Where are we in the TODO list?

Well... It's complicated.

Start rebuilding stringers for bowsprit platform

Last year, I cracked the bowsprit platform when I hit a dock piling.

The platform has stringers. Two were broken and lifted out.

I used some glue and screws to reassemble the two pieces. It's not going to be quite as strong as the original. But. It will do until we get something else built.

(I have some marine grade plywood that I may add to each stringer.)

Replace pencil zinc in cooling system

This was a right awful ordeal.

The zinc's underneath the main heat exchanger, which is at the aft end of the engine. It's almost inaccessible. You have to know what you're doing because you can't see it.

You put your 9/16" or 3/4" wrench on it by feel (I have several zinc holders of a variety of head sizes.) The point of the zinc is to give up mass more quickly than the other metal parts of the cooling system. Which means the zinc erodes slowly. Eventually, it breaks off from the brass plug used to screw it in and rattles around in the heat exchanger.

This picture is hard to interpret. Stick with me.

The heat exchanger is something like 3" in diameter. The picture shows the bottom 1 1/2" of the thing. Up really close. There's a frame with four openings and a hole for a screw to hold the end on. The picture only captures one opening and part of another. The picture's tricky to take because I have to stick my phone down there, using a dentist's mirror-on-a-stick to look at the phone screen to see if I'm pointed at anything useful.

In the bottom opening you can kind of see a bit of something behind the frame. It doesn't look too cylindrical, but it actually is. The trick is -- by feel -- seize this with the big medical tweezers and work it out of the opening.

Here's the old zinc (left) and the new zinc. The brass plug is a 9/16" hex head. The zinc has 5/8" threads and screws into the plug. The plug holds it in the heat exchanger.

Of course, the old brass plug is packed full of old zinc. The zinc has (mostly) corroded to a flaky mess you can pick out with an ice pick. The not-corroded zinc had to be drilled out. And then, I could use a regular hardened steel bolt (and some penetrating oil) to clean out the threads on the plug.

Going back in?

Ugh. There's a bit of the old zinc in the opening. I have to jam a tool in there to break up the little skin of old zinc before the new zinc can go in.

Check on-deck screws

The screws on deck include some electrical fittings. The lifeline stanchions. Those kinds of things.

It's not done done. The stays'l track requires one person below to hold the nuts while someone on deck tightens the screws. We'll finish it tomorrow.

Bowsprit Rollers

When I first bent the rollers on the bowsprit, I tried to beat them back into shape using my only hammer -- a 12 oz. ball-peen hammer. Good for a lot of things. Heavy enough for a good, solid whack.

The guy from Mac's Metal Material pulled out a 10 lb. sledge. "Get a bigger hammer," he said with a grin.

A few taps (13x the weight) and it was straight. A little more oomph with a giant C-clamp, and both sides were even. The pin went back in. A couple of cotter pins, and we're done. Fixed. Anchor chain rolls over cleanly. We can pull the anchor up from the parking lot when I finish repairing the platform.

The picture reveals 3 missing stringers. The shadow hides a crack in a fourth stringer. So. I'll be gluing and screwing them tomorrow.