Capt. Willie where did you get the trailer and how do you like it?
Capt. Willie where did you get the trailer and how do you like it?
http://www.qualitytrailers.com/
I like it. Pulls nice. For $3k it is a good deal.
wet willie
Capt Michael,
Hit the SEARCH bar, type in 'hinged mast,' and amongst others check out Scott Galloway's generous contribution on his mast lowering on the run procedure. His is a single bolt, in a non-sliding hole, with a rounded mast bottom. I was unable to fully appreciate his system from the photos. My reasons for selecting the Ballenger hinge are above in this group of posts.
Some mast bottoms are rounded more than others. Some incorporate the bolt in a curved slot - my guess is to reduce the amount of round needed and to cancel any rise in the mast as it goes off or comes up to vertical to be able to keep full tension on the upper shrouds. But it is very difficult to find images on the net. Google's 'images' bar is (so far) pretty useless. as it doesn't understand english pretty good.
maybe you find something good let us know?
Last edited by ebb; 06-09-2004 at 09:49 AM.
You can find Ray Alsup's refreshing 'Rebovating Old Spar's for his Triton 'Pegasus' #256 on the Maintenance, Improvement & Restoration pages on the National Triton Association site....
where he relates his experience painting 256's mast and fitting a Ballenger hinge, w/ photos.
Yeah....well....I'll let you guys go back to the Triton site to find George's post in the Electrical Handy Hints section on Coax Seal. Which is a versatile, flexible, moldable plastic wrap that you can use to seal the thru deck fittings at the mast - coax and common ground. It sounds like a great product that, like George, you'll find other uses for.
One of its properties is, that while it WATERPROOFS what you have wrapped, you can take it apart and use it again. Seems pretty wild to me! Get it at Radio Shack.
Here's another site to go to for the clearest most spectacular DIY photos I've ever seen:
http://www.naval.com/coax-seal/
Last edited by ebb; 06-10-2004 at 07:34 AM.
The masts on the two tabernacled boats that I have owned were modified the same way: A permanently fixed steel mast step, with two flanges (one on either side of the mast).
The bottom forward section of the mast is radiused, and a block of wood inserted inside the mast base is radiused to match. A single bolt runs through the mast and both of the port and starboard flanges. A bolt secures the nut. The holes in the flanges and the mast are round holes appropriately sized for the bolt. The bolt does not slide.
In the attached photograph, the highly polished steel plate is a block attachment point and has nothing to do with the tabernacle. The less-bright steel plate is the portside flange on the mast step plate. The bolt pictured is the one described above.
A tabernacle rig is a spiffy thing, but don't forget to think about what you are going to do when you are single-handedly zipping along at 3 knots with the mast lowered most of the way to pass under a bridge, and you need to suddenly need to change course, or you are forced to leave the helm, or perhaps you need to do both.
The only things keeping that mast from dropping to the deck, or at least slicing through that forward hatch cover like a butter knife passing though whipped margarine are:
1. Your hand on the mainsheet, and
2. Perhaps that very wet mainsheet is held in the slippery grip of the relatively small cleat that is an integral part of the mainsheet block. Well anyway, just think about it a bit. Are you willing to trust that block to hold your mast up while your bow is swinging widely to port at the same time that you have to go forward? Can you walk and chew gum at the same time. As for me, I don't want to think about it for much longer. I have to get down to the boat and do some fiberglass repair to my forward hatch cover.
Or if that didn't convince you to think about it, imagine yourself on a frigid, wet, cold and foggy night when your fingers are cold and the mainsheet is soggy. OK, now it's time to lower the mast. You can't get home unless you pass beneath that bridge, so you give the boom a little shove upward and the mast begins to drop as the mainsheet runs between your numb fingers. How's your grip?
And yes, I have had exactly that experience also. I escaped a destructive mishap that night, but the mast dropped about ten feet before I caught it. At that time, I had a dual-action 4:1/ 8:1 block then with two mainsheet lines. It felt like I had a firm grip on the dual mainsheet lines, but one of the two lines was running free through my cold fingers.After that experience I switched back to a 4:1 ratio block with a single larger diameter line that can be better sensed by cold fingers late on a foggy night. I executed over 150 safe tabernacle operations with my new mainsheet block before last Saturday's mishap. BAck to the drawing board.
Oh and one last scenario: It is possible for your motor to die while the mast is lowered under a bridge while motoring alone. This also happend to me once. You can't pull the mast up, because you are beneath a bridge. You shouldn't let go of the mainsheet. You better fend off the bridge piling. That piling is coming up quickly. Even if you miss the piling, there is that line of boats tied to the dock just beyond the bridge. It would be a shame to stick your nearly horizontal mast in among all those shrouds and stays.
My point in this is that those of us who like to lower our masts underway ought to think about a fail-safe way to secure the mainsheet, so that the sheet does not accidentally drop out of the cleat on the mainsheet block. Last Saturday I conclusively proved that you can make the mainsheet do that.
Ideas come to mind like:
1. Tying a secure knot in the mainsheet at the point that would leave the mast at the height at which the backstay is parallel to the water surface. At any lower angle, the boom rises above the height of the mast anyway.
2. A convenient place to tie the mainsheet securely with sufficient tension to keep the sheet in the cleat when the mast is lowered.
Last edited by Scott Galloway; 06-16-2004 at 02:05 AM.
Scott
Haven't seen much on this subject, but thought it might be worth asking about. I think i better replace this mess, as there isn't much use in doing all the others with these looking like they do. Forespar says if the thru-hull is 6" above the waterline or lower, it needs a valve. I was thinking of using their Marelon Flanged Seacocks, with a flush thru-hull fitting, and proper hose and clamps. Would like other thoughts...is this all necessary for starters, as it's been 40 yrs. the way it is...don't think i better see if it will make it another forty though!
I've never installed the flanged seacocks before. Looks like a backing block glassed in, with proper size hole, bedding in 5200, seacock secured to backing block? Any experts out there? And can i/should i use the present holes, or is there a better way?
Also, i have the deck holes that drain down inside the hull, and exit just below boot stripe. Is this a future problem to watch too? I was thinking of just glassing them in, and making the cutouts on the transom work better someway. There's a lip that prevents all the water from leaving.
Just some final things to work on while taking a break from the d/a sanding job. Would like to hear what others have done with the deck drains, cockpit drains. Thanks. Here's what my thru-hulls for the cockpit look like now....
wet willie
and the starboard one. note the up to code wiring. haven't figured out what it goes to yet! soon to be gone.
wet willie
The deck drains are fine.
The cockpit drains are fine too. Some surveyors and insurance companies want a seacock on them. I don't see the point, since you would never close those seacocks or rainwater would fill the cockpit.
You could change the hoses if you want to (I haven't). One danger I've thought about is if the battery got loose it could smash the fiberglass bottom of the drain. So the battery should be secured.
A seacock on the sink drain would be better than the float valve.
The original seacocks could be corroded (or they could last another 40 years). The prior owner of my boat had one fail while he was underway, leading to some anxious moments. He had them both replaced, so I never had to do the job.
http://www.boatus.com/boattech/casey/07.htm
http://catalog.com/bobpone/diySeacock.htm
hey Capt,
what Forespar says is what your insurance guy will say.
I'm also going with flush thruhulls and Marelon for one or two seawater intakes (Forespar also makes a nice Marelon strainer.) The only negative I've heard is that there is some swelling in the ball that eventually makes it difficult to swing the handle which can break. People say that 'regular' greasing and on/offing takes care of the problem, if it is a problem. I will go with Maralon because it's inert.
There has been considerable discussion, if you want to wade through it, on the subject. Ebb & Geoff have fore and aft hard cockpit drains of differing philosophies. No seacocks.
New seacocks for a new old boat is the only way to go. Metal thruhulls have to be suspect both on corrosion and bedding, also if they have been bonded. Soft hoses connected to underwater fittings is the long way to spell 'paranoia.' There is no bilge pump set up I can think of that can save an untended berthed boat.
What the best, safest, longest lasting hose is worth talking about. No?
[However, I have heard of cruisers going with no seacocks at all. One guy uses a hard PVC 'stand pipes' system unfamiliar to me. Noww, by 'stand-pipe' I'm assuming you can look down the pipe and see the bottom of the Bay or Ocean. But extremely interesting. One used as a seawater draw, one or the same used for grey water, requiring hoses, or maybe a plunger to evacuate the dishwash. You would have to have a positive shutoff or a screw-on cap somewhere above the waterline (and a good memory) - way above the waterline. If it was in the cabin area, Right? Never seen a discussion on this. Otherwise, a couple of us have 'standpipes' already in the form of straight thru hard drains in the cockpit.]
Last edited by ebb; 06-18-2004 at 04:25 PM.
Cmdrpete: thanks for the good reading links. Looks good. I'd like to do this right, and that looks like the way to go.
Ebb, thanks to start with, i have seen photos of yours. My state of the art dial up connection makes it an all day project to view most photos, but i have looked at a bunch while the tea water is trying to boil.
So about your hard 'standpipes', what did you glass in? pvc? i could see doing something like that. But i'm more inclined to just go with a marelon thru hull and seacock, and good hose, double clamped of course.
ON the paranoia issue, I'll be 50 miles from the boat when i can't be on her, and there's only one other boat in the marina, unattended, so i'd like to sleep well. I took out all the other thru hull fittings, and glassed them in. We can pack our water for weekends, and the river is just over the side if we need more for dishes or whatever. Can't see putting holes in a perfectly good boat. Was trying to figure out a way to drain a cockpit without having them exit below the waterline, but that would be a good engineering problem!
Last edited by willie; 06-18-2004 at 07:35 PM.
wet willie
IMHO, I would not worry about the cockpit drains. They have stood the test of time and the only problems have been with the sink drain (where the hose has parted from the basket and fallen allowing water to flood the boat). Since your boat no longer has a sink . . .
My cockpit drains have bronze seacocks, but most boats do not. I think the seacocks were added due to insurance underwriting sometime before I got the boat. So far, they have just been another maintenance chore.
As for the little deck scupper drains that exit near the water line, I'd keep them. Again, it's been 40 years and they have worked well and make it easier to clear the deck of that last bit of water you will never get to flow out the opening in the toe rail at the aft end. It will also be a challenge to balance the boat so that the scupper is at the low point . . .
Capt Bill,
start messing around with structural stuff opens a can of worms. To put in hard cockpit sole scuppers, that is, pvc pipe or something, you would have to stablize the cockpit. A hose takes care of any movement (deflection of the sole, eg) - that might crack or break a rigid installation.
338 has lengthwise bulkheads being put in under the cockpit port & starboard edges, and has been glassed to the bulkheads it sits between. Doing this because of the hard use I want to put the boat to. I've also decided to put batteries under the cockpit sole. That install will also stiffen the whole cockpit molding. Some undertaking.
For the pipe I found some 2 1/4" ID epoxy/glass gaspipe. No reason, that was what a local search came up with. I wanted something I felt was stronger than pvc, not libel to break. The forward scuppers run the length under the cockpit without added support. Because I ran em out under the transom. So 338 is clean as a whistle under the ladder.
The photos show what may be considered WAY overbuilt scuppers in the rear. Somehow it just worked out that way with the layers of xmatt and sculpting. The sole is pretty flexible by itself and those standpipes are inassesible back there. especially after closing in the space under the cockpit. (There'll be minimal access hatch way in back to the tubes from the q'berth.) I was influenced by the story of a local Triton being sunk by having its rudder jammed up thru the hull when it went aground.
Yeah, WHAT hose? One guy was saying, don't make the mistake of using black hose with metal spiral inside, as it can rust and degrade. (In fresh water: 40 years!) And you CAN find 100% 316 hose clamps that have an unserrated upcurled band. Best for squeezing plastic hose. Source??
Ebb, on the way down to work on the S/V Bouyant
Last edited by ebb; 06-19-2004 at 08:05 AM.
Hull number 56 has only had her hoses replaced twice in 40 years. Don't forget to DOUBLE clamp and place each pair of clamps in opposite directions.
Having said this, I am not sticking with the system. I am going to use fiberglass and create a fiberglass cylinder from cockpit drain down to the hull. This will serve to both reinforce the cockpit and assure no hoses to fail or seep -- not that mine ever have. Of course, the key here is to make enough layers of fiberglass that the strength is adquate to the task.
As for the sink drain, I am going to put a throughull and close it when I am not on the boat.
Ted
Ted Mahavier
Here's the latest. Still waiting on some parts.
Was gonna add these to old thread, but it was full of other technical matter, so here I'll try to stick to pics of the boat.
wet willie
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