Activities for May 2013

THE NEW FUEL TANKS ARE HERE!!!!!!!

The Dragon Lady is still high and dry but I am glad to say that I have less gooey and more newey to report on. The surface for the new platform has been roughed out, the tanks are set in place, the new windows are in, the wiper motors are set, there is new paint in a lot of places inside and out and some nasty hose clamps that were VERY difficult to gain access to have been replaced. Photos of all these with short comments follow.

The plywood panels for the new platform are cut to fit. Now they can be removed and the edges sealed with hardwood frames, coated in epoxy; final fit up to be followed by hinges, lifting hardware and paint. The platform should be done by mid June.

Old Platform

New Platform

This is the newly painted transom, I have my friend and old BAC workmate Carl Treff lined up to pop on the new vinyl lettering sometime this week.

The windows that I built have been painted and are now installed. The paint is finished on the top of the pilothouse and coach roof and I have mounted the horns.

Here, the new hatch adjusters have been installed so the windows are now fully functional. I only need to paint the Ipe adapters that I crafted so that they match the bright white interior.

Here is a close-up of the hatch adjuster from the inside and the Ipe adapter that I made. Those dark clouds in the background poured rain about ten minutes after this photo was taken and guess what, no leaks!

Here is a poster child photo of what a common carbon steel screw looks like on a stainless steel hose clamp. This and the four other screws on the exhaust hose were VERY easy to remove, I simply touched them and they fell off.

This is where they were located, not so easy to get to. There is no room to squeeze down there between the exhaust pipes on either side of the rudder post. I could only look at them or touch them but not look and touch at the same time!

Here is a photo taken with the new clamps in place. I was able to remove the old clamps on the right but the two old ones on the left are still in place, minus the rusty clamp screws. Eventually they will loosen and I can remove them but in the meantime my two new clamps on either side of the old ones are doing the actual work.

Here is a detail photo of the clamps and the rusty screws.

Also difficult to access were the stuffing box hose clamps. You could either crawl down between the two black plastic exhaust mufflers

and wiggle over the shaft and the greasy sleeve bearing

and finally touch the stuffing box! At least somebody cleaned up the bilge...

Or you could crawl from the aft access hatch over the rudder bearing shown in the back of this photo

In any case, once wedged in here I got great access to touch and feel the stuffing box as it was only a few inches from my face. In this photo I have replaced the one clamp on the right, it came off easily. The other four were another story. The head of the screw broke off of the one on the far left, the other two had to be cut off with a dremel tool, inches from my face with sparks flying, whoohoo!

Here they have been replaced

 Thanks to some of these tools

and here is what both of my forearms looked like after I was done, how I love this boat!

Okay, how about some nicer pics? Like some more new paint

Ahhhh, that's better.

And new wiper motors

and the bright shiny inside of the fuel tanks, ain't that special...

and some new fresh water and waste water holding tanks

Okay, so one last ugly issue, the rudder, it is still stiff, not frozen, but really, really stiff. The big stick on the end of the rudder is what we are using to move it, with some effort.

The yard disconnected the steering cable but the rudder was still stiff. I put multiple applications of WD40 and PB blaster and whatever other lubricant anti-seize stuff I could lay my hands on but to no avail. I did, however get the stuffing box apart with the help of a small hammer and a special shortened pipe wrench provided by Mike Johnson. As you can see, there was not enough room to swing a regular pipe wrench or one with an extension, those are the time tested methods of breaking free a frozen connection such as this, that is what the yard tried without any success. Mike suggested that I try his wrench and BINGO!

Still, the rudder is not moving any easier so we are taking it apart, bit by bit to find the culprit. It is a bronze shaft to bronze sleeve fit, top and bottom so one or both of those are likely stiff from sitting too long without any universal lubricant (water) to aid in movement. I am sure in the next week or so we will have fixed this.

And now for the finale....A really cool find by me (if I do say so MYSELF) on one of my occasional internet searches, check this out, a photo of MY boat from 1974, two years after it was launched, with notes from the photographer regarding the owner, Bob Hitchcock, the boat speed, engine rpm, running gear and even the fact that the water tank in the bow was empty, and she was doing 20 knots!  Way beyond my expectations. In any case a nice photo too, is she sweet looking or what?

Okay, that's it for now, hopefully the next post will be of photos of the boat in the water with me at the helm. Cheers to all and thanks for reading my posts.

Dennis