Kaimusailing

I was beginning to glue another scarf joint for the crossbeam when Doc, the cut up, was telling me about his hard dodger project and how he was going to do the edges of the dodger where the mostly flat surface curves downward. He was going to add two long stringers to that edge but his wood was about 8 feet long and too short. I saw where he had used butt joints to lengthen the other stringers in his dodger and I suggested he use my scarf joint jig and use scarf joints. We ended up in the woodshop and cutting the scarf joints with the jig is very easy with small stringers, we were done literally in a minute.
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Back at the breezeway where we were both working on our projects he ended up entrusting me with gluing the scarf joints, so I ended up dry clamping my stuff and his stuff, then doing it again with epoxy.
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Then it was time to return to the mast and mount a pair of rope clutches above the winches that were already installed. The new tap and die set from Harbor Freight did not work well and all the tapped holes were chewed up and probably not going to hold those rope clutches when I really needed them. A local fellow named Geoff came by and we talked about how the 1/4-20 tap wasn't working very well. He left on his bicycle and returned with his own tap which made a beautiful threaded hole. I decided to fasten the clutches with machine screws with JB Weld, an epoxy product.
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Later I was working with the two upper shrouds that were wrapped around the mast. The rest of the standing rigging had been removed by Doc. He couldn't get one of the upper shrouds off the mast because it had a small cleat clamped onto the rigging wire and that cleat wouldn't fit through the slot in the mast that the rigging wire went into. I went to Doc and asked him about what he had done with the rigging wires. They seemed to me to be in the wrong sockets. This type of wire termination was used by Isomat, the mast's manufacturer, and the rigging wires terminate at the mast in sockets formed in the cast aluminum parts of the mast, like the masthead and the spreader fitting. Each socket is precisely angled to provide support for the end of the wire which has a termination that is like a mushroom but upside down mushroom. In other words the termination has a flat top, is round, and has a curved lower surface that matches exactly with the socket on the mast fitting. John, the ditch digging rigger, came over and schooled me on how the rig works. If the stay is not exactly angled from the mast, the round fittings won't fit perfectly and you have what is called a point loading, all the strain on that wire is concentrated on one spot of the round fittings. Then the fittings crack and in a salt environment the aluminum corrodes, the mast fitting fails. Very expensive. The fittings are welded onto the mast.
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Now I understood that maybe I can't use the old stays. Each stay would have to terminate on deck in an exact location, I couldn't use my old chainplates or the bow bridle. Also the upper shrouds go down to the ends of the spreaders, but below the spreaders the shrouds are expected to terminate on chainplates more or less abeam of the mast step, and Kaimu's chainplates are aft of the mast step. Back to the drawing board.
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The next day I glued pieces of one layer of the 2X6's to an already glued up layer producing a double layer. I used the cedar 2X4 laminated beam as a work surface and used 12 oz. of epoxy to glue 18 feet of 2X5 together including one scarf joint in the middle. My clamps can't span the 7 inch thickness of work surface plus laminations so I borrowed some huge C clamps from the boatyard. These rarely get used and maybe I was the one who last used them about 3 years ago when I glued beams together. I had to clean the clamps and lubricate them to get them working properly.
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After the disappointing reviews of the Chinese solar charge controller I almost bought, I found one that was more expensive but with several positive reviews. It handles 30 amps of power and costs about $100, the Epever 3210AN. I ordered two and coming from China will take a while.
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I've come to the conclusion that I will set up the new mast using the existing ball and socket upper stays as diamond stays from the sockets at the top of the mast down over the spreaders and terminated somewhere lower, we have to avoid the winches, gooseneck, and rope clutches down there, and all the rest of the stays will be attached to tangs hung on bolts with compression tubes (stainless pipe) within the mast and small stainless plates that keep the compression tube within the mast and also provide a way to spread the load of the attachment point so that the thin aluminum won't tear or distort. The stay arrangement can then be like my original cutter rig with two forestays, upper and lower shrouds, and running backstays. I'll be fabricating the stainless parts in the boatyard's metal shop. The rigger here has described his process of fabricating these parts.
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The next day was a repeat of the gluing a layer of planks on the crossbeam, but this was the last layer. The next two gluings will be gluing two layers of the pine planks to the bottom and two layers to the top, the two layers are already glued together, so two big glue jobs left basically gluing 2 2X5's top and bottom of the cedar 4X4.
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The photo was taken of the full supermoon in the direction of the boatyard while at anchor.