Miscellaneous things..

Some progress today. First a look at the cockpit drain. This is the cockpit side. The hole is about 20mm 3/4". You can see how thin the skin is on the cockpit side. This is the outside of the same hole. What you can see there is the plywood transom behind the fiberglass skin. It's a bit rotted. If you look carefully you can see the inside of the cockpit side skin. The lighter bit under it is the inside of the boat, the space under the cockpit floor. The light is coming from the open cabin hatches. Anyway this is the problem. This drain is below water level all the time. If water leaks past from either side it falls into the bilge and gradually fills the cabin. Right now it leaks badly. This is the aluminium tube that slips inside the hole to drain water from the cockpit. It is cut at an angle because the drain hole isn't horizontal, it's drilled at an angle. These photos show the solution on gypsy. Gypsy perfor...

Well I finally dropped the cal14 in some water. Took it down to the brisbane river with just the outboard. Cut my finger on the steel winch cable but finally got going under power. The 2.3 hp outboard needs a tune. Won't run without some choke won't run at full throttle. Quieter than I expected but vibration was bad. Hopefully a tune and service will sort it out. The other big problem is it leaks. I knew there was an issue with the cockpit drain but I had no idea it would take on  water so quickly. About 1/2 hour in the river and over 5 liters came out the bilge. So 3 more things to fix. The video shows the cockpit drain with the cockpit flooded with a hose. Under it is the bilge drain. All the water that's coming out is from the cockpit. And a couple of photos at the ramp. The standard outboard leg really isn't long enough.

So today I finally got around to weighing the hull. Earlier in the week I replaced the yokes that carry the timber skids or bunks or whatever you like to call them. You can see the results in the photos below. My crane scale is a Chinese thing off ebay for $85.It is not calibrated but I have been happy with the reading it's given me previously. When I got the hull clear it read 330kg,and started falling slowly to the high 320's. That is a lot more than the manufacturer quoted 250kg especially given it was sans rudder and rig. I did not have a chance to weigh the trailer. To get a quick data point I slung a tie down off the scale and stepped up on it. 83.5 kg, exactly what I'd got at the doctors this week. Ok so give or take a couple of kg for food clothes keys in pocket etc but that's pretty remarkable. So I'd guess the 330 kg is within 10 kg of the actual bare hull weight. Obviously there is rope and mattresses but I'd guess they account for less than 10k...

These are some detail shots of the trailer showing rust. Overall it's pretty good. It can be hard to get perspective with such close shots so I've basically gone round it clockwise. Hopefully that will help get your bearings. The drawbar and main frame are good. Surface rust at the front. The cable has some rust. Mast pole. and the yoke. The front yokes are rusted right through. I sheared off this bolt trying to remove it. There are 3 of these  1" x 2" cross beams. This is the front one starboard side aft. The aft crossbeam. This area is by far the worst. I may replace this whole beam and the one in front of it. Middle beam starboard. The port side is worse. Under the aft beam. Aft beam middle. The front beam(visible here) is ok. The middle one has rust at each end. Aft beam port corner. Middle beam port side rear. Middle beam port side front. Aft beam starbo...

I am starting to believe a lot of the problems I am having stem from not taking the boat seriously. Everything is tiny, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's easy. I had 3 goes before I finally managed to step the mast. Unfortunately decisions made previously mean things aren't as easy as you'd expect. The mast is 4.9 meters long,4.95 including the top sheaves. I need to make a new rudder. Plywood, totally rotted. The boat came with lots of "stuff". A better shot of the plant that was growing in through the drain hole. and the bilge...Boat will be getting a proper clean inside and out. Underside of the cockpit. The aft cabin bulk head was moved so far back they had to bend the centerboard uphaul tube back. The inside forepeak. Underside of the mast step. Finally after 3 goes! I ran a line to hold the mast up while I fiddled with the turnbuckle and D shackles. Not how I would rig the bo...