Commander #155 'Mephisto Cat'

[Rico]

The "Mephisto Cat' has done two (Singlehanded) races this year; The Three Bridge Fiasco and the Singlehanded Sailing Society's 'Corinthian' Race. We've also done a bit of daysailing / touring around the bay despite the persistent cold / wet weather.

I am happy to report that Spring has officially arrived in the Bay.

Pictures and recap of the 2011 3Br Fiasco race are in the 'events section' - Post #8 here:
http://www.pearsonariel.org/discussi...-Fiasco-anyone

As usual, I decided to undertake a project at the most inopportune time... A week or so before the 3 Br Fiasco, I decided that I HAD to replace my main hartch sliding rails BEFORE the race. My rails worked fine, but I was not completely happy with the way they'd turned out originally. - I'd lived with them perfectly well for a few years, but suddenly they'd become a priority.

Since I was removing the rails, I took advantage of the opportunity and reinforced the area around the fasteners by drilling BIGGER holes and filling with thickened epoxy & a bit of chopped strand. I drilled new screw holes in the same locations. Although I may add an additional (3rd) fastener on each side later just for added 'snugness'.

I applied some epoxy to the rails and the interior trim pieces, and then added a handful of coats of Varnish (Epifanes clear - of course!).

The hardest part is fitting the rails in the right location so that the hatch rails ride securely in the hatch sliders. Obviously the rails need the be parallel; but if the rails are placed too close together, the hatch won't grab, and could come loose / fall off. If they are to far apart, the hatch will not fit or will be too tight to slide.

Since I made my rails a bit beefier that the originals, I ended-up in the too tight range. But a bit of fine tuning made things work out nicely.

Picture 1:
The rails and trim pieces all pretty & ready to be installed

Picture 2:
Fitting of the pieces. You can see a hint of my need to renew the varnish on the rest of the companionway. It is not as bad as the area where the board slide, but it is time for me to spend a bit of time on this... My coambings with 10+ coats are still looking beautiful, but I did only 3 or 4 coats on the companionway and I'm paying the price now... (will be taken care-of shortly!) When it comes to Varnish; getting lazy clearly leads to more work!

Other pictures:
Nice company during a day sail...