Refit 2016

Refit Part 5 – Progress Made – Kinship Splashed

by Matthew

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We had a very busy weekend.  Kinship has been launched and the mast is up.  Dave and the boys and girls at Loyalist Cove Marina lifted the mast on Monday afternoon capping a weekend of real progress.  For the first time this year we were able to stay on the boat, our cabin is usable even if the rest  of the boat is still a mess while we wait for the first water tank.  Though inside work took a back seat, we made lots of progress on the arch and exterior projects.

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On the arch, we have four working antennas for primary and backup GPS systems and the two antennas for the AIS.  Together with running the wiring for the stern light I think we have reached about the 50% point in the assembly of the arch.   The wiring for all these systems goes to the port side and involves crawling a long way into the sail locker to get access.  It was very satisfying to turn on the plotter and see our position mapped and the AIS data from the ferries on the screen.  There were times I did not think I would be able to get everything back together, I am feeling a lot more confident now. We have the radar and wind generator to add next week and we need to sort out the mounting for the solar panels.  The wiring for these systems is easier to get to so I will not have to spend hours contorted in the far corner of the boat

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At the this point, my plan is to mount the panels on 1/4 inch starboard and use some easily removable clamps to mount the panels to the frame.  This will allow us to remove them if we need to reduce windage for weather or storage.

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On the stern, we have mounted the fantastically expensive removable bracket system for the fantastically expensive Watt and Sea hydro generator.  For the record, the expensive parts did not include the stainless part, which was quite reasonable. Now we can have the dinghy on the arch without the risk of hitting the Watt and Sea.  A new folding ladder completes the cruising set up.

Refit Part 4 – Some Assembly Required

by Matthew

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Kinship has been moved from the shop back to the marina.  Having spent about 6 weeks taking the boat apart, now we start the process of putting her back together. First up is reinstalling the holding tank and getting the floor back down.  Peggie Hall – The Headmistress strongly recommends putting holding tank vents on both sides of the boat to allow cross flow though the tank.  Our tank has dual vents but we had not installed the starboard vent.  Over the summer we noticed a bit of a wiff if you happened to be sitting in the cockpit when someone flushes, so we decided to install the second vent with the expectation this will solve this problem.  After a lot of struggling we got the hose in place and now we just to drill for the vent and connect everything up.

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Boat work is often two steps forward and one back.  The backwards step this time is a leaky starboard water tank.  It has dumped its contents into the bilge since the boat was moved and it needs to be replaced or repaired. Of course this means that we can’t connect the extra vent for the holding tank.  The tank is not really the right shape for the space, so I am looking at modified design with a better pick up location and perhaps a little more capacity.  Material choice is up in the air, my first sense is to use welded plastic, but the Saga hive mind is favouring stainless or aluminium, I need to do more research.

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We are making some progress, we got the wheel repainted, covered and a new turkshead tied and it is ready to go back on the boat.  We installed the new audio system, a Fusion MS-RA205 with a Bluetooth module and it works great.  I am the sort of person that thinks the first thing you do when you move into a new place is get the tunes working.  Listening to music or podcasts  while I work just improves my mood.

Progress is slow, the weather has not been great so far, today is -8C and we are at home updating the blog rather than working on the boat.  I am trying to accept that we will not be ready in early May.  We are going to be on the boat for a year, if we are ready in May or late June does not really matter.

 

 

Refit Part 3 – Fibreglass and Keel Work

by Matthew

Kinship has been “in the shed” for a few weeks and work has been progressing. The focus was to get all the fibreglass repairs done while the boat was indoors and not dependent on weather.  This is also the stage that Dixon was doing most of the work. Dixon has done a fine job of filling and repairing the wounds left by the removal of the radar and wind generator towers along with assorted other small parts that were no longer needed.

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The keel repairs have been completed.  As I mentioned, we had some cracking of the fairing over the keel joint, seen above.  The fibreglass was detached from much of the area of the joint and was not doing much.  The crack in the keel fairing is a few inches below the actual joint.  I am not sure why this happened, a mix of water getting in and a freezing and some movement in the joint.

We pulled out the holding tank and this revealed the lack of plates under the aft keel bolts and some minor stress cracks in the paint. The rest of the keel bolts have plates.    I ground away the paint in the keel sump, the cracks did not penetrate the structure at all.  The sump was reinforced with 6-8 layers of 18oz glass and epoxy.  Over-sized 3/8 stainless  plates have been installed to spread the loads.  The sump and the connection to the keel is now stronger and stiffer.

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