Companionway Upgrade.

In an earlier post we recorded how the specifications for Freeport interior cabinetry had changed significantly over the years of production and, in most cases, not for the better! Probably one of the biggest changes after 1980 was eliminating the neat and functional, fixed companionway steps with storage under, replacing them with a couple of louvre doors and removable steps. Circe, built in 1982, had the later arrangement and we always envied owners of earlier models for what we felt were their superior companionways.

This is a shot of a Freeport with the early design. A rugged, compact and functional arrangement. The top and middle treads hinge up to access the storage areas below and behind the steps. The bottom step can be folded down when necessary for minimum intrusion into the galley floor space.

Here is the later design. The (smaller) storage area is now closed off by two louvre doors and separate, removable steps are provided. The steps intrude a full 8" into the galley floor space and they must be set aside somewhere in the cabin or cockpit before the storage can be accessed. The space under the steps is not very useful as anything left there tends to migrate out onto the cabin sole when under way plus the area has to be cleared to open the louvre doors.








We are rarely content with the status quo where Circe is concerned so we decided to try and take her back a few years, spec wise, and build a close facsimile of the early companionway. Old Matelot cabinetry skills are non-existant so we enlisted some professional help. We hired Art Kleiner from The Boat Smith to build the new companionway, leaving us to do all the finish work.

Here we are pulling out the central section of the aft cabin bulkhead, behind the steps. This will become the base template for the new companionway construction.

Now you see it.

Now you don't.

Another shot for our 'Horror Gallery'! The bolts on the top retaining brackets for the steps had no backing plates, just small washers! The nuts had been tightened and re-tightened so many times they had crushed deep into the back side of the bulkhead.

Here is the new centre bulkhead section ready for a trial fit.

Looking good. Just needs a little adjustment to fit the out-of-square companionway frame.

Art built us a complete new step assembly at his shop and delivered it ready to install. Here is a front view showing the hinged middle tread and the foldaway bottom step.

This shot from the side of the new assembly shows the 'kick back' of the middle riser to give more foot room on the tread. There will be full length cleats and braces to the cabin sole and the existing port side panel to secure everything in place.

Here is the new assembly temporarily set in place against the template (old bulkhead section) for a trial fit. So far so good, ready for final assembly.

The first step was to re-surface the face of the existing side panel. It was a bit gnarly looking due to age and neglect plus we wanted it to match the new wood that would be right next to it. Art put on a sheet of teak veneer that transformed it completely.

Next the new bulkhead section and the steps were fitted. They were screwed and glued on all sides and to the sole. This will be a very solid arrangement. This shot also shows clearly the galley floor space that has been 'liberated'!

View from above before the top tread was installed. Art put in a new shelf extension to bridge the gap between the old shelf (brown paint) and the back of the new middle step.

Finally the top step was installed and 'Viola'......Back to the Future! A 1979 companionway in our 1982 boat! The Old Matelots will fit new edge molding and finish the new wood while re-finishing the original wood and try to get everything to blend together. 

Bimini

One longstanding item in our upgrade plan for Circe was building a Bimini, together with wind and shade screens, for additional shelter in the cockpit and to provide a mount for our solar panel array. Unfortunately, due to repeated project schedule changes to accommodate our shifting priorities and weather conditions, the canvas job had fallen far down 'The List'. As we were getting ready to order the solar panel system we needed to move it forward quickly so we had somewhere to mount the panels. Here is Circe (below) before we started the canvas work.

We researched several local canvas shops looking for one that could meet our five 'must haves' for the job:

1) Good Quality.

Cheap canvas offerings from part time or sideline operations are ten-a-penny, we wanted a professional job.

2) Complimentary Design.

We wanted a design and build style that blended well with the existing dodger. Just matching the right colour Sunbrella wasn't going to be enough.

3) Lead Time.

Some shops that were interested in our job were booked out 2 - 3 months. We wanted to move quickly.

4) Whole Job to be Done at Our Slip.

We have far too many things going on to spend a week at someone's work dock waiting for things to be made and assembled. We wanted an 'on site' solution.

5) Fair Price.

There is a difference between getting what you pay for and getting reamed!

To satisfy our criteria we had to travel a bit further afield than we had planned, but we finally settled on Pacific Crest Canvas in Alameda. They are a well established outfit with a good reputation, they quoted a good price even with the travel time included and best of all they could do our job almost immediately. Eric McKinley came out within a few days and took preliminary measurements. He was back in less than a week to install the finished frame and start fitting the Pacific Blue Sunbrella fabric.

Here is the frame being assembled and aligned with the dodger. We spec'd a 1" tube frame with rigid rafters and bracing, not webbing straps, down to the cap rail. We also wanted the main mounts down close to the gunwale, not perched on top of the pushpit rails where a lot of flexing can occur.

A shot of the first fabric fitting. We were pleasantly surprised at how closely the new Sunbrella matched the original on the dodger and stack-pack, despite them being almost 5 years old.

Another view of the fabric being fitted.....that's a heck of a lot of clamps!

Eric was back in 3 days to fit the completed top and start to.......... 

...........mark and measure the transition panel to the dodger and.........

.......the pushpit wind cloths and shade screens.

Once again Eric impressed us with his speed, he was back at the slip for final assembly of all the other pieces and parts in a week. First up was the transition panel to the dodger.

........next was the shade screens and........

.........finally the wind cloths.

We had Eric leave the lower edges of the stern shade screen loose. We'll fit some pad eyes and lace it down when we've finished fussing with the solar panels.

Here is the finished ensemble from the stern and........ 

......from the side and......

.......again in a long shot. Now, where are those solar panels?

TV & DVD Combo

One of our original moving aboard resolutions was to turn our backs on television, period. We were confident we would quickly clear our minds of the banal garbage that we had endured for years and find countless other ways to entertain ourselves in the evenings by reading, crosswords, board games, blogging, movie streaming on the laptop, visiting neighbours, doing boat projects, exercising, etc, etc,  and all the time saving a bunch of money in cable fees!

Well, we did all that and stayed strong for 18 months but, during a recent visit on board a dock mate's 60 foot custom ketch, we finally folded! When we went aboard a small LCD TV was mounted on a bulkhead playing an interesting PBS natural history program, with excellent reception and picture quality. No Glomex antenna on the mast, no cable to the slip and no dish.......how can this be? We quickly established that an inconspicuous, flat digital antenna carelessly thrown on top of a locker, and almost invisible, was responsible. Even more impressive was the fact that another 46 channels were available and over half of them were English Language. 25 free channels through the air, including several of the major networks...Wow!

Obviously our marina location in the San Francisco Bay area had a lot to do with the large choice of channels but, even so, good quality free through-the-air TV is accessible in many coastal areas and it would be nice to have a the ability to take advantage of it whenever we have shore power. After getting back to Circe we discussed the neighbour's set-up and pondered following suit.....just to play DVD's on a big screen you understand and very, very occasionally watch a "good" program. We rushed off to Best Buy the next day and picked up an identical rig for Circe. 

RCA Digital Antenna in occasional cabin roof location that gives better reception for distant stations. The normal antenna location is in the port side hutch (see top pic). 

Screws for temporary antenna mount in cabin ceiling trim strip.

Back of RCA digital passive antenna showing molded registers for mounting screws.

Dynex 19" LCD television with integral tuner, wireless remote and DVD unit. We can also hook up the laptop to the TV and use it as a remote monitor if needed.

Side view showing DVD controls and a Sanus Wall Mounting bracket.

After a couple of weeks we are still managing to control our viewing to occasional 'good' programs but time will tell if we can maintain for the long haul. No doubt about it, no easy way to say it....................we are two weak pathetic creatures!  Sigh! 

Halyard Sheaves

After ripping our hands several times recently on the various 'meathooks' hidden in the wire sections of the old halyards we decided they needed to go. Instead of staying with the same style of halyard we also decided to go with all-rope replacements and make all the halyards identical and interchangeable.  Other than the vang and mainsheet we don't have lines led aft on Circe so it was an easy decision to make all the new halyards the same length and get a bit of redundancy in the rig.

As we don't do mast climbing, other than in dire emergencies, we hired Todd, our local Rigging Maestro, to do all the hairy stuff. Here he is going up the stick on a preliminary 'recce' to establish what needed to be done.





We knew that the masthead sheaves were original, grooved for wire, and that a couple of them felt very sticky so it was no surprise when Todd confirmed that "all four sheaves were terminal"! Wait a sec....four sheaves? We only have three lines to the masthead; the main halyard and the boom topping lift on the aft side of the mast and the genoa halyard on the forward side. Evidently we had a spare forward sheave!

Four masthead sheaves had been installed by Islander but only three were being used so, while replacing them, we could easily install an additional spare halyard. We pressed ahead. We would need to come up with a new exit plate and cleat for the new fourth halyard but that should be fairly easy. Todd started pulling out the old sheaves while we went out looking for new ones suitably profiled for all rope halyards, a new exit plate, new halyards and a new cleat. When we got back to the boat the first two of the old sheaves were out......and very sad they looked!

An 'old and new' photo of the two forward sheaves. The old ones were badly corroded and the bushings were frozen onto the axle. Glad Todd was the one pounding them out up there at fifty feet! We found hard anodised replacement sheaves exactly the same diameter (2.875") and almost the same thickness, (0.500") as the originals (0.437").

Here are the old wire (left) and new rope (right) sheave profiles. To accommodate the new, slightly thicker sheaves we had to shave approx 3/32" off the acrylic center spacer. It does double duty, spacing the sheaves apart on the axle and stopping the halyards from jumping off.



The next step was to install an exit plate for the new, fourth halyard, but where? There were two exit plates on the stbd side of the mast but only one on the port side. It was at this point we realised the existing halyards had been crossed? The main halyard was running over the port aft sheave and exiting the mast from a stbd forward plate. The topping lift was running over the stbd aft sheave and exiting the mast from a port forward plate and the genoa halyard was running over the port forward sheave and exiting the mast from a stbd aft plate!!!! Between the crossed halyards and frozen sheaves it was no wonder everything felt tight.

We measured the positions of the three existing exit plates and found they were installed in both an alternating and staggered pattern. There was 12" vertical spacing between each plate and each plate was located in alternating positions on either the forward or aft side of the mast centreline. To maintain this pattern the new 4th exit plate would have to go on the port side of the mast, aft of the centreline and either 12" below the lowest plate or 12" above the highest one. Using the lower location would put the new plate very close to the port side halyard winch. Using the upper location would put the plate very close to one of the lazy jack pad eyes and an old inspection decal.

We finally decided to go with the upper location for the plate and steal a couple of inches off the ideal 90" up from the cabin roof. We went 88" up, enough to miss the pad eye but right on top of the old decal.

Not the best shot but this one shows that when we cleaned the old decal off to get a clean surface to work with we also lost a lot of paint, which was both surprising and disappointing. Looks like an Awlgrip paint job for the mast is in our future!

After marking out the position of the new aperture we step-drilled holes in the four corners until we could get the jigsaw blade in.

Using the jigsaw to connect the corner holes.

Close up of the first vertical jigsaw cut.

Aperture cleaned up and all edges smoothed off with file and emery paper. Ready for rivets.

One of the original three-rivet exit plates. We couldn't find a new plate that matched them so we had to settle for a standard four-rivet Schaefer plate.

New plate in place, spotting through and drilling for first rivet.

A thin layer of 3M 4200 to prevent corrosion between the stainless plate and rivets and the aluminium mast extrusion.

Setting the rivets.

Finished exit plate installation, ready to thread halyard.

New halyards threaded on stbd side. The main halyard runs over aft stbd sheave and exits stbd rear plate (top). The genoa halyard runs over the forward stbd sheave and exits stbd forward plate (bottom).

New halyards threaded on port side. The topping lift runs over the aft port sheave and exits the port rear plate (top). The spare halyard runs over the forward port sheave and exits port forward plate (bottom).









Although it made them a bit heavier than necessary, we went with 7/16" diameter line for the new halyards, because it is a lot easier on Old Matelot hands than the smaller sizes. Line that is 3/8" diameter or less is getting more difficult for us to handle, particularly with a load, and the extra cost/weight penalty for the 7/16" isn't really significant. On to the next project.