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Still working on the boat. We've begun making some needed repairs to the stringers inside the boat, as well as making a pretty big repair to the bow and many small repairs to the deck. I sanded most of the paint off the rudder today so that I can begin prepping it for it's re-install. Sorting out a wiring issue right now and going through all of the safety gear. Thanksgiving is in 2 days, and i'll be with my sister and her family. Good stuff.
Boat work On the bow we drilled a bunch of small holes so that we could feel around with a pick and see how wet the balsa core was, and how far the moisture extended. Eventually we realized that to do the repair properly, we would need to cut out a section of the bow. S0 we did. We epoxied in some foam core material, laid fiberglass over it, and then went to filling in all of the void with epoxy and then fairing compound. All of the bolt holes (for the bow pulpit and what not) in the bow got re-drilled to be bigger, so that we could fill them with epoxy as well, and then re-drill to proper size before reinstalling the bow pulpit. 
Drilling holes in the bow to find how far the water damage extended. The balsa core had become saturated with water from leaky deck fittings. 
After finding enough water damage, we just decided to cut a section of the bow out. These are our cut markings. 
There's a hole in the deck... 
We epoxied in some new foam core, and then re-glassed over it. All of the holes for the lifeline fittings, other bow fittings, and toe rail fittings got the same treatment. Again, the reason that we are doing all of this work to the deck was to add structural integrity to the bow (so that we don't lose the forestay and have the rig come down mid-race) and to keep the inside of the boat dry. Leaky boats suck. :( 
Nearly finished with bow repair. Just need to add some more fairing compound, sand it down again, paint it, drill new holes and then reinstall everything. When we're done, you'll never even be able to tell that we worked on it. On the inside of the boat, Don and I started grinding down the stringers running across the boat. When the boat got run aground in Bermuda, it flexed the hull and made some small cracks in the stringers, near the keel. The boat is fine and sailed home from Bermuda this way, but Don wants to fix it, so we are. We ground things down a bit, just to where the crack is no longer there. Next, we're going to lay carbon fiber over the stringers to reinforce things, and then lay epoxy in a couple of small places. 
Sanding and grinding on fiberglass gets you really dirty... End of the day today I started sanding all of the paint off of the rudder. I'm 3/4 done and will finish tomorrow. Next in line for the rudder is going to be fairing it, rolling on epoxy sealant, new bottom paint, and then inspecting and reinforcing the rudder post/ rudder area with more carbon-fiber. That's not to mention our pimpin' new custom NASCAR shop lower rudder bearing that I wrote about in the last blog. 
North Carolina weather isn't cooperating very much and I have to cover the boat like every day. Working with paint, epoxy, fiberglass, carbon fiber, etc would be way easier if it was hot and dry. Not cold and damp... Don's uber cool all carbon fiber LED masthead tri color light wasn't working, so I figured out what was up today. Pretty cool, I rigged up some little wire extensions to the bottom of the mast wire and hooked them up to a car battery that was laying around. I messed around with things a bit and got the light to work, figuring out where the bad connection was. I grabbed the electrical toolbox from the house today and i'm going to re-connect everything properly tomorrow, shrink wrap everything and put the masthead back together. 
Testing bad mast wiring with a car battery wired up... 
Super cool carbon fiber masthead light works now! Going through all of the safety gear, per the Singlehanded Transpac rule book, crossing things off the list one by one. Where is that damn radar reflector? If anyone's seen it, let me know, 'cause me and Don both can't find it. All of our flares are good, navigational charts present, EPIRB works, tested out the Sat phone (it works), etc etc and the list goes on and on. 
Sanding down the rudder today. I got really dirty doing that, too. 
Sanding down the rudder. You can see where some fairing work has been done before. And it's going to get done again... Spending Thanksgiving with my sister and her husband's family. They only live an hour away, so it's pretty convenient that i'm right here during the holidays. I get to see my 14 month old nephew for the first time! Boat work is coming along really nicely, and we plan to have the bow work done and painted this weekend, as well as finishing up that work on the stringers. The weather is not really cooperating, but i'm doing the best I can. As you can tell, we're being super thorough in our boat prep. Learning a lot, not just about boat work but about proper boat prep. Can't wait to sail this thing! end
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November 24, 2009
216.166.43.194
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