Kaimusailing

Here is a picture from 2001 when Keith Lamb was working on the deck structure. There is a longitudinal aluminum beam sitting on three wooden crossbeams. Later they would weld more stuff onto the longitudinal beam, stantions for the mast, a plate for the windlass.

This aluminum beam has lasted fine with white powder coating. The wooden beams are a concern now, as the central beam has deteriorated with white wood fungi growths in the cracks in the epoxy coating. This was a perfectly made beam with good materials, and sound when it was installed in 2001. Now it was punky with soft areas.

We will replace this beam with an aluminum cross beam similar to the longitudinal beam. The next steps are shaping and drilling the aluminum, coating it, and reating a pressure treated wood cap that can take the structures that attached to the original wooden beam, above the 4X8 cross section of the aluminum replacement. The original wooden beam was angled up on top from the cabins to the center where the mast stood. The aluminum beam is straight, so there would be a gap between it and the longitudinal beam unless we add a cap on the cross beam that fills the gap. It's more complicated than the original wooden crossbeam, but much stronger.

Along with this problem is the problem of Kaimu becoming a bird sanctuary. Under the helm seat "Quacky Doodle" made a nest for her Mallard duck eggs. Then starlings made a nest in the end of the boom. My fellow dock mates had similar problems and tore out the nests, eggs and all. I would be the compassionate cruiser and sit at the dock while the ducks hatched. Alas, it was not to be. Last weekend I found the duck nest empty with one smelly egg smashed beside it and Quacky Doodle gone. She later returned and sat back on her empty nest. One of the dock neighbors said they had seen a duck flying away with an egg in its beak followed by a couple of "male ducks". The starlings continued to bring small bits of worms and other unfortunate creatures to the end of the boom and feed their youngsters. Quacky Doodle left. I wasn't so concerned about sending the starlings off, but there is enough work to do on the boat that I can ignore them and continue working.

While the aluminum beam was on its way an opportunity presented itself in that the local wood shop had plenty of exotic wood available at cut rate prices. I wanted to make a deck table that extended from the helm station forward of the mast and had drop leaves, a total of 9 feet long and 6 feet wide when full. This would be an excellent on deck surface for deck parties, and when the drop leaves were dropped, and the forward section stowed, would result in a 5 1/2 foot long table only 2 feet high off the center of the deck. It could serve as a cover for the high capacity pump, the small generator, and a gas powered pressure washer. The wood was Bloodwood, Oak, and Maple, in contrasting strips. Photos to follow.

Also the windlass was disassembled and somehow restored to operation, but we needed to add controls for it. Now there is another project to install an instrument panel on the helm station, mount the compass, and add the big cables for the windlass, that needs high amperage to work. There will be up and down deck switches to raise and lower the anchors, plus a toggle switch in the pilothouse to do it remotely.

All this activity is the result of a truly obnoxious task of dealing with a split holding tank. It is better to work on something else.

All we have to do is have the holding tank pumped out, pressure wash the port hull from the aft compartment forward into the head, and then further forward into the bilge of the chart room. What a mess.