Kaimusailing

The schedule 40 aluminum pipe was cut with the portable bandsaw to make compression tubes for the larger original holes in the mast. These were at the masthead, upper shroud attachments, and at the spreaders, bolting the spreader bases to the mast. My plan of putting the 1/2” stainless pipe nipples inside of the aluminum didn't quite work, there was .050” of “interference”. I ended up slicing the aluminum lengthwise on one side, allowing it to fit over the stainless pipe nipple with some judicious banging with a sledge hammer.
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The compression tubes, spreader bases, and halyard block hangers were mounted using colloidal silica/epoxy paste to seize them in place. The next day the compression tubes were trimmed using a rotozip cutoff wheel borrowed from Capn Ed and ground flush with the mast using a grinding wheel. The tangs for shroud attachment were mounted using 1/2” bolts with nylock nuts.
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A forecast for tropical storm coming ashore near New River Inlet and coming North to us prompted a general “batten down the hatches” response. I had been lax in leaving tools out during our dry summerlike weather. Now everything was gathered up and properly put away. On Kaimu some windsurfing equipment was removed and stowed in the boat shed. Two boards, three sails, and two booms.
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The staysail which had been in its cover on deck throughout the winter was removed from its stay and folded up in its bag and put away in the port forward bunk. The genoa, rolled up on the roller furler, was unrolled by passing it under and over the furler. The furler is about 2 feet longer than the boat and lying on deck. It took a while to get the 500 sq ft sail unrolled. Then it was detached from the swivel at the top of the furler and the furler drum at the bottom. Pulling the sail out of the slot in the furler seemed nearly impossible, but it started out requiring a lot of effort, and quickly became easier. The first ten feet were difficult, the last ten easy. The sail was folded up, bagged, and brought up to the boat shed. The sunbrella fabric at the leech and foot needed restitching.
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The roller furler was now inspected and it had taken some damage. The connectors between a couple of the foils were askew. They would probably be OK when straightened. The head foil which is only about a foot long had broken its connector. We have more of the slotted stainless pipe to make a connector and a piece of foil. The new rigging scheme puts the headstay on a bail at the top of the mast, not as high as the masthead fitting on the old mast, so the headstay can be trimmed both to fit the new mast attachment and also to allow the broken foil parts to be removed off the stay. A fitting like stay-lock or norseman will be used to put an eye or toggle back on the end of the stay.
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The bridle, which is 1/2” dia stainless steel rod from each bow to a special fitting above the middle of the forward crosstube, had to be removed. The rod passes into the crosstube at a shallow angle, then emerges at the end of the crosstube where it is secured with a nylock nut. After the nuts were removed from the rods it was found that the rods needed to be removed from the special fitting. The problem is the special fitting is hollow and the rods are terminated into nylock nuts with no clearance to put a wrench on them. I attempted to jam a flat blade screwdriver inside the fitting while unscrewing the rod, but it didn't work. I gave up and came back the next day and searched through the boat ju.., er, shed, and found an old gudgeon that matched well with a similar nut from the other end of the rod. The gudgeon fit inside the bridle fitting and the rod was unscrewed all in less than 5 minutes. This seems to happen often, a small job becomes impossible at the end of the day, then is solved easily when fresh the next day.
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The rods could now slip out of the crosstube and stow out of the way. My plan is to move the mast onboard over the bow crosstube and center its base right in the middle of the boat. This will leave half of the mast sticking out forward past the crosstube. The bridle would have been in the way.
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The lashings on the starboard shrouds were removed and measured for length. I noticed the fittings on the chainplates were different than the port shrouds that had failed. On the starboard side the lower shroud had a 5/16 or 3/8 thimble threaded right through the chainplate, the upper had a similar thimble mounted on the chainplate using a shackle. On the port side it was almost the same, but the upper had a smaller thimble threaded through the chainplate. This may have prevented enough turns of lashing or allowed the lashing to slip off the thimble and chafe on the edges of the chainplate pinhole. I removed the small thimble and replaced it with a large one and shackle.
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The running backstay that was destroyed when the mast came down wasn't set up and took the full force of the falling mast. When the slack was taken up the sudden shock loading broke the becket pin allowing about 5 feet of line to jam at the other block. This created another shock loading and the 3/16” shackle at the head of the double block deformed, broke, and released the mast completely. This is a Ronstan double block with becket. It has a breaking strength of 2650 lbs. This is less than what it would take to fly a hull, but strong enough to help tension the forestay, which is what it is used for. This block can be rebuilt with a new shackle and new becket pin.
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The picture is an old one from when Kaimu was put together in Norwalk, Connecticut. This is the bridle and special fitting where all the stainless rods meet. The smaller vertical rod failed due to metal fatigue and was replaced with a dynema lashing. The hollow can be seen in the bottom of the fitting, this is the only access to the nylock nuts on the ends of the remaining two rods.