Teething troubles

 We managed to get back to Greece in early June, on the first available flight from San Francisco to Frankfurt. It was interesting: masks all the way, a coronavirus test in Athens airport, two nights in isolation in a quarantine hotel (at public expense and with meals delivered in paper bags) until the tests came back negative, then off to our island for another five days of self-quarantine. By the end of June I had bought a trailer and a two-stroke air-cooled 2.5 hp outboard (basically a weed whacker with a propeller at the end) and registered trailer and engine. On the 4th of July the good vessel Sophia-Andreas was launched. She is very stable and tracks straight, and I love her lines.

However, the problems started immediately. The gas controller on the outboard broke (it was installed backwards, high was low and vice versa, we were lucky not to get hurt) and I ordered the part and replaced it. Also she was taking on water. I found that one of the trailer rollers exerted too much pressure on the bottom and cracked the second chine plywood. I fixed and strengthened the chine and tested for other leaks. After two rounds of waterproofing, the leak persisted with the second and third launches.

Meanwhile the rig needed adjusting. The breeze can get very stiff quickly in the Mediterranean and I found that a plain piece of line for a sheet was too hard to handle. I rigged a traveler system with blocks and it became manageable, but the boat would not tack. I asked for advice on the Wooden Boat forum, and people blamed the full-length narrow external keel and attached skeg. I ignored the advice to take a chainsaw to it but shortened the traveler and prepared for other small adjustments. Then our daughter and grandson came for three weeks and I put everything on hold to spend time with them. 

The rig is a single sprit sail with a brailing line. I found that brailing depowers the sail almost instantly, but in a stiff wind the clew flaps and creates serious wind resistance. I figured out a way to secure the clew by tying it to the mast with the end of the brailing line. The boat, having a bit less freeboard than Aerie and a generous skeg, is very efficient at rowing. 

Just as I was preparing to do another launch, there was a doozy of a thunderstorm that poured enough water on to tear the cover and fill the bottom to a sizeable depth. It took this rainwater to show me the most serious source of leakage: the pressure of the roller had also cracked the epoxy fillet at the seam between garboard and second chine.

I am having some people come over to take the boat off the trailer and flip it again. I will repair the seam, and equally importantly, will replace the rollers with cradle boards to distribute the weight. I think I know why the damage happened (the winch was attached too high on the stem and exerted too much downward pressure, something I have fixed) but I am not taking any more chances.

More adventures

Back in June we had a nice sail around Maumee Bay, and coming back we had to beat into the wind.  Unfortunately the knots in the loop of line securing the sheet block to the main sprit boom came undone and we were left with an out-of-control mainsail, just as the wind was becoming brisk if not fierce.  Not to be deterred, I left my friend Michael at the helm and grabbed the end of the boom with my hand.  Every time he tacked (and it was several times) I changed hands and sides and held on for dear life as the boat bucked the waves.  The virtues of two masts with smallish sails and the gentle behavior of the rig were apparent.  We made it to the ramp with no trouble.  Until, that is, I tried to bring the trailer around for retrieval.  I looked left and right, started moving out of the parking spot, looked behind to check the trailer, and then bang!  I had a low-speed collision with an SUV that was not supposed to be there.  He had snuck around from the wrong side of the parking lot behind two parked trucks, zoomed along and ended in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Anyway, a waste of time and money and a nuisance but no harm done.

Going out was fine, like the last time.  With a fair wind it took us no time to sail out to Maumee Bay State Park, where we beached the boat and had a quick swim.  I say quick, because the algae bloom was pretty bad so it was neither pleasant to look at nor particularly safe.  On the way back the same thing happened: we had to beat into an ever-stiffening wind and whitecaps.  As the wind got very strong, I was keeping a wary eye on the mainmast that was bending quite a lot.  I said to Michael, “you know, it would be really bad if the mainmast failed.”  As soon as I said it he pointed out that the mast was starting to delaminate at one point above the foredeck.  I did not bother to check it myself: I gave the helm back to him and dropped the mainsail, hoping to get in just by the mizzen, or by rowing if that didn’t work out.

Now I know what happens to a cat ketch with no mainsail.  It would not tack so we had to wear (turn through a gibe).  A sprit boom is much gentler than a regular one in a gibe, but still.  One time the boom tip knocked Michael’s hat off his head and he steered us back so I could retrieve it with the boathook:  a flawless maneuver that gives me some confidence that we can deal with a man overboard situation.  But every time we wore and gibed we lost whatever way we had made and were not moving.  So I decided to drop the mizzen sail, unstep the mizzen mast and row in.  In my haste I let the yard down too quickly and it hit me on the forehead, causing a scratch that bled quite a bit (for a short time fortunately).  We then rowed in the teeth of the waves and wind for over an hour.  It was incredibly hard work we but made it back for a well-deserved picnic.

So now what?  In designing the masts, I had not taken into account the fact that a lugsail is attached to the mast in only one place, at the very top where the yard is secured with halyard and toggle.  Hence the very noticeable bend.  The bending stress clearly found the weakest spot, a scarf joint on an outer layer of the three laminated together.  Interestingly there is much less bend and no problems so far with the mizzen mast.

I first considered two options: making new aluminum masts, or wrapping the existing masts in two layers of fiberglass tape.  Both are costly and would require a lot of work.  Fiberglass would also increase the weight, and for aluminum masts I would need to learn new skills and get new equipment (a pop riveter, say, as well as new hardware).  I therefore settled on a partial approach: only reinforce the places where there are outer scarf joints (two per mast) with fiberglass tape.  Bending per se is not a problem: it actually helps by flattening the sail and spilling wind in when it blows hard.  So I will try again and play it by ear.  If this is not enough then there are plenty of other options.  Aluminum masts won’t look as nice but are stronger per pound of weight.  And much as I hate to give up my one-of-a-kind rig and beautiful hand-made spars and sails, the boat can always be re-rigged.  A gaff sloop would be a good candidate.

Another thing I decided after all these adventures is that having an auxiliary engine is a good idea.  I will therefore accept a colleague’s offer of a very old, light and low-horsepower outboard.

But I hear you say, what about the leak, is it vanquished?  Alas, not quite.  Every time I tinker it gets smaller (down to about 1.5 liters/quarts after more than five hours) but hasn’t gone away yet.  I think there is a tiny void at the aft end of the centerboard slot.  I hope this is the end of it.

Until the next report.

boatbuilder

Fixing the leak

After a first effort to fix the leak and a trip to Europe, I had a second launch and sailing trial.  There were no big rigging errors but rigging the boat still took a while.  The wind was quite a bit slower and the sailing less exciting.  The leak too was slower and the hand-operated bilge pump kept things under control, but the boat still took in water.  Three weeks ago I launched the boat again in the local reservoir, without rigging and with the forward floorboards removed.  The leak was slow enough to make it difficult to diagnose, but I had my suspicions.  The water mostly came in on the port side, and that of course is where I built the ballast box.  One end of the bolt on which the CB pivots lay inside the ballast box, and I came to suspect that I forgot to ensure that it does not leak.  My previous boat has a significantly shallower draft and the bolt is almost always above the waterline, which probably made me too complacent in this case.  My fear was that most of the leak was coming right through the ballast box, soaking the lead shot every time the boat got in the water.   This would inevitably cause corrosion. 

So for many reasons it couldn’t be helped: I had to remove the middle floor plank covering the ballast box and check things out.  So I did, sitting inside the boat while it sat on its trailer.  I saw that the lead shot was showing signs of corrosion already.  I removed the lead and poured water into the ballast box as a test.  I discovered that both forward and aft compartments had gaps along the seam where the side wall met the keel batten, which leaked water in and out of the ballast box, but that did not explain why the boat itself leaked: no water dripped out of the bilge onto the floor.  Then I tested my hunch that the leak may be through the CB pivot bolt hole.  Sure enough, as long as the water level inside the compartment was above the bolt, water trickled out onto the floor in a good-sized stream.  Gotcha!

To remove the bolt I had to cut up and remove the port side wall of the forward ballast compartment.  It was a lot of work, but it could have been worse: the fit was so poor that it wasn’t even glued to the keel batten.  I took out the CB pivot bolt and the CB itself and cut a new side wall.  The next day I epoxied the side wall and puttied several seams that allow water to spread along the bilges.  The third day I replaced the CB and its bolt, making sure I used rubber gaskets and caulk on both sides, plus I glued and nailed the side wall and gave it a second coat of epoxy.  The fourth day I re-caulked the inside of both ballast compartments.   The caulk I used took a couple of days to dry, and then I tested the compartments again for water tightness.  Alas, the bolt hole still leaked.  I used more epoxy compound between the bolt and the CB case, then tightened the bolt and tested again.  By now the leak had been reduced to a slow drip.  After another dollop of caulk (silicone this time) had dried it was time to test again.  The leak had slowed even more, but was still there.  Back to the drawing board. 

So I removed the bolt again (through a hole I had to drill in the compartment side wall) and found the continuing problem.  The pivot bolt goes through cedar, a soft wood that deforms when compressed, plus the epoxy compound I had used had not hardened properly.  So I glued a square piece of marine plywood an each side, slathering plenty of epoxy compound to be on the safe side, and used a longer bolt with neoprene-on-steel washers.  Then I plugged the hole in the side wall with a cork, and tested for leaks again.  Success, at least for now.  Then it was time to finish the job.  After letting the compartments dry, I coated the lead shot with mineral oil to prevent further corrosion and packed it in double layers of Ziploc bags.  Then I replaced the middle plank.  With a bit of luck all this will be sufficient to stop the leak and keep the lead dry. 

This is what happens when you don’t do things right in the first place.  I had boasted that the only thing I had to do over was the oar blades.  Can’t say that any more.  But without mistakes you can’t experiment or learn.  The expense was annoying, because somehow I had timed my purchases so that there was almost nothing left over: I needed disposable gloves, epoxy, wood flour, epoxy measuring cups, brushes and lumber.  These plus a new bolt and washers and Ziploc bags added up to just over $70, including exorbitant shipping fees.  I’ll put that and the 20 hours of work (spread over two brutally hot weeks in a garage with no A/C) down to experience. 

If I was starting from scratch knowing what I know now, I might have foregone the ballast box completely and simply strapped lead bars or ingots to the keel batten, after testing the boat for leaks.  I would have also slathered more epoxy between CB trunk, keel batten and bottom and filleted more carefully every seam that could possibly enable a leak.  But I feel that the two-week-long repeated diagnostic, repair and retrofit process taught me a lot and, hopefully, was successful.  So, after returning from my daughter’s wedding in San Francisco followed by a trip to Paris and Belgium, I expect to relaunch Aerie and, knock on wood, not have to worry and bail any more.