrofit a fiberglass C387 slider onto the C380.
As always, I am looking for new ideas, or
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