Sea Sprite 23 #670 "Heritage"

[Commander 147]

OK Chance

Are you working on this project full time or is all of this stuff you have been posting projects you accomplished while you were not posting here for a time?????????? You sure are getting a lot of good looking work done!

[ebb]

My feeling is that the cousins Pearson knew pretty much what they could get away with getting a boat to market. Glass boats had been around for ten years by 1965.
I saw and corrected (but certainly not with your verve and craftsmanship) some amazing
short cuts and lousey joinery.
The factory got away with a lot of sloppy work in places where the customer would never look. At least not at first.

Ariel's cockpit is molded as part of the lid to the hull.
It is reinforced underneath the cockpit deck with widely spaced stiffeners of 1/2" plywood that are matted onto the woven roving laminate mold that is, from the molding standpoint, the top of the boat, stem to stern, side to side. Can't say that 1/2" ply strips pasted onto a flat surface really stiffens anything. But it does solve oil canning.

Crawling around under a stripped out hull I realized that on this Ariel the cockpit floated, wasn't supported anywhere from the deck down. Of course it is supported by its shell-like structure, but essentially the box of the cockpit and the seats and bridge are not attached to anything. It all hangs there. That's a bunch of unsupported flat, non curved, 'flexible' panels.
The seats are massive. The locker lids on the Ariel are almost 3/8" thick, more in places. NO flex allowed there! There is lot of glass and wood pasted in around the rim of the cockpit where the coamings get attached. It's pretty massive there, but except for the seats it's - how to describe it? -FLEXIBLE everywhere else. Found, for instance, that the ply bulkhead under the bridge isn't attached anywhere to the well. There is/was a variable 1/2" or so unaccessable mould & bug real estate hidden in there. Likewise the aft bulkhead was not attached to the cockpit!

Also noticed at the time that the fiberglass pipe rudder tube went STRAIGHT THRU the cockpit deck without a howdoyoudo of fillet or caulking that you could see from underneath. Or the top. You'd think there must have been something there to sell the boat, caulk, something to at least dress it up.... missing 45 years later.

I think Pearson was fully aware that the tube hole thru the cockpit couldn't be
built up and supported like the tube was at the other end coming into the hull.
The rudder tube in A-338 was well built up in a mass of stalagmite tabbing to the hull, but lacked any similar build up where it entered the cockpit deck. Why?

Can't believe they just forgot to caulk....
Maybe, that given the builtin flex of the cockpit structure, they didn't build it up under the cockpit because any movement of the cockpit as a whole could crack off the rudder tube at the hull!
That's a weak assumption I'll agree - but there has to be some explanation why these boats all have the same construt for a leaky deck rudder tube.
Can't second-guess the cousins.

[Chance]

Mike,
We vacationed to Maine a number of years ago. We stayed overnight in places like Freeport, Searsport and as far north as Jonesport, and visited many beautiful spots along the way. Never got out on the water, but was able to dream of it non the less. Really liked the maritime musuem in Bath, the towns of Camden, and Belfast. I can see why it must take a lifetime to fully appreciate the natural beauty in a state you find home.

You asked:
My preference is MAS brand epoxy / hardners, mainly because of the non-blushing aspect of their slow hardner. With that being said, I do also have West System hardner and epoxy, but consume mostly MAS.

For filleting, structural bonding and fairing, it gets a little more complicated and there is not one straight answer. It really depends on what I'm doing. Things like temperature, work orientation (flat, vertical or overhead) and scope all have to be factored in.

But in short I use the following in various amounts and mixtures to address the above:
MAS Milled Fiber
MAS Colloidal Silica
MAS Low Viscosity Epoxy
MAS Slow non-blushing Epoxy Resin
West System 404 High Density Adhesive Filler
WS 405 Filleting Blend
WS 406 Colloidal Silica
WS 407 Low Density Fairing Filler
WS 423 Graphite Powder
Milled Glass
Wood Flour

These are used independantly or mixed to achieve the desired epoxy/hardner consistancy I want for the appliation at hand.

It's like a recipe and each craftsman has their own style and preference on what is in it.

The main thing of course is to not mess up the resin / hardner ratio. Everthing else is less critical.

After working with this stuff for so long, you'll soon discover if your mixture is too thin, too thick, too stiff, or if it's workability it right or not.

Then, on top of all that, there is the application technique (finesse).

[Chance]

Jerry,
No full time. Your hit is spot on. I have been working on "Heritage" since becoming her steward this past October. So the work I have been posting is a culmination of the the past six months. I just snapped photos along the way and stored them on the computer. My rate of accomplishment is much slower than this thread would initially indicate. Thanks.

[Chance]

Of the many deck hardware issues, one was to address the bow chocks. First they needed rebedded. Also, the hull to deck joint created an unparrallel clamping surface which caused two of the bronze machine screws to bend when orinially installed. My solution was to install pads that compensate for this, so that the bearing surface of the nut and washer was parrallel with the underside of the chock, thus eliminating the source of a bent fastener when I reinstalled the chocks with new fasteners. Their like mini backing plates (as you can see in the photos).

[Chance]

Here's a look at the new cabin top handrails I fashioned out of some teak. I also installed a teak strip inside the cabin, mainly cosmetic but could also be considered a backing strip of sort. I used 3-1/2" #14 wood screws to secure them and feel that is adequate. For bedding compound I choose Dolfinite natural to permit easy removal when the time comes. Dolfinite is only a sealer, not an adhesive, and remains flexible and can also be painted over after skimming.
The Lake Union shipyard (nears Seattle), where I was on a wooden mine sweeper designed by Phillip Rhodes, used Dolfinite extensively and it is pleasant to work with.

[Chance]

Another area I found needed some attention, so off with the old, worn, and excessively sanded down teak and in with a makeover.

Here's a closer look:

[Chance]

Hatch slide teak continued:

[Chance]

Here's the last three for this update:

[Chance]

Here's a broad view of the 30 foot spar stepped that also shows her jumper struts / stays.

[Chance]

Based on the condition of the original foredeck hatch, I elected to replace it. In the process I had mill out a bit of fiberglass from both the deck and the cabin liner so that the corner radias would match the new hatch. Following the corner radias modifications, I wanted to clean up the opening before bedding the new hatch. Here's a look:

[Chance]

Foredeck hatch opening work continued:

[Chance]

New hatch bedded:

[Chance]

work continued:

[Chance]

Another area that I wanted to address was the badly weathered original teak veneered weather boards. Instead of refinishing them, I wanted to do away with the teak veneer ply and instead went off to the wood shop and found a nice teak board in which I was able to mill these. The original configuration had only two large veneered plywood boards that secured the companionway entry. Here you can see that I choose to make three. I like the look of and find it easier to manage three smaller ones than staying with the orginal configuration.