Hatch Replacement Finally Completed

Fitting the section of ceiling and associated wood trimming that we had dropped in order to replace the  hatch took a lot more time and effort than we had expected. 

No matter how hard we tried we could not screw the ceiling panel firmly in position.  We finally figured out that it was the Megapoxy glue that was causing the problem.  We then  dropped the ceiling and I returned to the boat the following week armed with a Dremel tool and a light drill for fitting screws.  Bruce used a chisel to remove the excess glue and finished off by using the Dremel tool fitted with rough sandpaper. 

Ceiling, looking forward

Ceiling, looking aft

The ceiling went up OK but we then had trouble fitting the wood trip  around the hatch.  It should have been a quick and easy job because I had carefully written the position of each piece.  Things got so bad that we began to wonder if I had confused port with starboard and forward with aft, juggling the pieces around made things worse.  We gave up at the point where the trim was fitted to three sides but the  piece for the fourth side was more than 5mm too long.

On Monday morning I was back at the boat with the plan to work patiently alone and use my head rather than hurling in trying this and that.  The approach worked and after two hours the job was completed.  I am convinced that the problems were caused by the use by Zelko of an impact drill  to self tap the screws into position, rendering everything too tight and inflexible.  I did thinks like enlarging the holes through the trip so that the screws could pass easily through them and elongating some of the holes.

But the time Bruce visited the boat in the late afternoon the rest of the trim was up.  The next day I put up four circular pieces of trim spent a couple of hours cleaning the boat.  I  left the boat satisfied but ru-ing the fact that there is no such thing as a quick job on a boat.

Megapoxy Filling and Leak Test

 Last Wednesday afternoon I visited the boat and used epoxy superglue to fix an  aluminum plate to which the round teak cover is screwed. (There are four of these setups in the cabin because the ocean racing boat was designed to have winches on the cabin deck.)   This had been the only one of the four teak covers that was screwed into a rough piece of wood glued to the plate instead of directly to the plate.  In knocking off the piece of wood to replace it with a properly finished one I dislodged the aluminum plate and saw that it had never been drilled and tapped like the others.  I drilled the hole and with Bruce's help found a workshop that tapped the hole at no charge.

Aluminum plate tapped and glued in position

Then on Thursday I met Bruce at the boat and watched him mix two batches of thickened Megapoxy and apply it  to the forward side of the below-deck hatch support.  The idea was to be able to use long screws for the three hatch hinges, with the screws passing through the first layer of wood, through the hardened epoxy, and into the lower layer of wood. The result was a greatly strengthened support.

The next day I confirmed that the Megapoxy had properly hardened then did some extensive testing for leaks through the fitted hatch.  There were no leaks when I used the stream from open hose but there were leaks through the middle part of the seals on each side of the hatch when I applied a jet of water from a nozzle.  The seals at the forward and aft sides of the hatch held up well with no leaking, no doubt because the hinges hold down the forward edge and the locking handles hold down the  aft edge.

Megapoxy filling on leading edge of hatch support

I am not too concerned given that the open hose test suggests that the seals will stand up to seawater washing over the deck and besides, there is little that I can do about it.  Nevertheless, Bruce and I agreed that there is a good chance that the sealing will improve once the seals are properly bedded down.  There are, by the way, two seals running along the perimeter of the hatch.  The seal on the lid has a "female" profile and the seal on the base has a "male" profile, and the two rubber seals interlock, preventing a direct path for water into the cabin. And of course I am very happy that the Sikaflex bedding work that Bruce did proved to be flawless.

New Hatch Fitted

I met Bruce at the boat early on Tuesday 16 June, which was the one dry day before the advent of several days of heavy weather. 

Conceptually the bedding down of the hatch on Sikaflex 291 then screwing it down would be straight forward and fast, but the job took about three hours of hard work by both of us.  It was imperative that the hatch not leak and Bruce is a master at that sort of work.  I provided the support and some surprisingly good suggestions. 

Bruce applying Sikalfex 291 sealant

Our first task was to drill the new holes for the hatch and fit all of these screws.  The marks for the new holes had to be precise and the selection of the drill bit diameter had to be perfect because the 20 screws holding the hatch down had to bite well into the wood and be drilled straight enough to achieve flush counter sinking.  Once we had dry fitted the hatch we removed all of the screws, lifted the hatch out of the way, and Bruce got to work with the caulking gun.  He knew from experience how much Sikaflex 291 to lay down with minimum cleanup. (Had it been been me, I would have overdone it with the sealant and spent probably hours cleaning up the resultant mess.)  We then screwed the hatch down, spent a few minutes cleaning up, then stepped back to look at the result.

The Master showing the finished product

We were both happy with what we saw, which to me appeared to be as close to perfection as possible. 

But that is not the end of the project.  The hatch was originally installed with bolts followed by a perimeter of wood to support the ceiling, rendering it impossible for those who followed to use bolts again without removing that securely glued in perimeter of wood.  We have used screws to make it easier for any future hatch replacement.  However,  Bruce has made the sensible suggestion of bolstering that wood perimeter with thickened Epiglue, and I was to replace an incredibly rough block for screwing in one of the four teak discs covering the access to the deck winches (which don't exist: the two forward positions are used for deck pad eyes and the rear ones are not used).  I have made the required new block and after I have fitted it Bruce will visit the boat for the Epiglue work then to help  me with the 2-man job of fitting the ceiling panel into position.  After the ceiling is fitted  into position it will be left to me to fitting all of the ceiling panel screws then the wood trimming.

Wood perimeter preventing access to hatch thru bolts

Router OK

My plan was to allow the router to dry out in the garage for several weeks and perhaps longer.  I would have preferred to allow this drying to take place before drenching the interior of the router with Inox but I was afraid that this would result in one or more parts of  the unit to seize up due to corrosion.  This forced me to apply the Inox treatment as soon as I returned to my house only 3 days after the soaking at the bottom of the marina even though this risked the trapping of moisture under the Inox (even though it is advertised to dissipate moisture, but I am a worry-wart by nature).  This turned out to be a wise decision because initially I could not get any movement when trying to plunge the router down.  I managed to free the plunging mechanism after 30 minutes of patient work with judicious use of a hammer and plenty of Inox. 

However, I became impatient with the wait and a week later got the bright idea of forcing warm air through the unit with a hair drier.

Blow Drying

Rescued router at right

It didn't take long to set up the system on Saturday morning, with the drier directed into the cooling vents at one end of the router.  After satisfying myself that there was warm air egressing from the other end of the router I  set the drier to "low" and left it do its work.  Forty five minutes later I returned to find the router warm as toast.   That afternoon I returned to the garage and gave the router another full hour session of drying.  On Sunday morning I threw caution to the wind and gave the router a final 1.5 hour dose of drying - caution because I  did not want to risk damage from prolonged overheating.

That afternoon my friend Reg arrived to witness the power-up trial.  The test bed was an extension cord connected from a power point inside of the garage to the router which was outside on the brick driveway.  The RCD on the electrical panel would surely prevent an electrical explosion but I wanted to be prepared for anything.  I couldn't even be sure if the router switch was working correctly, so the first step was to set the router switch to Off then throw the power point switch to On.  All remained quiet so while holding the router down with one hand I threw its switch to On ... and the router spun up as though nothing had happened.  A week later week later I spun it up again with no problem.  So far so good, and only time will tell if there is incipient corrosion that will  manifest itself later.  But for the moment I have two Makita routers, a brand new 1800 rpm model and the rescued 3600 rpm  model.

As I wrote in a report to my friends, Never Give Up!

Cabin Hatch Replacement

The task of replacing the original Lewmar cabin hatch with the new Vetus Magnus MAG 5038 SL hatch has been a difficult one.

The first problem was that the new hatch with cutout dimensions of 507 x 377 mm were slightly larger than the existing Lewmar hatch cutout of 504 x 368 mm.  Bruce and agreed that the solution was to use a router on the existing wooden perimeter to accommodate the larger footprint. As luck would have it, I had a visit from Paul, a practicing carpenter, at the exact time when I needed advice.  He told me that using a router free-hand was out of the question if we wanted a good result, and his suggestion was to produce a jig or pattern with the required dimensions which would provide a guide and platform for the jig.

To that end I did a surprisingly good job of producing the jig from a sheet of 6mm marine ply, with the dimensions within 2mm of the required cutout.  For the radii of from memory 43mm for the corners I found the air filter fitting of one of my masks that was close enough at 45mm.

Section of Cabin Ceiling Removed

New Vitus hatch ready next to opening to be routed

Starting jig saw run for the jig

Jig (with dimensions of new hatch) ready for router run.

I've making the sometimes difficult boarding of Pachuca since 2005 with as far as I can remember no loss of anything overboard, which is amazing given the huge transfers of provisions, tools, materials, etc that I've made over the years.  My first failure didn't involve something as inconsequential as a spanner or perhaps a torch, but rather my prized, little used, Made-in-Japan Makita 3600 rpm router.  I won't go into the details, but it went into the salt water drink into about 3 meters of salt water.  Skipping the details, a dedicated and generous member of the sailing club staff dived into the frigid winter waters and retrieved the router.  I soaked the router for the entire day and after keeping it in the boot of my X-Trail for several  days was able to completely drench the router inside and out with Inox lubricant, which on top of all of its claims, is non-conductive.

But I could not wait for the slow process of drying out with what I judged a 50-50 chance of recovery and purchased another Made-in-Japan (that is very important to me) Makita 1800 rpm router which was similar to the one that had fallen into the drink.

I had trouble finding a router bit that had a bearing at the top to ride along the edge of the jib with the cutting edges below and would have given up, but Bruce never gives up and working together we managed to find the bit at a place that stated "We don't stock many router bits but the ones we have are over there". It was a small 6.5mm/quarter inch bit and I had to figure out how to use a supplied 1/4 inch collet for the smaller bit.

After the hours of preparation it was Show Time to do the cutting, and Bruce did the router work while I provided the support.  The result was outstanding: neat, clean, and generous, and the new Vitus hatch dropped easily into its new home.

We then took a break while I applied 2-pack undercoat and topcoats to the wooden perimeter to host the new hatch.

Sometime during this period I was forced to protect the boat from an expected "10-year" storm event which turned out to be accurate with a piece of 6mm marine ply over the hatch opening.

Ready for 10-year storm. 

On Show Day we were forced to accept that the narrow gap between the wooden frame glued in to support the ceiling and the frame to support the hatch was too small to allow the fitting of the nuts to the bolts that we had procured.  It was a case of the builders  fixing the bolts to hold down the hatch then gluing in the ceiling supports and thereby making it impossible for those who followed to replace the hatch by either temporary  removing the ceiling support wood work (a difficult and destructive job) or abandoning the use of  bolts and using screws instead, relying on the Sikalflex 291 sealant to do the "heavy lifting" of holding the hatch down against the onslaught of wind and waves.  I was OK with that except that the many existing holes in the bed perimeter resulted in the problem of half-holes being presented where we wanted to drill for the new screws.

Gap too small for putting nuts on new bolts

Hatch opening routed, painted, and waiting for filling holes

We decided to fill in all existing holes with "Epiglue" and to that end Bruce used his expertise to mix a batch of Epiglue, thicken it with special thickening material,  then load it into a syringe that we purchased for the procedure.  He then injected two syringes full of the material into the existing holes while I watched from below and told him that the Epiglue was coming out of the bottom of the holes.

We were then chased off by the advent of another weather front, and the state of play now is that we will meet on Tuesday and finally bed down the new hatch.

The deck photo shows the setup to keep the interior of the boat dry during an expected "10-year" storm that lived up to expectations.  The sheet of 6mm marine ply covers the hatch opening, lashed down at each corner, with three containers of water, themselves tied down, on top of the sheet.  The measures worked very well and I found the interior to be bone dry when I returned to the boat after the storm.

Router soaking in fresh water

Fuel Guage Calibration

My blog entry of 23 Dec 2018 reported that it took 125 liters of diesel to bring the empty fuel tank to full.

Two weeks ago I refueled the boat taking photographs along the way.

This photograph below shows the starting point of the refueling with the needle at the 1/4 of a tank mark.

At start of refueling

The next photograph shows the position of the needle after 20 liters of diesel were added to the tank.

After 20 liters added

Then after another 20 liters were added:

After another 20 liters added (for a total of 40 liters)

Then after another 20 liters were added:

After another 20 liters added (for a total of 60 liters)

Even though the gauge was registering full I manage to put in another 7 liters of fuel to get the final reading of the gauge below.

After a total of 67 liters added

This effort provided me with valuable insight into what the needle positions really mean.

Given the empirical finding that the fuel tank has a capacity of 125 liters and that it took 67 liters to take the gauge from 1/4 to full, I now know that a reading of  just touching "Empty" represents 35 liters remaining in the tank and 1/4 tank actually represents 58 liters remaining in the tank, rendering it almost half (46%) full.  That is not surprising given that even in an automobile the tank float hits bottom with fuel still remaining in the tank, giving rise to the phrase "running on empty".

To make things more fuzzy, the state of the boat in the water affects the reading.  The exercise above was performed with Pachuca lying quietly in her pen.  In open water either bobbing at an anchorage or worse, under sail with the boat pitching, yawing, and rolling the gauge must be considered to be only a rough approximation of the reality.

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