The album of Ariel #422

[ebb]

KURT,
A 600 page bible I read a few pages of every morning is
SURVIVOR by a cruiser: Michael Greenwald.
The volume is about everything survival.
You should hear what he has to say about life rafts and their manufacturers.
You know: criminally stupid, un compassionate, leaky life saving tubes made for profit.
The book is armed with a large print club by Joseph Conrad:

I HAVE KNOWN THE SEA TOO LONG TO BELIEVE IN ITS RESPECT FOR DECENCY.

Here's an eye-opening verse on raw survival reality that might relate to our former protagonists.

"When a bird is caught, pull its head off and drink the blood.
Skin, rather than feather it and suck the inside of the skin for fat.
Save an assortment of feathers and the feet to make lures.
Suck the eyeballs for liquid.
Eat the liver and organs first. Crack the skull to get at the brain.
Sea bird flesh often tastes of fish but is completely edible.
Since sea birds eat fish which eat phosphorescent plankton,
the bird's flesh often glows at night.
This does not mean that glowing birds or fish are inedible."

In terms of the Pearson cousins who pulled off a buck for profit with an idiotic port light design,
or the numbnut who slathered evil silicon all over his (now your) gelcoat,
40 whacks with an ironwoodie might be satisfactory. MAYBE!

[Tony G]

Hey, Kurt
What was you plans had the original portlites been to your liking? A re-goober and reinstall operation? it seems like a pretty standard upgrade to ports of similar design as ours to "bolt" on lites to the outside of the cabin. Aussie Geoff's UHURU comes to mind as well as Yves Jean du Sud. It is pretty easy to shim an even gap between the cabin liner and cabin and then back fill the gap with thickened epoxy to strengthen the whole area. The solid region takes a bolt well. I even went so far as to thread the holes which allowed me to bury the bolt heads leaving only the threaded section to capture the lites with cap nuts with a 1/2" reach. What are your plans? Spill the beans.

[CapnK]

Ebb - I completely concur with Conrad's comment! It is amazing to think that these deadlights would only be held against an inrush of a determined sea by (from what I see with mine) approx 1/4" of 40 year old cast aluminum there around the perimeter of those large holes in the house...

and...

Tony - I had already had an idea that I would like to 'shore up these defenses' in some manner, yours and Uhuru's and others method seemed a most practical solution, taking into account strength and time spent doing the job and all.

But...

Having the 'glass' out for a couple of days really made me come to appreciate where I did not before the extra ventilation such can provide. I had thought that it would make little difference in a cabin so small, but was mightily surprised. It is akin to the difference of (w/sealed lights) being in a room of a house, and (when opening) being out on the screened-in porch. More to come on that in a bit.

About this job: Best I can figure, it took me on average probably 3.5 hours per each to pull them, clean them of goo, re-polish the Lexan, and return them into position on the house. As is normal, the first took much longer than did the last, as I refined my "system" for cleaning and scraping of the old goo - that being to most of the work.

What I found works best is to use a single-edged razor blade type paint scraper to slice off as much of the silicone as could be done fairly quickly. Running it across the middle 'flat' area peeled off a good bit quickly, then using it on edge to get into the corners and release the hold of the silicone there, which was a bit more painstaking but faster than other things I tried. Once I had removed as much silicone as possible with this scraper, I used a wire-wheel on my drill to get most of the rest of the stuff off the frame. My last port took probably 1/3 the time it took me on the first, say a tiny bit under 90 minutes to remove the silicone.

I used a high speed grinder with buffer pad to polish the Lexan, it being the key element to my results. 10K RPM's or so, IIRC - it is for automotive finish work, I used to use it to polish up the gloss coat of resin on surfboards, and must be used with care because it _will_ sling your work if too much pressure gets applied. I had some of the recommended "Novus" plastic polishing product, yet found that both normal red-bottle paint rubbing compound and 3M's 'Fiberglass Cleaner and Wax' product worked pretty much as well as the high-dollar, Lexan specific product. Two passes each side with successively finer polish put an almost scratch-free finish on this 10+ year old Lexan in about 20 minutes per pane. Interior UV damage ('crazing') is still visible when seen with light coming straight through, but overall the end result is almost as good as new. See top pic below - that is looking out through 'bronze' tinted Lexan. As the outside had been literally worn down a paper-thickness or two from the years of manual polishing, I swapped the Lexan around, putting the formerly exterior side into the interior now, hoping that might make things slower to deteriorate for a while.

Instead of silicone, I used 3/16" adhesive-backed foam rubber weatherstripping to seal the deadlights. Not sure how well it would hold up at sea, it is mostly a stop-gap measure that does work statically, and can easily be removed if desired in the future. It required that I use longer thru-bolts than the original; while 3/4" would have worked, there were none in stock, so I used 1" instead, and a combination of cup washer and flat washer (see pic) to take up the extra length for a good seal.

[CapnK]

So, for now at least, I have simply returned the deadlights in almost-original configuration. Yet I really liked having them able to open, so I have been thinking on how to implement that.

One consideration I have had always was that prior to going out to sea, I would like to have 'sea shutters' made and in-place; basically large 'covers' over the deadlights which were affixed to the house, providing a much smaller window area, and basically serving to keep serious impact from striking - and possibly pushing in - the entirety of these large holes in the house.

So I think I can make them opening for at-anchor, dock, or day sailing usage, while utilizing the sea shutter idea for offshore. Below are my first scribblings of ideas. I am trying to make it as simple as possible, considering amounts both work involved and finances. I would also like to retain as much as possible to original look of the boat.

First idea involves building a "lip" all around the deadlight area which would serve two purposes: to hang the needed hardware from, and to deflect water streaming across the deck/house sides so that it cannot directly strike the gasketed seal, forcing in water via 'normal' (ie not storm or big seas) pressures. The portlight would attach to the upper lip with hinges, and have hardware on the inside that would 'cam down' to seal the port shut against the gasket. The 'glass' would pivot out and up, preventing light rain from entering the cabin. The lip would have built-in threaded holes to allow affixing of the sea shutters.

The second idea (pics #2 & 3) illustrates the beginnings of a second solution, which would be to pivot the glass not from the top, but in the middle, the upper part swinging in, the lower out. It would pretty much have the same features as the first idea.

Still thinking on both of these...

[ebb]

Kurt,
Interesting about our cabin ports is that all four are exactly the same dimension,
even reversed. So I'd put together one fullsized thinking model with cardboard and foam and try out those ideas.
Ebb went an entire different way, slabbbing-on the lexan sheet to use the cabin itself instead of framing to take the load of a green one.
Slabbing-on lights is only a good idea until a greeny comes aboard and tears them off. Frameless, the caulking is exposed.

My Bomar deck hatches depend on plain half-round foam gasket cinched under pressure to seal.
Maybe it works with heavy weight cast aluminum frames....but certainly a lot is asked of plain compressed foam.
I'd give any opening and any other foam caulk a cove or seat on both surfaces to squeeze tight into.
Or create right angles to make dams against sudden intrusion. Our tiny forward opening ports are gasketed right.

I did read once, from a source I could believe, that cabin windows are often ignored by seas crashing directly UP into them when the boat is heeled. The cabin in that position can easily flounder.
Which leads me to believe that nearly all openings should be sealable 360°.
I find that paranoia rather interesting!
But it leads me to suppose that huge lexan lights can actually have added opening ports right in the plastic.
Granted it's probably going to be much smaller openings.. when we could use a good breeze inside, but......

The cabin's skinny center divider between ports cannot stand alone. As designed, imco, its floppiness is one fatal flaw for windows leaking.
Has to be taken into account when remodeling.

How thick do traditional weather boards have to be? I think a lot lighter if Meranti ply is used. Can see 3/8" if the panels
are attached/placed in a way that a 60mph slab of water can't get a green fist underneath to yank it off.
Once played with the idea of top-down sliding panels into a ready groove....disguised as a frame...
Also wondered if samoied or sunbrella cloth could somehow be used. Double duty to also protect the lenses from UV when layed back or on a long tack in the Pacific. The cloth against a backup (the plastic light) isn't likely to pop or tear but instead slip the water by.

And also wondered if a drop in wood bar horizontally across the ports INSIDE the cabin will work.
That way nice carpentry prevails outside, and the strong steroid stuff waits to be used only when needed.
The U-shaped strong back holders might do double or triple duty for more mudane things?
I can still see doing this!

In the mid '50s, Miles and Beryl Smeeton, with John Guswell as crew, were attemping to round the Horn in the ketch TzuHang....
when they pitch-poled. When they....came back up.... the deck of the boat had been stripped clean as by a mower. Everything sliced away
including hatches, rudder, masts leveled to the deck, dog-house, compass, dinghy, anchor, cleats.

Just tossing some sticks on the fire...
Can't wait to see what you come up with......

[CapnK]

You've reminded me of something I'd forgotten to post. In reading prior to doing this job, I ran across an article where the author (a surveyor) pointed out that the reason for leakage over time was due to movement, by and large. Made me think that some sort of internal structural support would be a good idea to incorporate, and it could be aesthetic as well as functional - small shelf, a handhold/towel rack, etc... And I hadn't really thought of it in that way, but the "lip" in my first drawing would do the same, really stiffen up the structure, if constructed properly...

[ebb]

Kurt, Of course you do remember that the molded liner in the cabin and the cabin molding itself ....means that there is a space (approx 3/8- 1/2") between the two moldings. When the port lights are removed that's the space you see.
That space is just that: space. When the frames of the lights were screwed together with the 9 or 10 itsey-bitsey, teeny-weeny #4 machine screws...
those frames:
outside frame to inside frame tried (and Failed) to clamp the floating piece of glass that is the 'light' into something useful. The tiny screws cannot be tightened because they have no where to go. Besides clamping tighter wouldn't work anyway, because that would distort the cabin sides even more, and it didn't work anyway, ever. The something useful is really something shockingly stupid.
And selling these boats as "....Ocean Racer Cruisers"

So your Dreaded Former Owner attempts to use Evil Silicone to stop leaks. Since the DFO is gone a little nuts with constant leaks....
he constantly slathers on more and more evil rubber, until he runs out of hope and money, and sells the boat.....

BUT the cabin moulding and the cabin liner are not connected...the liner is sort of suspended.... Just AIR IN THERE. A I R . You have to fill the space (part of it) with epoxy gel or something. Around the windows and wherever there are thru-fittings (hocky-pucks.)
That's what ebb did, and it's explained ad nauseum elsewhere in this forum.

If you are going to work on the cabin port lights you simply have to do something with that space.
.................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. ...
The inside cabin liner is connected to the boat squeezed between the strongback and cabin under the mast.
It runs along on both sides under the deck close and not connected, loose, to the bridgedeck where it is squeezed to the underside of the bridge
at the bulkhead. There may have been an attempt at the factory to glue the sides of the liner to the underside of the deck, but it was
failed on A338. All leaks thru fittings, mast, port lights ended on on the stringer shelves.... known as gutters by some. Pearson could only have planned for the the liner not to be sealed, otherwise it would have collected stagnant liquids and made the boat uninhabitable. Bad design.

[CapnK]

Wow - you only had #4's? Tiny indeed! Mine were (are) held together with #10's, at least. 9 of those, per deadlight. I wonder if they used smaller fittings on earlier boats, mine being near the end of the production run...?

What I noticed WRT the 'space between' on Katie is that it is easily closed at the bottom and most of the sides of the deadlight hole. At the top it's a different story, due to the curvature into the overhead. Top forward corner of the strbd forward deadlight, it cannot be brought together, the liner hole is cut wider than the doghouse hole. Likely stuff some epoxputty into there, everywhere else just gets bonded together with a bit of thickened epoxy and clamps.

What the Smeeton's and Guzwell pulled off down there in the deep SoPac, *that* is the embodiment of true seamanship to me. IIRC, Beryl was even swept overboard when that happened. Scary stuff! Good reading, though.

-----

Also, today I did a bit more interior aft bulkhead carving and have now extended the berth aft to the new forward footwell edge. Where I currently have the forward berth edge gives me a berth approx 80"x44", a "small double". Plenty of room to add in 10" more on the front for a "full double" size, but being solo at this time, I am opting for more footroom on the cabin sole. Plenty spacious for me and CrewDog Barque.

[ebb]

Kurt,
Said #4s, maybe I'm thinking of the forward ports....You're correct, more like #10s.
In an attempt to reuse the frames, I thru-drilled and countersunk the exterior frame for #10s.
A338's ports and frames however, are/were aluminum and the tapped sockets for s.s. machine screws were all corroded.
Probably because Pearson didn't use a barrier on the threads.


You are heroic - remodeling the footwell/bridge-deck....

But you are doing this, as I understand it, to gain head room for horizontal sleeping.
Howzit going to work? Isn't it a bit high up for a bunk?
Can't visualize a bunk over the galley area.
Is the arrangement athwartship ? Not. So it has to extend forenaft into the cabin....
Has to fold or disassemble quickly.
Mon, you don't happen to have a sketch you can post here?

I'm also one of those long people that don't fit in buses and airplanes, and economy cars....and MORCs.
All's fair in taking OP's ideas in boat remodeling. so, give it up!

[CapnK]

I made a few primitive drawings to try and help explain it somewhat visually.

I had removed all of the original sink, shelf, icebox, etc, leaving only the settees butted up against the original aft bulkhead a while back.

I cut the forward 14-16" (I forget the exact number) of cockpit footwell and footwell sides, up to the level of the seats, right at the corner between the horizontal top/seats and the footwell sides. The vertical cut runs right down along the forward seat lid drains, and the bridgedeck now extends aft to that point.



This part of the footwell included the drains, so I bored a hole in the aft end of the cockpit behind the tiller, and built up the cockpit floor so that water now drains aft, through that hole and then on out through the outboard well.

I cut out the after bulkhead down belowdecks, leaving about 4" of material along the top edge, and dropped a vertical cut 5-6" out from the hull sides. At settee level, that narrows to only about 2" of original bulkhead, cut down to & across at settee level. There is between 26-27" of height over the settee level up to the bridgedeck overhead. I am extending the settees at their original level back to what will be the new after bulkhead, this is in line with the forward cockpit seat drains, basically filling in the space where the inboard would be, over the keel sump.





The cockpit lockers will be separated and sealed off from one another, as well as from the space under the footwell. That will be it's own, sealable space for stowage, as will the areas under the settees/bunk.

I am using a telescoping ladder for access into the cabin; it extends to the forward edge of the berth when down, and can be folded up and out of the way against the companionway boards. The berth is a shallow 'U' shape, with each settee forming the "legs" - the extra bit makes for a length sufficient that either leg can be a 'downhill' sea berth when heeled over, each as long as I am tall, and also serves as seating. It would also be easy to put in a filler board in the middle of the U and have a really wide (larger than double bed) athwartships "in port" berth.

Forward of the berth/settees & up to the main bulkhead is galley on both sides, the v-berth area is the head and general stowage. To keep the heavy stuff low and centered, I have 2 AGM batteries that live under a sealed-off hump just aft of the main bulkhead; wiring goes up from them in tubes, snorkel-like to deck level then out to hull on each side before running fore/aft - so electrical should not get wet unless she sinks, that is the plan there. You step over the batteries going forward. I am going to try and put water tankage just outboard of those, under cabinetry.

[CapnK]

A shot with the construction boss/overseer. This should clarify things. I've emptied tons of detritus, cleansed decades of mold, and am slowly but surely poisoning a recent and wily stowaway (species Rattus norvegicus) to death, all as final prep for construction in the aft end of the boat. That means glass work will start in the next few days.



I'm using the the old pegboard that delineated the two lockers from the center space as patterns to make foam cored planks that will fit vertically below the cockpit sole. Glassed there and to the hull, they'll become longitudinal bulkheads reaching from the aft-most bulkhead up to the plane of "Barque's doggy door". I will make cored athwartships bulkheads at that point as well on the line of the forward locker drains, defining the rear end of the cabin space in the process.

Planned progess will be: make slightly oversized foam planks from pattern, insert dry, mark and trim to fit, while also noting area of hull and structure from which paint will need removal prior to bonding. Take panels back out, glass both sides, then reinsert and bond in place. Most of the surface glassing of the new bulkheads will be done outside of the boat this way. I'll probably roll on a coat or two of paint everywhere besides where they'll need bonding while the space is "open" and easily accessible, leaving only the "new construction" to be painted once glasswork is done.

This will serve as my test for creating foam-cored, glass-skinned panels/planks shaped to fit as 'dry' foam in the cabin, removed for surface glassing, and then reassembled and bonded at the corners/edges to finish. Crossing my fingers it works like I think it could...

Once done I will have two completely separate cockpit lockers (watertight, if I work on the locker lids a bit), and the space under the cockpit sole will be stowage, accessible from in the cabin. Immediately forward of this, at the same height/level as the original settee, will be my double-bed-sized athwartships berth, 2/3 under the companionway, with 2 small projections on each side of the boat allowing one to lie along the hull instead of across the boat, if desired.

Still figuring out the mechanics of the doggie door, how best to keep it as an openable area which can still be sealed easily and securely when underway...

[CapnK]

Why do we consider our ill-implemented and inconsistently thick cabin trunk overhead liners to be sacrosanct?

[CapnK]

...like Dali, the thought so inspired me, I had to take a nap.

[CapnK]

The liner...

• allows condensation to form, mold to grow, water to travel unseen
• makes it difficult for our not-very properly seaworthy ports to remain leak-free
• provides little in insulation, and prevents further efforts in that area
• seems to have been more of a nod to aesthetics than to strength and seakeeping ability

It must go.

[Tony G]

Good to hear from you again Capt.

Your last post brings up four easily found, and valid points. To address your first post today..I dunno. Everything is fair game, right?

You could easily add thickness where needed for backing plates and around ports* using small pieces of teak or other suitable wood. While sanding and filling over head is no fun, our cabin top is quite a small area and could easily be knocked out in a weekend (albeit a full weekend). It would go much quicker than the shimming, clamping, filling and sanding, filling and sanding, filling and sanding course I pursued, and, in retrospect, a far more practical and attractive route. I say go for it!

What about the cockpit conversion? What has been happening on that front? I can't wait to see the setees/berth start to take shape. That will really define the area. I really like what you got going on with KM, and find the duration between your posts dang near unbearable.

*I was recently on James Baldwin's site looking at the '72 Alberg 30 he finished. The way he instaled the portlites in the main salon really caught my eye. It is indeed the K.I.S.S. principle in practice, and a far more elegant solution than I came up with. I wanted nice wood trim around the ports, but made it so ungodly complicated. Eh, some have it, some..not so much.