14/10/2009
Diomedea came out of the shed with most of her paint work complete. The topsides are Spindle Blue with an Aristo Blue boot stripe. Coachhouse and deck are in Chevy White. The anti fouling clearly clashes so we will swap it to black.
The deck fittings are going back on. The new hatches are in and look terrific.
Overall Diomedea is looking terrific.
SEE THE PIX
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Comments [0]
09/08/2009, The Shed
Charles was extremely helpful on Saturday as we plotted the pipe runs for the new hydraulic system. The helm pump is now mounted inside the helm pedestal in the cockpit as you see in the photo. 5/8" fully annealed copper pipes run down through the cockpit floor to a "lockvalve" and the new hydraulic autopilot. These have to be mounted to solid surfaces so we had to design brackets for them. We found some discarded bracket-like stuff of 3mm steel in the scrap bin in the yard. So, with some drilling, grinding and welding - hey, presto. From the valve there is a short run down to the original bypass valve which is needed in case the emergency tiller is required. The original flex then goes to the slave cylinder. However, the helm pump position needs to be slightly modified to give us access to the elbow attachments for the copper pipes....
Thank you Charles, you are fantastic as always.
On Sunday, Andrea, fully recovered from the trauma of her previous day's speaking engagement, spent time playing compass adjuster/diagnostician, before proceeding to remove anodes from rudder, keel and prop shaft. What did I do? I found a new rust issue in the base of the targa arch so freed that up ready for a further dose of welding. Ho hum.
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02/08/2009, The Shed
I found some alarming fractures in the welds of the spreader bases on the mast. After some discussion these have been cut out, rewelded and web plates built in. See the pix.
The masthead tricolour light has been a battery sucking 25W globe and proved to be a major drain during passage making. It has now been replaced with an LED Lopolight. Unfortunately, I could not mount it directly onto the masthead as suggested in the instructions. The plate on the top of the masthead slopes downwards and forwards at a 10 degree angle. Also other stuff was obscuring a low placement. I thus had a custom made 150mm 4mm alloy stub mast and then put this on an angled bracket to (hopefully) give a level projection of light. A small junction box was mounted next to the stub mast.
Thank you Anthony for your outstanding effort on this one. You are a genius.
The transom is now being painted. Andrea and I put some new insulation into the aft cabin after cutting out the ceiling to give us good access. New portlights have been added from the cockpit into the after cabin to improve ventilation and light.
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The new stern section has been welded in, leaving an open "step through" from the swim deck and giving us two new deck lockers. A new emergency steering system is being created. New SS handrails replace the old mild steel ones. See the pix in the gallery.
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19/07/2009, The Shed
The old steel helm position has been cut off and the old transom cut out. A new ply and glass helm station has been built but there is still a big hole in the back of the boat where the transom was. See the pix.
The stern section had a lot of rust but even so it had to be lifted off with a small crane! I could not lift the old steel binnacle. The new binnacle will be bolted onto the cockpit floor. It will house the steering pump, chartplotter etc. Hopefully the compass will now be useable. With the helm forward one will be able to sit more comfortably in the cockpit or o the cockpit coaming to steer. In addition we will have a removable "bridge" seat behind the helm as well.
The back of the boat will now have a step through section from the swim deck to the cockpit and there will be two additional lazarette style lockers.
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Could we get some captions on the photos so we can get an idea of what is going on?
Just some minor alterations HA!!!!
13/07/2009
Here is Diomedea in the refit shed having new hatches, new portlights, new companionway, new transom, new dorades, new liferaft mount, new paint etc etc. OMG. See the pix in the photo gallery, The Refit.
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