Episode 17 Foam, holes and reefs

One of the joys, if you can call it that, of owning an old boat is that after a while, you really get to know it intimately. I began wondering why the feminine pronoun is used on boats, and whether it was because you spend a lot of time trying to wriggle into “her” nether regions, and had to stop because it was getting all too Freudian.

The objects of my latest investigations into the boats innards were two curiosities; one seen and the other unseen. Both of them equally difficult to get to.

The visible curiosity was a brass tap, mounted on the starboard side of the keel box with no obvious connection to anything. I decided to remove it, firstly because by doing so I might discover its otherwise arcane function, and secondly, because I wanted the space for a battery shelf. It took a couple of turns with an oversized adjustable wrench to get it loose, whereupon I found that it was sealed in place by bathroom silicon (the snot of the Devil, according to Chris, an experienced old boat bloke at the marina). Upon removal, it left a hole, and my first thought was that its only purpose was to plug the hole. I then realised, quite rapidly thereafter, that the hole would let water in, if left unplugged. So, I went home, got an offcut of the stainless steel sheet that I had bought for similar hole-covering on the rear transom, and fixed it in place with some stainless steel screws, some Fix190 WT and some swearing when I realised I had made the half hour trip to the boat without my power drill. The Fix190 WT was a recommendation from the boat shop as a replacement for SikaFlex, because my tube of the latter had set solid, and the former would keep better until applied. It still made a black gooey mess.

Having sealed the hole formerly filled by the brass tap, I returned to musing why it was there in the first place. I think it was some kind of sea cock, possibly an outlet to a bilge pump or a galley sink, but the connecting hose had long since disappeared. The boat has another bilge pump under the cockpit, which has the outlet connected to the cockpit drain on the starboard side. Thanks to what I can only speculate is poor design or build, the inlet hose to the bilge pump terminates behind an enclosed compartment under the companionway, so that it does not reach to the lowest point on the inside of the boat, also known as the bilge. I had a not-quite-bilge pump, which would be not-quite-useful at extracting water, if called upon to fulfil its function. To reach the bilge, I would have to make a hole in the enclosed compartment, and pull the inlet hose through and then pass it under the cabin floorboards.

Which brings me to the invisible curiosity. What was there, inside the enclosed compartment? My current guess is that it is either air, or buoyancy foam. Hopefully the latter and, hopefully, not degraded or waterlogged. The reason is that the sales brochures of the time speak of foam buoyancy to make the boat unsinkable. Tentatively, I drilled a small hole in the bulkhead (with my new Makita 18V battery drill), and was relieved to find that no water came out. If there had been water in there, it might have been fermenting there for the past 30 years. So, the compartment has either air or foam. I then filled the small exploratory hole with black goo to keep the air in, in case I would need it in the event of filling the rest of the boat with water.

I think I will need to dig a hole through the foam, if it exists, to connect the inlet hose to the bilge pump to the bilge and so make it not-quite-useless. To compensate, I am considering filling the remainder of the airspace below the cockpit with plastic ball-pit play balls ($8 per 100), kept secure in a ball-net. Expanded polystyrene, or builder’s foam seems too fixed and messy, and will not allow the kind of air circulation needed to allow the boats innards to dry out.

Having taken out the brass sea-cock, I made up a shelf for the battery, so that it is nicely tucked up, out of the way, and the connecting wires no longer dangle through the water in the bilge.

Finally, I took her/it out for a sail on Sunday afternoon for a race, sailed poorly and recorded a DNF. I think it was because I put up too much sail, and by the time I had figured it out, all the other boats had got past me. So, I retired and shortened the course.

There is a life-lesson in greed here - try to grab too much, and it will actually slow you down. The aerodynamics are interesting, and I’m still trying to understand out how they work. It’s counterintuitive; you’d think that more sail equals more force, and hence more speed, but it works the other way around. I think you need to think of it in three dimensions - an overpowered sail will heel the boat, so that the resultant force vector is pointing down into the sea, rather than forward. It also pushes the boat to leeward more, so you can’t point (sail towards the wind) at such an acute angle. In any case, once I had reefed the foresail (reduced the sail area), my speed through the water increased from about 4.5 knots to 6.0, I was able to point the boat further into wind, and the boat became much easier to handle. The difference was remarkable. I am now converted to reefing, and will probably overdo it until I work out what the best settings are for different conditions.

The good news was that my new foresail furler worked well and, on returning to shore, I found almost no water in the bilges, meaning that my contraptions for stopping leaks around the keel pin were working well. Also, no water was coming through the hole where the brass sea-cock had been. Small successes, indeed.
The electrics inherited from the previous owner. Although they looked messy, they actually worked. No trunking, and wire  glued to the cabin walls with white bog. The old stop cock is hiding behind the big, black lead-acid battery on the cabin floor.
Old battery removed, old stop cock on side of keelbox under companionway. Cables replaced in trunking, except for cables under floor to new battery in new location, with red and black insulation tape at joins.

Stop cock hole sealed over with stainless steel plate.
New battery shelf. Cables now routed through trunking. Battery replaced with small, sealed red and white unit.



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