Kaimusailing

s/v Kaimu Wharram Catamaran

Vessel Name: Kaimu
Vessel Make/Model: Wharram Custom
Hailing Port: Norwalk, CT
Crew: Andy and the Kaimu Crew
About: Sailors in the Baltimore, Annapolis, DC area.
01 March 2024 | St. Marys, GA
23 February 2024 | St. Marys, GA
15 February 2024 | St. Marys, GA
11 February 2024 | St. Marys, GA
06 February 2024 | St. Marys, GA
26 January 2024 | St. Marys, GA
14 January 2024 | St. Marys, GA
09 January 2024 | St Marys, GA
23 December 2023 | St Marys, GA
10 December 2023 | St Marys, GA
25 November 2023 | St. Marys, GA
17 November 2023 | St. Marys, GA
17 November 2023 | Somers Cove Marina, Crisfield, MD
03 November 2023 | Somers Cove Marina, Crisfield, MD
26 October 2023 | Somers Cove Marina, Crisfield, MD
17 October 2023 | Somers Cove Marina, Crisfield, MD
11 October 2023 | Somers Cove Marina, Crisfield, MD
04 October 2023 | Alice B. Tawes, McReady Pavilion, Crisfield, Maryland Eastern Shore
03 October 2023 | Alice B. Tawes, McReady Pavilion, Crisfield, Maryland Eastern Shore
03 October 2023 | Alice B. Tawes, McReady Pavilion, Crisfield, Maryland Eastern Shore
Recent Blog Posts
01 March 2024 | St. Marys, GA

D4 Dinghy Alternative Seats

The rain event was more wind than rain, strong winds with gusts up to 44 mph. We drove into town to see what the harbor was like. There was a small sailboat that had dragged anchor and was sitting close to shore. The tide was out. We left and played with Bleu at Notter’s Pond.

23 February 2024 | St. Marys, GA

D4 Inside Seams

Day two of the dinghy build started out with me finishing wiring the hull bottoms together on the centerline of the bottom panels. This was much easier than the wiring of the chine edges of the bottom panels and the side panels.

15 February 2024 | St. Marys, GA

D4 Dinghy Day One

A Wharram Pahi 26 had been anchored in the river nearby the boatyard and was hauled out with the travel lift. I went around to look at it and talked to the owner couple. I was surprised that it had been built in Martinique in 1988. The boat is more than 30 years old.

11 February 2024 | St. Marys, GA

D4 Redux

The inflatable (deflatable) dinghy I had bought was deteriorating. It had bottom seams separating. It is a West Marine branded dinghy made out of PVC. HH66 is the adhesive to reattach the seams. A friend had a similar problem and bought the same adhesive. I was waiting to hear from him how it worked [...]

06 February 2024 | St. Marys, GA

The Clincher

We decided to go to Amelia Island for the day, probably to the beach. Our plan to cycle around on the Raleigh 20’s seemed like a bad idea, Bleu can’t keep up with a bicycle for very long and when he quits he quits. So we would walk, where?, Fort Clinch State Park. She has a forever pass for Florida [...]

26 January 2024 | St. Marys, GA

Zen and Bike Maintenance

Eloisa rolled into the boatyard after a long drive down from the mountains. It was getting cold and isolated up there. I had a nasty toothache and we went to Southern River Walk. Bleu, her black American cocker was showing a bit of plumpness. I had had a sandwich and some wine already, so I didn’t [...]

Mo' Riggin'

17 May 2017 | st marys, ga
Capn Andy/Warm Spring
The lack of internet in the boatyard makes ordering parts particularly difficult. The Google Chrome browser on my phone wants to autocomplete entries, but it goofs up, and shipping address becomes billing address. All the entries have to be painstakingly typed in on the little phone virtual keyboard and I’m noticing the right margin of the phone has some dead spots where the touchscreen is failing. That means the phone has to be rotated to the landscape position so that the virtual keys that were dead can now be typed. Of course the dead area now includes the “shopping cart”, so the phone has to be rotated back and forth to complete the order.
.
Although the boatyard had said internet would be restored right away with a temporary cable, they decided to lay new conduit and build a new electrical panel, and the temporary cable never happened. They will restore it soon, they say.
.
My punch list for preparing the mast for restepping included reinstalling the chainplates, installing new mast winches, shorten the starboard upper shroud and terminate it at both ends with lashings to insulate it for use as an antenna for the SSB radio, identify the electrical wiring in the mast and get the anchor light, spreader light, and steaming light working, measure the halyard runs and order new halyard line, rebuilt the windex wind indicator at the top of the mast, replace the spreader boots, rebuild the purchases for the running backstays, and I added a note to add two more bolts to the mast step.
.
The large 2 ft square viewing port at the midships inboard waterline of the port hull needed to have its lower bolts replaced with bronze bolts due to corrosion of the stainless bolts that come in contact with seawater. The 1/4-20 two inch bolts were ordered from Albany County Fasteners. 8 bolts, nuts, lock washers, and fender washers for the bolt heads, all made out of bronze.
.
I had also been completing the fixed portlights that were replacing the opening portlights in the forward twin bunks. Each bunk has two portlights, one on each side. They were replaced using the same procedure I used quite a while ago to replace the galley’s opening portlights. The only difference is that I’m using Bed-it butyl tape to seal the panes.
.
One of the painstaking phone orders was to Defender Marine for hard bottom paint, 2 gallons, and plastic thimbles for the insulating lashings on the starboard upper shroud. I mistakenly ordered only 2 thimbles, but of course I needed two at each end of the shroud, so I made another order the next day, including a bulb for the steaming light, and a couple hundred feet of line for the spinnaker and staysail halyards.
.
The main halyard is serviceable as well as the genoa halyard. The staysail halyard was badly chewed up and the spinnaker halyard could be spliced and used as the main topping lift.
.
All the fittings for the rig had to be organized and missing parts acquired. Changing from lashings to turnbuckles is more difficult than changing from turnbuckles to lashings. The lashings are simpler and each lashing provides almost infinite adjustment. On the turnbuckles, pin sizes have to match the holes in the chainplates. The terminations of the shrouds and stays have to connect to the turnbuckles, and the process is very exacting, if the parts don’t fit together on mast raising day, the yard bill for the crane could be doubled when it all has to be redone with correct parts.
.
I still had the original turnbuckles from when I converted to lashings, plus I had purchased Richard’s old rig to get the two forestays out of it, and now I had a total of 10 turnbuckles. Of course the French catamaran turnbuckles are totally different from mine, but out of all of his rigging there were enough good pieces that I didn’t need to order many new parts.
.
I had to adapt the turnbuckle toggles to fit the swageless fork fittings. I used the boatyard’s hydraulic press to squeeze the toggles so that they would fit in between the jaws of the forks. They used the same 9/16“ size pin. The rod bridle fitting, pictured, was designed with 1/2“ hole for the toggle pin, so I modified a turnbuckle end by adding a piece of toggle that used a 1/2“ pin. All the pieces of each stay and turnbuckle were assembled to make sure it all fit together. The last step is cutting the stays to length after the mast is suspended in place by the crane, assembling the swageless terninations, and pinning it all together. Then the turnbuckles can be adjusted for proper rig tension.
.
I had a bunch of winches that became available when owners upgraded to self-tailing winches and were practically giving away their old non-self-tailing winches. I had two small winches which would be perfect for the running backstays, a couple of large heavy two speed winches that would be used for the headsail sheets, plus another set that could be installed so that we’d have a pair of headsail winches on each side. Finally, there remained a pair of Barient #12 single speed winches that wouldn’t be of much use as sheet winches, only having the single direct drive speed, but they would be fine as halyard winches mounted on the mast. So I installed them.
.
The old winch pads on the mast and the mast itself were drilled and tapped for the old winches and the new winches had a different pattern. I decided to use 1/4-20 flat head machine screws to mount the winches. I ran out to the hardware store and bought the screws and a tap to thread the holes in the mast. The correct drill size for the tap is 13/64‘s by the way. The winches come apart by removing a screw in the center of the winch handle socket at the top of the winch. Then the drum of the winch slides off and the inner workings are exposed, as well as the flange that is bolted to the mast.
.
The flange is held in place and a single hole is drilled for the first bolt. The hole is tapped and the flange is bolted with that first bolt. A second hole diametrically opposite the first hole is drilled, tapped, and a second bolt attached. Now the flange is securely held in place and the remaining bolt holes can be drilled, tapped, and bolted.
.
Unfortunately I dropped the inner workings of one of the winches and it all came apart in the dirt. The nice roller bearings and shiny surfaces were covered with sand and debris from the ground. Also a tiny pawl spring had sprung off to oblivion. Barient is no longer in business, so getting a replacement spring might be a problem.
.
I put all the parts in a bowl and gave them a shot of citrus cleaner which would also degrease them. Then they were rinsed with fresh water, dried, and assembled, lubricated, and ready to install. Fortunately I found an old winch body that had an identical pawl spring, so that problem was solved.
.
I now turned my attention to the mast wiring and lights. There are three lights and six wires, plus a coax cable for the VHF antenna. The steaming light had broken off its mount, but I had the parts. The bare wires at the steaming light were wire brushed to remove any oxidation and the ends of the wires at the base of the mast were also brushed. I could identify the steaming light wires by shorting them together and seeing which two wires of the six at the base of the mast were shorted together with an ohm meter. I labeled those wires, then started to test the remaining four wires with jumper cables from a battery to see if I could get the anchor light and spreader light to light up. They did light up, which was a great relief, not having to reinstall those lights or try to order replacement bulbs on the phone.
.

Comments

About & Links

SailBlogs Groups