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.

KiwiGrip Gives Great Ketch a Refreshing Look

During the late Spring this past year, I applied a new anti skid top on Great Ketch's deck and cockpit. After sanding and cleaning the prepared area, I applied the anti skid known as KiwiGrip using their special roller applicator, which allows one to control the depth of texture.

KiwiGrip hardens quickly and more so as the outside temperature rises, so I made sure to apply KiwiGrip section at a time in order to remove the outside masking tape while the Kiwi was still pliable. Also by working one section at a time, I was able to practice different pressures on the roller to see what kind of effect the various pressures made. The deck was given a more texture than the seats of the cockpit; using a smooth roller to apply KiwiGrip the cockpit seats were merely "painted."

Great Ketch is a free standing masts boat; therefore, it was important that the tracking on the deck was heavy. How can one grab onto a shroud while walking the deck where none exist?


In the picture provided with this post, one may note the hatches are in very good condition. This past winter, I completed the brightwork on the aft most hatch, and replaced the crazed lens with new dark grey .5 inch acrylic. The companionway hatch is this year's winter project.

For more information regarding KiwiGrip, please go to http://www.kiwigrip.com/

Defender Defends Great Reputation.

The marine store "Defender" has provided great customer service recently when I received a few defective products made by Lewmar. I had purchased seven (7) fly screens for Great Ketch, and 4 of the screens had broken clips.

I contacted Defender customer support via their email on a Saturday -- after discovering the broken items -- and received an auto acknowledgment response. By Monday, I was sending them pictures of the defective Lewmar fly screens, and the very next day had received new screens.

I found Defender's customer service to be superb. Defender was quick to acknowledge a customer, provide a process to track and expedite a resolution, and ensure that their customer was satisfied.

Not many companies put much into the customer satisfaction aspect of doing business because, in my opinion, it is easier to get the number on the books when the product is sold and out the door rather than address the non billable aspects of running a company.

I have a very busy schedule so when I take the time to write an accolade for a company, it means they deserve it.

For those curious to see more, visit www.defender.com

I do not work for Defender, nor have any relatives who are employed by them -- merely a happy customer.

New Herreshoff CKY Link Added

A new link has been added to the resource link section of this blog.

The material at the link are the original promotional material of all the Herreshoff Cat Ketch boats made by the Cat Ketch Yacht (CKC) Corporation except the Herreshoff Cat Ketch 33.
Not sure why the 33 promotional material does not exist. Based on my research, I have been given the impression that the 33 was custom made during the later year of the business of CKC. Moreover, CKC changed its name to Cat Ketch Yachts (CKY) when the business relocated from Florida to Texas.

There were 100 31' Cat Ketch boats produced, and 5 33' made. The location of hull 2 is in Texas, hull 4 and 5 are in Florida, and hull 3, which is the one I own, in New York. The owners of the four CK 33' do not know where hull number 1 is located. Hull number 5 is in pristine condition, hull 2 and hull 3 good condition undergoing improvement, and hull 4 needs much tending.