Fitting out: polishing and various repairs.

Not yet looking in Davy Jones's locker...

The fitting out season has been later than anticipated.  The poor Easter weather saw to that.  Since then, antifouling has been done and the hull and deck polished.  I've been using some new polish recommended in the chandlers at Suffolk Yacht Harbour, called 7-11 Radiant.  It's one of these products that makes absolutely no effort to sell itself through a glitzy label, and could be easily missed.  However, it is supposed to polish stainless steel, fibreglass and washable surfaces and seems to have done the trick.

Polished hull

Polished cabin

The outboard has been serviced, and the squeal has been fixed - it sounded quite serious and, from the verbal report offered by Bob Spalding Marine who serviced it, the fact that I was able to rely on it with intermittent squeal for several weeks at the end of last season was fortuitous indeed.  Fortunately, I know nothing about engines so continue to live in blissful ignorance...

Since I've owned her, I've had a problem with leaks in and around the centre case caused by bolts which attach the wooden keel band to the hull.  One bolt sits forward of the centreplate casing, and I repaired that a few years back (photo at the end of this post).  There are a further two pairs of bolts which project either side of the casing from the keelband through to the cabin.  The aft pair of these seems particularly vulnerable and sits close to the central keel roller when the boat is on the trailer.
Usually, a few days on the mooring helps swell various joints and the boat manages for the remainder of the season with little water ingress.  However, the situation has steadily been deteriorating: each time the boat rolls on and off the trailer, the keel band bears the full weight of the boat, nudging the bolt heads and causing the shaft of the bolt to work loose.

Offending nut next the centreboard case - forward pair, the aft pair were worse than this.

It seems to have been a strange design for a trailer sailer, clearly something of a fault which, so I am told, new Churchouse Boats-built Coasters dispense with.  Finally, I've decided to do something about it.  Churchouse Boats recommended drastic action: that I remove them all together - both pairs - remove the keelband and fill the hole from both ends. There's no way I'm in a position to remove the keel band, but I have decided to remove the aft pair of bolts and fill from the top end.  The job involved removing each bolt, using a Dremel to shift the decayed material around the bolt inside the boat, and then filling with Epoxy from the inside, pushing the resin down through the holes (which I did using the head of a nail) and using a couple of tissue plugs underneath on the keel band to form a temporary stopper (my improvisation).
Tomorrow, I'll inspect the work, do a bit of sanding inside the cabin, remove the stoppers in the keel band and put some more filler in the wood from the underside.  What I want to avoid is any means by which the repair can be pushed back up through the old holes as the boat passes over the rollers when launching.  I'll have to watch out for this but will have an early opportunity to assess this since I had to move the boat back on the trailer to access these holes, and will have to roll this repair back over the central roller prior to trailing the boat down to Pin Mill.

Keelband, two bolts removed, ready for filling; and antifouling!  These particular two bolts sit very close to the central trailer roller when the boat is on the trailer.  These were the worst offenders, far worse than the previous photo shows.  The dark wooden patch shows where the roller connects with the keelband.

Filled hole, port side, epoxy curing

Filled bolt hole, starboard side.  This picture also shows the repaired echo sounder

I decided to keep the forward pair of bolts in place since they presumably had a purpose in supporting the split keelband around the centrecasing as it sits on the trailer rollers.  We'll see how these manage.

The last photo (above) shows the repaired echo sounder which hadn't worked for most of last season.  I have reattached this to the hull, hopefully forming a suitable seal in which the necessary oil can sit.  Will report on this repair during the season.

While I'm at it, I think I shall have another go at sealing the bolt (referred to above) which sits directly forward of the centre case.

I removed and reset this bolt four years ago, but it needs redoing.  Last time, I used a washer which had previously been missing.  I also repaired the centrecase support (top rh side) and this repair seems to have held rather well, even for a bodge-it-n-scarper DIYer such as myself...

This will involve removing the bolt, using sikaflex to coat the bolt and the hole, and then replacing the bolt, nut and washer.  The problem with all of these bolts is that the keelband is designed to flex as the boat rolls along the trailer rollers.  The keelband bears nearly all of the weight of the hull and these bolts do begin to move and, in doing so, leaks occur.

Come wind or weather, I shall be sailing next weekend...