Leaky Hatches

Both of Pachuca's hatches have always leaked under load.  And the load can be considerable because the S&S 39  sits low in the water and its deck is easily swept by sheets of water during rough passages, something less likely in a  boat with higher freeboard. 

The forward hatch leaked so much during the passages to New Zealand that I replaced it with a new Maxwell hatch made in NZ at considerable trouble because I was forced to slightly enlarge the hole through the deck.  The first thing that I noticed when I unpacked the winch was that the rubber was crinkled at the corners because it had been forced around the corners rather than properly contoured.  At the time there was a lot of other work going on with the boat and we wished to depart for Tahiti as soon as possible, so I fitted the hatch as it was hoping for the best.  Sadly, that hatch leaked from day one.  It was not a gushing  leak but rather a drip drip drip that forced us to move the clothes and bedding forward whenever we beat hard to weather.

Foredeck Hatch (Maxwell) before re sealing

Seal crinkled at coners (Maxwell)

The cabin hatch is a Lewmar, probably dating from the building of the boat. It drips particularly on the starboard bunk whenever we beat on a port tack.

I would term these "nuisance" leaks but now that the boat's refit had been completed it was time to address these annoyances.

Bruce and I tested the seals with a water hose and to our surprise could not get a leak out of the foredeck (Maxwell) hatch no matter how hard we tried.  Bruce raised the possibility that the leak happens when there is distortion of the hull when beating hard  to weather.  The Lewmar hatch over the cabin leaked as expected, from the aft port corner.

The frame of the Maxwell was in excellent condition and I was determined to  save it by fitting anew seal. 

The Lewmar was ready for replacement because what is termed the "lens" was badly crazed and the frame was pitted, but I would try to buy time by resealing it too.

The problem was finding rubber seals for these obsolete hatches.  I got lucky and found my way to Clark Rubber in Cannington where I was pleased to see the best selection of rubber stripping since "Fitch the Rubber Man" in Adelaide in 2008.  I walked out with 5 profiles of "sponge strip" which for my records were:
- item number 578,     16x5mm
- item number 31575, 13x3mm
- item number 31584, 19x6mm
- item number 31616, 8x3mm
- item number 40536, 19x14mm  self adhesive

I also purchased a can of good quality clear adhesive.

Lewmar hatch: crazed lens, pitted frame, sloppy previous sealing job

Armed with the selection of stripping I found that the Maxwell seal was not stuck with adhesive and was able to remove it intact.  I had noted from an earlier examination that the bottom of the rubber seal had a ridge that was pressed into a groove the frame and I had purchased a strip with a similar profile.

Seal removed from foredeck (Maxwell) hatch

I carefully fit the new strip around the frame, using plenty of adhesive and making sure that the trip was always centered along the groove in the frame. I managed to do this with no crimping at the corners and a tight join of the two ends of the strip. My plan was to clamp the hatch down tight for a few days and in order to avoid the possibility of the lid becoming stuck to the frame I applied a light coating of grease on the lower rim.

But then the hatch would not clamp down into its tight heavy weather position.  Fortunately Kim was at his boat in the adjacent pen and kindly stood on the hatch while I clamped it down.

I used a different approach with the Lewmar hatch.  I cleaned off the existing seal then glued a thin flat strip of rubber inside of the depression formed by years of clamping down the hatch.  The result looked good but once again I could not clamp the hatch down fully from the inside.  Kim had left his boat by then but I got the bright idea of filling up the two 15-leter water containers and placing them on the hatch.  That did the trick.

The first thing that I did when returning to the boat several days later was to do some very aggressive leak testing using the hose at full pressure and with a proper nozzle rather than my thumb as before.  Try as  I might I  could not get the Maxwell hatch to leak, which was a very good result indeed.  I will not be sure about ultimate success until I have had a chance to sail the boat hard to weather with foredeck awash.

But I was somewhat disappointed that the Lewmar still leaked in the same corner and I began to suspect that the leak is through the handle because the depression along the new strip is deep and consistent.  It had been worth a try but it didn't matter because I plan to replace the hatch anyway.

To be honest, I was amazed at the quality the workmanship.

Maxwell hatch after re-sealing

Lewmar hatch after augmenting the seal

Closeup of Lewmar hatch with new thin strip stuck along centre of old strip

Winch Maintenance

This blog states that I last serviced Pachuca's winches in early March 2012, which would have been in Mar del Plata, Argentina.  This confirms my not having a recollection of servicing the winches since my return to Australia in April 2013, but I had my doubts about that when I saw the surprisingly good state of the winches.  The cabin and jib winches were remarkably clean and lubricated, although the spinnaker winches were starting to show a need for servicing. 

Work Area with mattress protector on rail to prevent losing parts overboard

Gears and base ready for cleaning

Winch disassembled, clean, ready for lubrication

The task went well, although I am still very slow at that work.  Breaking down the large winches takes less than 20 minutes, but cleaning and lubricating with lanolin grease each component takes me about two hours of careful and methodical effort.  And the final assembly can cause a few headaches.

The upshot is that as always it took me two days to service the four large winches (Maxwell 28ST) and half a day to service the smaller and simpler cabin top winches (Maxwell 22ST). 

On our last sail the port jib winch jumped a gear with a loud clank when I loaded it up as much as I could with both arms.  It returned to normal when the heavy load was reduced.  So I performed maintenance on it with a careful eye for anything that could explain the gear jump as I cleaned and lubricated each component.  All the bearings were intact, with no cracks in the races.  All the gears were as new.  Maxwell winches use clutches, which I consider to be far superior to pawls, and they seemed OK too. 

I found two possibilities of the cause, which I consider remote.  There was a gear that I had noticed earlier with the walls of two cutouts for the clutch looking very thin.  However, it appeared to me that this how they had been machined and I could not see how this could cause the gear jump problem. The metal showed no indication of bending or fracturing. The second possibility appeared downright startling at first: a vertical hairline crack down the side of the cast alloy housing.  But closer inspection showed that the crack did not go all of the way through the housing, and it matched a small seam on the other side of the housing.  It appeared to me that the housing was composed of two halves that had been joined together by what must have been exquisite welding.  The crack I saw appeared to be superficial with no likely movement, and certainly none evident.

I swapped the suspect gear with the one on the port spinnaker winch.  If that does not correct the problem I will replace both clutches with spare new ones (which I should have done when I had the chance).  With no cleaning and lubricating required I should be able to do the clutch swap in well under an hour.  If that fails I will contact the Australian Yacht Winch Company (which has been brilliant about providing spares in the past) for advice.  Failing all that I'll make a swap with the spinnaker winch which is very infrequently used - a workaround that I am reluctant to take because I want everything on the boat to work correctly, with no hidden traps.

Suspect Gear

Hairline crack on housing

Clutch and springs

Day Sail

On Friday 27 December I took the boat out in the company of fellow sailor and friend Peter Austin with his wife Lynne.  We sailed to the south along the shipping channel then dropped anchor at Woodman Point for 90 minutes of lunch and relaxation.
 

Lunch Aboard Pachuca

The SW wind had been stronger than expected and we sailed with one reef in the main and perhaps a third of the headsail rolled out. We had water over the deck which brought out two things, one good and one not so good.

The good news is that after starting off with a bone dry bilge I found about one spongeful of water in the bilge when we were back at the pen, which could have been easily been caused by water loosened up during the sail.  I say that because it took me about 2 days to dry the bilge after I had discovered that two of the drain tubes between the bilge sections were still plugged up, and the water kept seeping into the bilge for 2 or 3 days after I removed  the plugs. 

The not-so-good finding is that the new you-beaut solar vent over the head cannot be removed and replaced by a plug like the old one, as far as I can tell. The water was skating along the deck then going into the vent and down into the head. This is completely untenable for heavy weather sailing and on my next visit to the boat I will have a better look at the setup.

 

Once again the boat performed very well.  However, we did discover that the boat had drifted perhaps 100 meters in spite of 30m of chain having been put out.  This was no doubt due to the sea grass on the ocean bed and has made me consider replacing the 35kg Delta anchor with the heavier 45kg Manson anchor. But this may be moot because as Brenda pointed out later, there is no need to disturb the sea grass when the club has two moorings available for its members (one of which was free during our visit).

Sea Trial

On Saturday 14 December we took Pachuca out on her sea trial.  I was accompanied by Ron Viney an experienced sailor and good friend whom I have gotten to know during our years of participation in the club's annual Bunbury Cruise.

Ron arrived at the boat at 9 am sharp and at 9.30 we were under way using the motor because the wind was so light.  The first test we did was to motor the boat in a 360 degrees circle to confirm that the autopilot's flux gate compass was working correctly. At the shipping channel we hoisted sail heading south and by the time we reached the southern end of the channel we were  under full sail: mainsail  all the way to the top and genoa fully rolled out.  It was all very pleasant because the apparent wind was only around 14 kts. 

We then turned around and sailed to Woodman Point where with Ron at the bow watching things I dropped anchor over a sand patch using the new control system where I can both drop and raise the anchor from the cockpit. The new winch and control performed brilliantly, which was the highlight of the sea trial.   I was amazed at the speed of chain travel from the new winch.

There were some procedural stuffups because it had been about 2 years since I had sailed the boat, but in general things went very well.  There was a problem with the connection of the mainsheet to the traveller (since corrected) and Ron pointed out that the jib sheets were too short for the larger genoa sail, estimating that I would need sheets 3.5 m longer. The following week I purchased a new  port sheet 13mm in diameter and16m long, with the starboard sheet on order.  

This successful sea trial marked the end of the difficult and expensive 15-month refit of Pachuca.

Preparations for Sea Trial

During October I made more preparations for Pachuca's sea trial. 

I've got four head sails in my inventory.  The best sail is the newest one, supplied by North Sails in Argentina in April, 212.  However, it is a 9.3 oz cruising sail much too heavy for coastal cruising in this area.  Another is the laminated sail provided by Tasker in 2008.   Its stitching had failed on the way to Cape Horn, was repaired by Pato Salas in Argentina, then this spring Steve Hartley assessed the sail, did more remedial work, and declared it fit for use.  Steve also declared the boat's original genoa that I had blown out when crossing the Australian Bight in 2008 to be salvageable and did much remedial work on it, including the expensive step of replacing its worn out UV protection along the leech and foot.  The other original head sail, while salvageable, was not repaired and put aside because it is of lighter cloth and not required.  The repairing those two sails obviated the need to order a new jib, not only saving me money, but also avoiding the pain of disposing of old friends that have served me well.

I elected to put up the original heavy jib rather than the laminated sail, which I decided to hold back for long distance cruising, be it by me or a future owner.  During our subsequent sea trial in mid-December I saw a familiar slit under a section that had been patched by Steve and realized that this was the sail that took me around Cape Horn after the massive stitching failure of the laminated sail only about two weeks out of Mexico.

I noticed that the starboard spinnaker pen line was almost worn through due to constant rubbing by a stanchion that was directly in line between the post and the deck cleat.  Kim Jamieson's solution was to produce a longer springer that reaches another deck cleat about a meter closer to the bow, thus avoiding the stanchion.

I purchased a new jib halyard.  The existing halyard over a meter too short, necessitating the need for a "messenger" line every time I dropped the jib.  The riggers had extended the jib during Pachuca's recent refit but, alas, the extension was too short.

Calculation of the length of the new jib halyard had to be accurate, and on the internet I found the equation L=(2.1xI)+Y+1, where I = (distance along the front of the mast from the highest halyard to the deck), Y = (distance from mast to halyard winch), and the constant 1 is "to be sure" fudge factor.  Using Pachuca's values of I=14.9m  and Y = 3.4m yielded a halyard length of 36m.  I confirmed that result with my own calculations and found it to be extremely accurate.

I also replaced the roller furler line purchased in Brazil which was wonderful to handle because of its thickness but filled up the drum too fast, preventing full extension  of the genoa. The new line is 3m longer at 30m total length, with diameter reduced to 8mm.

I put up the mainsail without a problem over two days working as patiently and methodically as possible.  On the third day I faced raising the genoa, which I knew would be difficult working alone.  I had just fed the tip of the luff cord into the track and was about to start pulling the halyard with one hand and feeding the sail with the other when I got an unexpected visit from my neighbor of two pens up the jetty.  He introduced himself and wanted to meet him because he knew that I placed him in the club's Cruising google group.  We chatted for a while before I asked to be excused so that I could complete my work before the afternoon sea breeze came up and he asked what I was doing.  He then asked if he could help.  Of course I said Yes and we then spent a difficult 30 minutes feeding the sail up the track, immeasurably helped by his suggestion that we try spraying silicone lubricant on the luff and track which I happened to have on board.  I thanked him profusely for his help, marveling at how he had appeared out of nowhere at exactly the right time.  (I've learned to accept these recurring experiences of serendipity at face value with no need for an explanation, but with much gratitude knowing that they are not random.)
  

Maxwell RC10 Installation

Shortly after unpacking the new Maxwell RC10 we discovered that the gear oil sight glass had been sheared off.  I had found the sheared off part of the sight glass in  corner of the shipping box that had been stained by the gear oil that had drained during shipment.  Sharp eyed Bruce pointed out the track of  fork lift blade that had skimmed a track in the foam packing.  He figured that the dispatchers had a quick look, noted nothing wrong, and simply put everything into a new box.  With the help of Jerry we obtained a replacement, but that cause another delay of several days.

Block with insert to decrease diameter of central hole

Fitting the winch studs through deck block

Supplied pattern was too generous with hole diameters

We were not happy with the deck mounting jarrah block that Zelko had produced because there was not enough wood between the edge of the large central hole and the surrounding four smaller holes for the winch studs.  We noted that the pattern supplied had been too generous with the central hole and that we could make it almost 10 mm shorter in diameter.  This had been compounded by Zelko having cut the hole about 2 mm larger than the specification.  As usual Bruce knew someone who could fix that, a shipwright who managed to put a perfectly fitting inner sleeve to make the hole smaller.  While we had the opportunity we asked him to also make a jarrah backing plate to it on the V-berth ceiling, and to that end we supplied one of the old stainless steel backing plates for the curve of the ceiling.

Sometime during this process I went on trip to the USA which cost us another 7 weeks of time.

Bruce and I resumed the installation in late September and in mid-October we finished the installation and got a visit from Greg Hansen who wired up the new winch and its new solenoid.  Bruce then sealed the gaps around the edge of the deck mounting block with black Sikaflex and we tested the seal with water and were happy to see no leaks.

The result has been very good.  The unit is firm on a strong foundation and hoists the chain at a speed that I've never experienced before.

Sheared off oil sight glass

Winch holes covered for weeks with no leaking

Mounted but edges not yet sealed no chain fitted

Below Deck

Note curved jarrah backing plate and area freshly painted

More on Winch Removal

Here are more photos of the removal of the Orca winch.  Jerry Davis worked very hard to remove the winch intact and we tried everything from soaking whatever we could overnight with penetrating oil to heat and finally a metal lever. Nothing worked because the shaft was fused with corrosion and Jerry was forced to cut the winch in pieces with an angle grinder.  It's a shame because the Orca had been built very solid and strong.  Jerry's post mortem revealed that the transmission was full of brass rust (?) and the shaft had been squeezed so tight that the strain on the motor had ruined it. He also stated that the small oil drip that had begun this process could not have been corrected by simply replacing seal because the metal was so corroded. 

The sad state of the winch was mainly my fault largely due to ignorance.  I took  possession of Pachuca in 2005 with absolutely no documentation whatsoever - None!  I had to learn on my own how to take apart the boat's 6 Maxwell sailing winches on my own but never even thought of looking into the Orca anchor winch.

Jerry recommended a Maxwell winch and after googling the various offerings concluded that the Maxwell RC10-10 was my choice, not just on price but also because it would fit the holes already through the deck.  (http://www.maxwellmarine.com/gen_rc.php?features)

Orca Winch Before Removal

Shaft Exposed

Attempting to Lever it Apart

Last Resort: Jerry with the Angle Grinder

Deck After Removal of the Orca