Pensacola FL Sailing Blog - sailingnightwatch

Within the month, good Lord willing, we will be grandparents. We are looking forward to that joyous occasion. The wife has gone off the deep end. Neither of our children had shone any interest in having kids. My daughter getting pregnant was a wonderful surprise for us. Now the challenge is not to go broke as my beloved insistent on seeing as often as possible and spoiling as much as possible, the grand daughter…. And she is not even here yet. When we go out to see the daughter and son-in-law, we will not be able to take any of our clothes because all our luggage will be full of baby clothes and stuff. Life is good. I will keep you informed on this new phase or our life.

The stem head has 2 bolts that hold it on. Even with them removed, the fitting had to be sawed off and the wood drilled and chiseled out. The shape looks like an engineer spent some time figuring out all the stresses it would have to endure. The 4 planks where epoxied together and then shaped. It does sound easy, but it was a bear. There are no straight surfaces. Every side tapers to the stem head. That means everything is measured from the centerlines. I enjoyed the layout challenge, but I do not believe my contractor shared my enthusiasm.

Reinstallation was basically the reverse of its removal. A few minor adjustments and it was good to go. We did add a washout groove under the bowsprit right as it goes through the hole in the bow. We also coated the entire bowsprit with epoxy and varnish. The laminate joints on the old bowsprit were broke apart when I bought the boat. After a year and a half, the new joints have split apart in a couple places. Probably why there are 3 large bolts and backing plates through the laminate. If it would fail again, I would look at having a heavy mast extrusion made in it’s place.

Short of getting hammered by a storm, every sail is a good sail. This weekend was no exception. The weatherman even got it right. A front passed through about 5 a.m. with about 3/4s inch of needed rain. It was mostly clear by 9 a.m. and allowed time to wash off the boat and the enclosure windows. They had not been washed on the inside for over a month. They get difficult to see out of after that much time. We were to have 10-15 knot wind starting out of the north and backing to the SW. Sunday the wind was to continue to back to the south. For those of us who sail mostly east and west, this was to be a good weekend.

We started sailing west towards Redfish Point, and the wind was mostly north but the gusts were northwest to west at a good 15 knots. If the wind continued to back, we would have the wind on out nose most of the day with a lot of tacking. My wife reminded me that her racing days are over and she does not mind tacking, but a lot of tacking is not what cruising is about. This is easy, make one tack and head east.

We had not been to Navarre in about a year. The bridge at Navarre is one of those 47 footers in this part of the ICW. We cannot fit under it but on the southwest end of the bridge is a restaurant/beach bar called Juana’s. A fun place with volleyball on the beach, Jet ski and beach cat rentals. There is also a 3 wide boat ramp. I remember the trailer days, but never tried to squeeze between two other vehicles. It was interesting to watch.

The sail to Navarre was great. The gusts moved back to the north and got to be in the 20 knot range. My wife used to allow me to heal 28 degrees before coming unglued. The last few years she start protesting at 20 degrees. When you can hear the bots shift in the galley, stand by for comments from the mate. This was ok because it allowed me to do some reefing that I rarely get to practice. With a ketch you have many combinations to use. That is why we have one. This time I ran full jenny, staysail and mizzen with the main reefed down to the size of a storm jib. This gave me the same speed and cut the heal down to a level I would be allowed in my own bed for the night.

About the time we got the anchor set, the wind did back to the southwest. A good directions for cocktails.

Sunday the wind was due out of the west. We motored west through the Navarre buoy line to get where we would have room to sail. By the time I set sail the wind was blowing 15-18 knots. I set full staysail, main and mizzen. This keeps the heal down, but also looses about a knot in speed. It was a glorious sail.

About two years after the repair, I noticed that when using a wire to clean out the area where the bowsprit went through the hull, I could poke the wire into the wood.   Expletives. 

The bowsprit is 10’ long and 8”x6” at it’s largest point, where it goes through the hull.  I could tell by my work with the one plank that this was a bigger job then I wanted to do myself.  I contracted with one of the local marine wood workers to do the work.  I have know him for a while and he got involved more as a favor then a prudent business decision.  This was not a difficult job to do, just a heavy back breaking job.  The bow sprit had a stem head fitting that holds two large anchor rollers, the fitting for a 1” chromed staysail-stay attachment, a large chromed bronze cleat and the head stay.  When we did get this fitting off after removal of the bowsprit, it had to weigh 30-40 pounds.  The inside of the bowsprit is held in place with 4 bolts going through a kingpost style cleat and 4 bolts holding the staysail-stay in place.  These are through bolted through the deck and heavy backing plate in the anchor locker.  We used the topping lift (the only line that goes to the masthead) to hold up the bowsprit while we beat it out through the hole with a large sledge hammer. 

Where the bowsprit goes through the square opening, it is very tight and all kinds of dirt and leaves get into, around and under that point.  There was no way to clean in this area once everything is back together.  That is a point of worry for another time.

 We ended up cutting the top board ends on about a 9:1 ratio on each end and leaving a couple inches on each end past where the rot was.  The planks that made up the lower laminates seem fine.  The new top plank was cut and fitted and then epoxied in place.  That was a real miserable project.  We worked from the pier and the piece of wood we were working with was about 5’ – 6” above the pier.  The plank weighed about 35-40 pounds.  You really get tired of lifting that thing on and off over your head.  The final fitting included 3-1” bolt holes that help hold the laminate together.  The inside end fits through a square hole in the gunnels.  I mixed the epoxy to hot and it started to click as we were still tightening the bolts.  The epoxy that was squeezed from the joint hardened almost immediately.  That became a sanding challenge for another day.  It took two days to get everything back together and ready to be finished.