Finishing Touches, Ready to Cruise

Ray and I sometimes stop and browse at the Second Wave store in Fremont.  It's a consignment store chock full of used marine odds and ends, from cleats to engines.  It's somewhat organized, with parts categorized on the shelves by electrical, trim, sailing hardware, instruments, running gear and so forth.  But, when you have something specific in mind, some browsing of the aisles is usually required.  On a recent visit with nothing particular in mind, we came across what appeared to be a brand new Raritan rudder angle indicator gauge - identical to the one Ray had repaired some time ago, as described earlier in this tome.  It was the gauge only, not the sending unit and control box - precisely what we had shopped for earlier, only to find that just this part would cost $186.  This unit was priced at $25, and we snapped it up.

As I was dismantling the instrument panel last year in our preparations to remove the Perkins engines, I had snipped the wires to the old gage and labeled the end with masking tape.  A lot of wire had since passed up and down under the instrument panel, and when we first installed the new instrument panel I couldn't find that wire.  With the new indicator installed, we gave it another try and found the marked wire - it went off through a small hole in the side a couple feet down, where it crossed over the autopilot's fluxgate compass to a Raritan control unit.  That was all we needed - we pulled the old wire out and snaked the new instrument's wire through in its place, connecting to the same terminals.  A flip of the switch, and the gauge came to life, moving to port and starboard as we turned the wheel.  It's a little jumpy to starboard - probably need to clean some contacts back at the sending unit, which is mounted on one of the rudder posts astern.
 

Note in the photo that the manual fuel shut-off controls have been replaced with a couple of buttons; one for the air horns, and the other for the new siren.  We'll make a bracket for the fuel shut-offs and mount them behind the instrument panel.  They aren't used regularly with these engines so don't need to be so handy.

We're just one week away from our self-imposed deadline of having the boat ready for a trip.  We will be joining the Classic Yacht Association Rendezvous at the Bell Harbor Marina on the Seattle waterfront.  It's a great opportunity for a short trial trip, and since the classic yachts will be on display to the public at times, our moorage is free as well. 

 

Over the past year we have acquired quite a few additional tools, and also have left-overs of hoses, clamps, wire and so forth - all currently arranged on the main salon floor.  I purchased some canvas tool bags, and we'll have to figure out how to organize all this stuff so we can either put it away or take it off the boat.  We have to be careful about that as we're still using tools as we button things up.

In the past week we have remounted the mast, radar and weather station, snaking the wires for that stuff back along the ceiling, up through the mast mount and into the mast.  Next we filled in the saw kerfs from cutting open the salon roof.  We were going to use fiberglass, but decided to do it with Marine Tex instead.  This is an epoxy product that mixes with a catalyst to a thick putty.  It has a longer pot life than the fiberglass, and it doesn't drip through any cracks down into the salon.  It takes more effort to work it all into the cracks, which Ray and I did using plastic putty knives.  Ray did along the sides while I was up on the roof with knee pads doing the cross cuts.  Teamwork!

The first application sagged some into the cracks and countersunk screw holes, as expected.  Hopefully the second application will be all we need to cover our tracks.  Once this is done I plan on flooding the roof with water to make sure nothing is leaking through into the salon before we take the next step of reattaching the headliner to the ceiling. 

  Our patch job on the roof hatch did indeed survive the water test, so I set about reattaching the headliner to the ceiling.  We had removed some staples from the headliner once before, when adding the weather station to the mast in preparation for our 2003 Alaska trip.  That time we didn't remove it completely, just dropped it down enough to route some wires.  We discovered that the staples we used then to reattach it had rusted, with quite a few of them completely dissolved except for the rust stain.  So, we went shopping for some stainless steel staples, which we found at StoneWay Hardware.  They cost about 8 times as much, but will be well worth it.

Besides the section of headliner completely removed to expose the ceiling hatch, we also loosened a section aft of that to be able to pass wires through to the helm.  I reattached that first, pulling the headliner taut while sometimes using the old staple holes for alignment.  The rust spots from the old staples will be covered by the trim pieces.

We had rolled up the headliner on a boathook when we removed it last year, and hung it from the edge of the ceiling out of the way.  I put a series of screws into the ribs every 3 feet or so across the salon so I could leave the headliner rolled up, moving it along as I did the stapling while hanging the boathook from the series of screws to take the weight off the working area.  That plan worked great, keeping the extra fabric out of the way.

This section of headliner also had a couple holes in it to accommodate the halogen ceiling light fixtures that pass through it.  I was concerned that by the time I got to the other side of the salon I might be slightly off matching up to that fixture.  As it turned out, the one that was slightly off was the one close to the beginning.  Once I had attached the fixture and put the trim piece back on, a little bit of the fabric cuts on the window side were visible.  I took the fixture back out, did some tugging and stapling around the fixture hole and managed to hide it pretty well.

Along the far side, at the end of the fabric, it's also stapled to the molding, with those staples covered by the long trim that screws on over it.  I'm guessing that when the Jorgensons initially put this headliner in they had the luxury of having some additional fabric for a handle that they then trimmed off afterwards.  I resorted to pliers and a few strategic curses to get it all back in place.

With the headliner now back in place, we next put back the mahogany trim slats that cover the seams and staples.  When we removed them, we had numbered them from 0 through 9.  No, we weren't following some IBM number convention - we later found we had to remove one more after numbering them 1 through 9.

The slats are held on with a few brads apiece.  I already had a handful of brads in my toolbox, so we set about putting them back up.  Ray used the 2 x 4s we had cut earlier to support the hatch, with a pair of socks added, to support the slats while I nailed.  For the most part I reused the same holes that were already in the slats, but in a few cases we lined up a slat so perfectly with where it had been before that the brad went into an existing nail hole in the rib above and didn't hold very well.  Eventually we got them all nailed up securely, or at least that's what I thought.  One of them came loose and fell on Erin's head the next day while she was cleaning the  headliner around it!  No damage, and it's all fixed now.
 

Although at times it didn't seem possible, or at least likely,  we managed to clear the salon floor of all the tools and equipment so that we could put the pad and carpet back in place.  They both have spent the past year rolled up and stored on the bridge.

Erin and I brought the pad and carpet down from the bridge and back onto the salon floor.  There were a few wrinkles here and there, but for the most part they've all settled down with the aid of a few tool bags and tool boxes strategically placed to flatten them.

The furniture for the main salon, two recliners, a sofa and a couple of rattan stools, all wintered over in our living room.  I loaded the recliners and stools into the Pilot while Erin was at work, picked her up at the office and we headed to the boat, where we unloaded them into the dockside wagon for the trip down the dock.

The next day Ray and I repeated that process with the sofa.  It was a bit more awkward and we enlisted the aid of Roger, a nearby moorage tenant, for the final hoist through the side door into the salon.  Visually you'd think that sofa would never fit through the door, but it does - and I think it touches all sides while doing it.

 

In just a week's time, the interior of the salon transformed from a cluttered work zone back to our home away from home.  We still have plenty to do, but for now we're going to put our feet up and enjoy the fruits of our labors.