Engine Work

 I took time to learn more about the Yanmar GM20FV engine in my boat. Other than performing the usual routine maintenance each year, I attended at diesel workshop that helped increase my knowledge, mechanical skills, and confidence to inspect and work on the engine more deeply. The workshop was three days; one day lecture followed by two days of hands on with an engine of the same type on a workbench. The students who attended were from all over the country and the skills and knowledge they possessed were at different levels among them.

One can easily notice the head of the engine sitting on a bench in the pictues. The engine head was cleaned by a machine shop - I had the head and heat exchanged cleaned by Kevin Ender of Enders Racing Engines. Kevin is a real pro, and gives his word about getting a job done at a specific time.

The carbon built up in the ports and valves were not extensive, and having the head off the engine gave me the opportunity to grind the valves a bit. I rented a tool from Advanced Auto that made removing the valves from the head very easy. 

The picture to the right shows the valves back in the head. The long  bolts (studs) connect to the fresh water heat exchanger. The fresh water circulating pump is also attached to the head.



While the head was off the engine it received new paint.  Some scale were found to be in the ports. The bundle in the heat exchanger was 25-35 percent blocked with scale; the tubes now clear of any debris.

The engine now has new hoses, and gaskets, and is completely cleaned and painted. Cleaning anything in the engine room takes time because of the small size of the engine room. Good thing tooth brushes do not come in large sizes.

The best part of working on one's own boat engine is getting to really know the engine and having the ability to repair it if needed when out on a voyage.

Pulpit Finished

It has been some time since my last post and for good reason; I have been extremely busy, but more on that later.

For those who have been following this blog I thought you may be interested in having a view of the pulpit. The story about the pulpit began and is dated October 19, 2013. Please feel free to review the information in the past blog.

The pulpit wood was separated from the support bars and sanded clean. The bars were partially pitted from salt water getting in between the wood and the bars -- the previous owner had sail the Gulf often. Sanding the bars was easy when using a proper tool: a grinder with a wire brush.

The Sampson post and windlass were placed back on the pulpit once it was secure. I did make a large .25 inch thick backing plate for the windlass instead of using the same aluminum washers that were originally used.

Having a bow pulpit that is refreshed adds to the overall look of any boat.

Cat Ketch Sister Ship # 5 in Super Condition

S/V Dream Weaver at anchor in picture at left.

My friend, Jim, who lives in Florida showed me his Herreshoff Cat Ketch, S/V Dream Weaver. His yacht was the last of the line of these custom made by Cat Ketch Yacht (CKY) company. Hull#2 is located in Maryland, hull#3 is in New York, hull#4 and hull#5 are in Florida.  Jim has many nautical miles under his sails, and has sailed Dream Weaver to the Bahamas more than 100 times. He has also made many improvements and/or changes to the boat to accommodate his preference for cruising adventures.

The most notable change S/V Dream Weaver has are the masts. The masts are not elliptical as the original design. They are circular in shape, which makes them flex less. The stiffness means that the boat does not spill air as the original masts, and they provide power to move Dream Weaver faster on the water. As Jim wrote me "..We've been in some 10-15' quartering seas surfing at 14-18 kts in 25-40 kt winds.."  The masts have platforms for winches, and they are taller than the original masts. Both mast look new and show plenty of care.

Some  additional features of Dream Weaver are redundancy in many of its systems; water, electrical, charging, auto pilot, navigation, and safety. Moreover the interior includes some of following:  hatch hood to redirect air to forward birth, special designed latch so the deck hatch can be opened fore or aft, water maker, added foam for higher level of positive floatation, drawers in cabinets that extend to within an inch of hull -- makes use of all space, storage for 40 bottles of wine, -- Who needs drinking water eh? --    and much more. Jim has a technical spec document of all the additional features and functions that Dream Weaver contains, which can be forwarded upon request.

One can easily note that Dream Weaver has been given much attention. Although Jim, will always stay a sailor in some regard, he has recently told me that his boat is available for purchase. Any future owner of Dream Weaver will quickly realize that it is a unique boat.

Bow Pulpit - part 1

Great Ketch is on the hard and under its winter wrap. Time for the winter boat work to commence.
During the past few years I had redone the brightwork on all the teak except the toe rail and bow pulpit. Now it is time to for the bow pulpit to get some attention.

Before the winter wrap, I removed the pulpit from the deck of the bow; 8 ss bolts and 4 ss smaller bolts held the pulpit securely to the deck; however, removing the bolts was not an easy task. The bow area under the pulpit is the anchor locker, which is its own bulkhead space. This space is not only designed to stow the anchor chain and rode, but is a safety feature; the area is three feet of space that is designed to keep water from entering the main cabin area in case of breach in the bow. Only a small hatch opening is available in the bulkhead for the purpose of inspection of the anchor locker.

In order to remove the bolts it required fastening bars on ratchets in order to extend the handle far enough to reach the nuts from the main cabin side of the bulkhead. Someone turned the bolt from above while I held fast the nut on the bolt. Removing the bolts did give my arm and shoulder a work out but the real challenge will be placing these nuts back on in the Spring when the pulpit is ready to be fastened to the deck.

The picture to the left is the pulpit without the Sampson post and without the windlass. I plan to separate the boards, and clean and brighten the wood and clean the aluminum bars. After the parts are placed together again, I will need to add strength to the bolt holes. It is apparent that years of movement when on the hook had elongated some of the holes; these holes will need to be reshaped. Perhaps epoxy and filler will allow me to redrill new holes. I am also thinking of replacing the ss washers that were used on the bolts with a ss or aluminum plate that would help spread the compression load when on the hook.

The large hole allows the rope and chain to enter the anchor locker raising the hook. Great Ketch has a 33lb Bruce anchor and 250 feet of rope. There are two other anchors that are on Great Ketch stored in the cockpit lockers both are Danforths.

New Alternator for Great Ketch

This past summer in late August I noticed the charging light had become lit. I tightened the alternator belt and saw the charging light went off -- for two more weeks.  A test with a multimeter on the battery indicated that when the Yanmar was not running the voltage was approximately at 12volts, and when engine was operating.

The alternator needed to be replaced. I checked the cabling and confirmed them to be sound. The original Hitachi alternator had to be replaced. I purchased a new alternator from www.spidermarine.com. The replacement alternator was rated at 60amps -- the label on the box said it was an Hitachi 12v 60amp #A12107 -- which is 5 more amps than the previous Hitachi 55amp model. I needed to replace the alternator belt with a longer belt because the form factor of the new alternator was slightly larger than the old model.

After the alternator was installed I tested the charging: 12 volts on the battery with the engine not running; 13+ volts with the engine running. The new alternator was working and the absence of a lit charging light also indicated same.

Considering the original alternator was part of the build in 1988 of Great Ketch, I think the alternator served her well.


Note: The picture above displays the old 55amp Hitachi alternator next to the new 60amp Hitachi alternator.

Free Standing Carbon Fiber Masts

Free Standing Masts on the Great Ketch inevitably becomes a topic of conversation at my marina because it is the only boat in the marina with free standing masts. Great Ketch may very well be the only cat ketch boat with free standing masts on the entire lake of Oneida.


I recently was contacted by someone interested in learning about Cat Ketches because he was interested in purchasing one. His interest was with a 38 foot Herreshoff Cat Ketch made in 1983.
We spoke and emailed a few times a shared questions and answers, and it was soon after our last phone call that a day later I discovered a recorded interview with Eric Sponberg, who designed the free standing carbon fiber masts for the Herreshoff cat ketch boats built by John Newton of Cat Ketch Yachts. The web site where I located the Eric Sponberg interview is at http://proboatradio.com/2012/05/17/free-standing-rigs/ the proboatradio.com site.

For those looking for details about free standing masts and those designed by Eric Sponberg, I recommend visiting his home page web site http://www.sponbergyachtdesign.com/.

The two most regarded benefits of free standing masts are safety and better sail shape.

2012 Winter Work: Aft Hatch & Boom Rigging

This post pertains to the work I performed on a few projects I performed on Great Ketch during the 2011-2012 winter months of December, January, February, and March.

Hatch Recondition:

The picture on the left displays the reconditioned hatches. The aft hatch was reconditioned during the winter of 2012 and bow hatch was reconditioned during the winter of 2011. Both hatches originally had .5 Lexan, which were severely crazed. The Lexan lens were replaced with smoke acrylic. The new dark gray acrylic lens with new varnish will help bring a classy traditional look back. The teak was redone with 5 coats of varnish after applying MASepoxy.





Boom Rigging:

Car with plastic endcaps

The bearings in the Ronstan traveling cars, which run on a track on the boom, fell out. The cars are used to control the outhaul adjustments and the reefing adjustments. After many years of use, the plastic end caps have lost their integrity to hold form and split apart; afterwards the bearings soon spilled onto the deck of the boat.

Because Ronstan no longer sells the plastic end caps, new caps had to be fabricated from a two part solution plastic mix solution in order to make a cast. In making the new end caps, the old caps were glued together to make a mold. The mold was used to pour liquid plastic to make new end caps. This process allowed for many new plastic end caps to be made as spares; a mini warehouse of plastic end caps. Rather than having to spend $350 per new car, as Ronstan suggested, the fabrication of new end caps were less than $50. New bearings were aquired from a Sailrite.

Close up of the plastic end caps

All plastic caps were lightly sanded, cleaned, primed, and painted with gloss black topside boot stripe paint -- as shown on the picture right.

Block attached to SS padeye

Another improvement made to the rigging on the boom was to fabricate a custom pad-eye that allowed the pad-eye to be located closer to the high point of the radius that is located between the car and the mast. By moving the pad-eye closer to the zenith, the lines running between the car and the pad-eye travel in a straight line. The booms are half wish-boom, they have an arc from mast to end of boom.

All blocks on cars, and brackets on booms were removed and cleaned.