i550class.org

Chad wrote:last paint this morning:

IMG_0662.JPG

WOW! Damn fine and shiny!

Looks like a beautiful finish. I hope to see it in person at a regatta some day.

ryderp wrote:Looks like a beautiful finish. I hope to see it in person at a regatta some day.

Likewise, Phil. Maybe we can get Kevin (and Jeff? and who else?) out for a tuneup weekend in the spring, someplace accessible to us all...

Sounds great. I'd be happy to head west to meet somewhere in the middle.

Phil

I'm game. But let's define "spring" and where "the middle" is. May is the earliest I can get on the water (that's when the ramp opens locally). I'd imagine that other locations on both Lake Michigan and Lake Erie have similar time lines. Any ideas on a good mid point location?

Kevin.

I suppose it depends on who's coming. Midway between Phil and me is northern Indiana, which is pretty close to you in Chicago. I suppose we could recalculate the centroid of whatever group we have when the time comes.

I wasn't thinking of attending a scheduled race weekend- I thought it would be more useful to us all to just line up and do speed testing, and maybe some rabbit start racing at the end of each day. I'm game for whatever you all would prefer, though.

Bunch of hardware mounted, splicing lines each night to fit, ups man arriving almost daily, but the job list is growing even as things get steadily crossed off! Whatsupwitdat?!?

Ah, the joys of finishing the boat. Just wait until you sail it. By the end of the first day you'll have a list as long as your arm of things to "improve".

I finished sanding my patchwork of minor mods yesterday. Hoping to touch up the paint this week and get a front yard sail in before the snow flies. I really want to see how that modified spin looks if I can.

See new thread on possible get together in the spring.

Kevin.

Hardware progress, mostly dry fit as I get the screws and holes sorted:


Still to go is interior electrics, trolling motor mount, some interior rigging, some more hardware to put on the mast, shove the keel in the bottom hole, and oh yeah test fit the sails when they get here -any day now.

wow, that is beautifffffic. No way mine is going to look anywhere near that good. In fact, I finally reached the F - IT stage. Final thick coating is on the bottom and topsides, going to sand it down and slap paint on it. I'm done. Done with the 407mix, anyway. Whatever looks ugly I'll deal with later.

Scruuu wit...

Primer. It's soooo satisfying when it goes on, but then when you start to sand it out it turns evil and shows all the little improvements to be made.

I found Quik Fair to be a pretty good product for those multiple small improvements after priming- it's easy to mix a thimble's worth at a time, it kicks in a couple hours, and it spreads cleaner than most hand thickened epoxy brews.

Say, just noticed- why isn't there a thorough pink tinge to the ground for several feet all around your hull?!?

Chad wrote:Say, just noticed- why isn't there a thorough pink tinge to the ground for several feet all around your hull?!?

Cause this boy is TIDY!!!

And priming is very rewarding. Then you mess it up a little. Then you paint again and then you stop thinking about it. As I repaint some small areas where I've made changes I just have to look past the other spots that could be fixed. If I go down that path I'll be repainting the whole boat before long.

http://poozletrap.blogspot.com/

Some update on my progress. Finally starting to get some things going again!

Cool, cedar seems to be a new trend in i550's. I've got some too, pics a little later.

Current projects continue to be rigging and hardware, as well as some interior stuff. And a mount for the trolling motor:


Drop in panels for my bunk flats, the cleats to keep them from dropping through, the outboard bracket, and the electrical panel.


Keel gybing setup. Blue pulls the slider forward and locks the keel on center, bungee pulls it aft (not there yet), and the jib sheet goes through the ferrule to pull the aft end to leeward with each tack (there's another one for the other side).


Rudder waver-arounder. Amazingly, so far it's working. From the weather side, pull the blue line up into the side cleat and it swings the rudder downward (which puts it out of the flow of the keel since the jibing keel puts the rudder right in the keel's turbulence, the whole reason for this gizmo). To center the rudder, grab the center string and yank, which pulls the side lines out of their cleat and pulls the pivot to the middle. No thought needed, just grab and yank and it works.

Of course all this stuff needs to withstand sailing loads, and I'm working really hard to make it to the lake soon before that becomes impossible.

Wow, great stuff Chad! Love the rudder-waver-arounder.

btw, here is a shot for you...the mandatory pink tinge shot.



I hope by Wednesday of next week to still have a boat...or I can just rename it "Death by Sandy."

Tim,

Get some paint on that thing. It really makes you feel good.

Phil

Tim Ford wrote:btw, here is a shot for you...the mandatory pink tinge shot.
I hope by Wednesday of next week to still have a boat...or I can just rename it "Death by Sandy."

Yeah, looking forward to pics showing evidence of sanding, NOT that you've been Sandy'd.

Be sure to check in (all of y'all EC'ers) when you get a chance...

Got lucky and boat survived...tree down next door but on the other side of the lot. Just got power back, yay. Best wishes to anyone else impacted by the Freak of Nature known as Sandy.

admin, Glad to hear from you and that your boat is safe. Mist survived too. No problems.

I got lucky there was enough wind to open the door to the barn which made me turn my head and spill my beer! Thank god there was 5 inches of saw dust on the bottom of the boat. Flirting with disaster!

When they say to use alcohol to clean up the epoxy, that's not quite what they mean...

Glad all came through alright.

Fly the boat, don't crash the boat:


The gantry worked fine, except that 12' isn't quite tall enough to let me drive the trailer under it with the keel in its tray. To add to my confidence, one of the 2x4's I went to grab at the store broke in half as I picked it up. Let's say that I examined the others pretty carefully before putting them in the truck!

Sooo, I had to put the keel on the ground, lower the boat onto the keel, build a little keel hoist and pull the keel up tight to the hull bottom, raise the whole enchilada with the overhead hoist, then drive the trailer under and lower it into place. None of it hard, just a lot of little slow steps...

With the boat outside getting washed by some rain, I'm doing some stuff on the rig- punch list items from the last time I raised it, as well as cutting in the halyard exits and mounting cleats. I originally planned to run those all through the mast bottom and down into the cabin, but I think the added compression is going to make the mast rotation too difficult- now all halyard compression is within the mast and the step doesn't "see" it.

wow o wow...that looks scary! I'm sure I'd be perfectly capable of backing into the gantry and knocking the entire thing over.

So, here's the damage to hull #87 from hurricane Sandy. This makes me even more determined to get the 2000e on there! Basically what happened is this:

1) it rained really hard and the wind blew it sideways. It found its way under 2 tarps...no surprise there
2) this happened in the early part of the week and the weather remained crappy all week, not to mention there was a whole slew of other stuff, both storm related and not, to get done in the subsequent 6 days
3) the moisture sat there compressed under the tarps and was not allowed to evaporate (note to self, remove tarps asap with next storm, which is looking like it's 48 hours away)
4) blisters formed in a couple of places, some of which were rather large
5) build boat in waterproof/wind-proof shed next time.

Afaik, epoxy doesn't "blister"*. That looks like poor adhesion between layers- what was your surface prep routine between coatings? Phenolic micro balloons can absorb a little moisture, but I've never seen it go beyond the very outer surface. The epoxy resin that holds the pmb should make a very good water barrier.

*in the classic, osmotic sense...

Yeah, in retrospect I think you are right...poor adhesion. Man, I hope this is the only spot. I'd hate to be sailing this thing and have the entire bottom peel off (although, once shed, think of the speed!

By request, the hoist frame that I used, in case anybody wants to copy.
Use enough nails/screws at the joints so it doesn't fall down!