@moderator
Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
We pulled one coach roof hand hold fastener to determine size, etc. We found that after digging out the teak plug, there is a brittle layer of epoxy/varnish(??) over the screw head, making me think the screw head was disintegrating. Thankfully ours didn’t. We dug out that brittle stuff to find the fastener head with a slotted drive, and were able to easily back it out.
The original fastener is a 1/4″-20 flat head machine screw 1 3/4″ length. It’s made of bronze, and on our 1974 boat, the head and one threaded portion are quite pink but other areas look fine. The wear pattern suggested that the threaded part was being held tight in one plane about 1\8″ thick.
The next question is – what was that fastener screwed into? The deck details drawing (075.tif from the CD) say “1 1/2″ x 1″ brass plates under fore and aft handrails P & S.” Did they really embed BRASS? Drawing 74 says “aluminum” for that same note. Regardless of whether they used brass, bronze, or aluminum- given that the caulking material under the teak handhold has failed, the backing plate will have corroded as well. So simply threading in new fasteners seems highly suspect if the threads in the backing plate will crumble away.
Another concern is the coach roof drawing shows it has a balsa core, and we recall the cabin top deck is wood cored, at least where the vents are. So if water has gotten in around the hand hold fasteners, the coring surrounding the backing plate may be rotting as well.
It will be simple to add a new backing plate to the underside of the coach roof and through bolt the hand holds in place. But not so in the cabins because we still have the original headliner that is impossible to reinstall after removal. So rebedding the hand rails turns into a headliner replacement job after adding new backing plates to the underside of the deck over the fore and aft cabins. I guess we could cut little access areas in the headliner and tape them back up so we could go sailing rather than work on the boat, but that’s ugly. Another solution would be to make mating mirror image hand rails on the inside of the cabin, and through bolt outside and inside rails together with the deck between. Don’t know if that’s feasible or not, just an idea I read in Casey’s “This Old Boat” book and I thought it was a clever solution.
I’m wondering if anyone has really dug deeply into this hand rail replacement project and understands whether my concerns about corroded backing plates and rotting cores are valid. It seems so much more secure to through bolt hand rails with suitable backing plates.
Thanks in advance.
Duncan’s question above is being addressed in another topic:
Any responses to this question, please reply there.
Aat shared many pictures of Panta Rhei II with me, and I have shared them here. She’s quite a beauty!
Guy, when I look at your rudder photo posted above, it seems the rudder doesn’t have enough clearance between the aft end of keel and forward end of rudder. It’s hard to tell from the photo, but just throwing out an idea – could it be the wood rudder has swollen so badly that is jammed against the keel? Or maybe jammed at the shoe area?
For a comparison, look at the photos of our rudder on this blog post. At the bottom of that page, there is a series of rudder photos that seem to show more spacing than your photo shows. Note, these photos are from before Van rebuilt our fiberglass rudder, but that task did not change clearances.
As I recall, when I look at our rudder, I can see into the small clearance gap between the keel in rudder. On yours, can you see clearance space between the keel and rudder? How about between the rudder and lower shoe?
Just FYI, here is a photo of the keel after the rudder is removed, as well as the bottom shoe and center hinge.
Marilyn
The owners manual says:
“The anchor recess is moulded to take a 35 lb C.Q.R.”
We’ve done it, and it fits nicely. But we find the 35 lb CQR to be a little undersized.
You might consider a folding danforth type, such as the Fortress FX-23. Not that it fits nicely in the locker, but it is easy to disassemble and stow below, or it can be secured to the pushpit.
We actually carry 3 anchors, 2 plow types: Manson Supreme 35lb primary, 45 lb CQR (not 35 lb); and the Fortress FX-23, which is great in sand.
Marilyn
Hi Peter –
By drawing number as specified on the CD that Jeremy Lines created:
– 7 “offests for extension to hull mould”, gives dimensions for shape of hull including keel.
– 12 “sail plan” includes dimensions of masts
– 23 “Deck Plan” shows the deck layout (without interior details) and the starboard side view above waterline (keel not shown)
– 44 “Arrangement of bow pulpit” is strictly about the pulpit railing, not the bow.
– 45 “Stemhead Fitting” is strictly about the metal fitting, not the FRP bow.
I could not find drawings specifically for the bow or stern.
Hope that helps.
Marilyn, moderator
I’m adding to this on request from Peter Greenhow, owner of Rhapsode. Photos show an impressive rewiring job!
Peter says:
Thank you to everyone who has gone before me – I found everything posted very useful in helping me develop my own design.
There is an entirely new panel ten centimetres forward of the old one. This gave me enough depth to fit the instruments I didn’t need to see on a regular basis – AIS, MPPT battery charge controller (I use the Victron app to monitor the charge controller) and the transducer converter (we have Raymarine instruments).
In addition to the Blue Sea panel inside there is a weather proof panel in the cockpit with breakers / switches for nav lights in all their variations, spreader lights which I changed to LEDs, Echomax, Autopilot and cockpit light. The bilge pump has its own circuit.
The SSB is to the side of the main panel and is recessed so that the knobs don’t protrude which allows the chart table lid to open fully albeit not quite as far as in the original arrangement.
Although we don’t normally spend much time in marinas I changed the very old Sterling battery charger for a modern version and found it considerably more efficient.
Peter
I can second Arild comments, and advise that you keep looking for someone who knows about white metal.
We were able to find someone in Port Townsend Washington, USA to make us a new white metal bearing, and it was the right way to go. You can find details on our personal blog.
You can find a PDF copy of the C&N original dimensioned drawing and install information already posted (with permission from Jeremy Lines) on this website here.
Marilyn, moderator
We have not, but I am wondering if you saw this earlier posting about a vendor-offered Maritex solution to the white metal bearing replacement problem:
Roger posted photos correctly the first time, it was the moderator who had the site setup in a silly way that stopped his photos from posting on submission.
My apologies to those of you who’ve tried to upload more than 2 photos, or add more than 2 links to your postings, and they seemed to disappear. The problem was site security was automatically upgrade to require moderation for any forum postings with more than 2 links. I’ve now changed the limit for moderation to 10 links – so hopefully no one else will be frustrated by posts seemingly disappearing!
Marilyn, moderator
Guy, is your boat in the water?
To isolate whether the problem is in the steering gear, or the rudder movement, have you tried mechanically disconnecting the steering gear connection at the rudder post, then use the emergency tiller to rotate the rudder? If you boat is out of the water, you can disconnect the steering gear, then go down and move the rudder by hand.
However, Van just told me his thought after watching the video is that it must be the rudder movement is jammed somehow – that the steering gear seems to be able to apply an enormous force to the rudder post, so the steering gear is fine. See Van’s good blog post on our website about when he rebuilt our rudder, if you want to know details of the rudder construction.
What could stop the rudder moving? Some ideas:
1) Something is physically in the way of the movement.
2) The bottom shoe bearing is stopping the rudder movement.
3) The hinge part is stopping the rudder movement.
4) The packing gland is seized onto the rudder post.
5) The top bearing at the deck is stopping the movement.
In other words, the rudder is held in place by 4 things, and one of them is not functioning correctly. If your boat is still in the water, I would schedule a haulout ASAP because, yes, the rudder post packing gland and where the rudder posts exits the hull is well below the water line.
Just in case you have not had a good look with Interim out of the water, there are several useful pictures of what the rudder looks like when out of the water at the top of this post and within this blog post. And this shows what the keel looks like when the rudder is removed for rebuild.
Thanks to Guy for being proactive and offering advice about how to edit the image. His advice was excellent.
As moderator, I can edit others images to fix the text flow problem, so I have done that in Jonathan’s message to solve the viewing problem.
Sorry for the issue!
Marilyn, moderatorPS – I was very confused by the photo until I read Tim’s initial question. That’s when I realized that Rainshadow’s fridge is not in the same place as Tim’s and Jonathan’s boats. On our boat, the fridge is forward of the cooker, not aft. It has a vertical opening, so it opens like a cabinet. When on a port tack, when you open the door, things can fall out – most annoying.
The corner created by the galley sink inboard, and cooker forward, is just a deep storage hole. I can easily see that would be a nice area for a freezer box, except the access is horrid! I don’t think that area was ever an ice box on Rainshadow as it is not insulated. In addition, the location of the fridge forward of the stove appears to be original build – not a PO change after delivery.
I would post of photo, but oddly enough, I cannot find one!
Ah, but I did just go look at the general arrangement drawings that I obtained from Jeremy Lines years ago. General arrangement Mk I (1963) had the fridge under the galley sink (not in that corner). In 1967, General Arrangement MK II has the fridge forward of the cooker as it is on Rainshadow (hull #126 from 1974). Mk III came in 68, which appears to be a rearrangement of the aft cabin.
Thanks David – I was afraid the whole cabin top (main and aft) had a wood core. The concern is that we’ve found Formosan Termites on our boat in the plywood backing plate that you mention under the foredeck.
And as you say, the cabin sides do have a plywood backing behind that vinyl wall covering. We know that from when we rebedded or replaced all the portlights.
I would like to use epoxy or varnish to seal every bit of wood in the boat to protect from termites, but this may be an impossible task unless we take on an entire interior refit. That won’t happen unless the termites destroy wood bulkhead integrity – and that is a horrible thought.
Marilyn
Thanks for the info, and nice photos on FB group. Looks like one handhold got destroyed in process?
You might consider sealing the handhold down with butyl -we’ve been using this on all our rebedded parts and very happy with result. It remains pliable, so should retain seal even if boat flexes, which is always does when at sea.
There must be someone in the UK who offers similar butyl tape, but do realize that not all things sold as butyl remain as pliable as this Compass Marine variety.
Sorry about the very poor support for photos here. I really should look into that someday – or if someone wants to help?
(Addendum: As administrator, I found James posting above that he says disappeared – I just approved it and now it appears lower down in this thread…. Sorry!)
Cheers – Marilyn, moderator
Let me add to this warning – the same plywood that is under the bollard also surrounds the hawse pipe deck cutout.
The PO replaced that original hawse pipe with a windless foot switch (while moving the chain drop through the deck to be into the forepeak area just aft of the stem fitting, just below the mounted windless).
Whomever installed that windless foot switch did not do a sufficient job of sealing the exposed wood backing plate, and now it is soggy and rotten. Worse, termites seem to have found it. UGH!
For people who had these leak at these air vents, did you find that the deck is wood-cored in the area of these vents? If yes, did the leak result in any core rot?
In the area of the galley water heater vent, I did find a wood core.
I’m thinking the entire cabin top has a wood core, but that the side decks are solid FRP, with some embedded aluminum backing plates under stanchions, winch bridges, etc.
Comments, anyone?
Teak toe rails and hand rails – what to do about caring for them? John brought this question back up to me via email, so I thought I would answer here.
When we bought Rainshadow in 2009, all deck teak was varnished with MANY layers from years of touchup. In about 2012, I carefully used a heat gun to remove all the thick varnish – amazed that I neither burned myself or the boat. Then I started on the quest for how to maintain the teak without varnish.
First I tried an off-the-shelf teak oil product. In the Seattle climate, it turned to black mildew in short order.
Then I tried Teak Guard. The result was an odd color teak with limited durability. I didn’t stay on top of recoating areas where bare teak was exposed by wear (as in, the place we always step when getting on/off, etc.). The result was the bare teak would go grey, and the coated stuff would be too orange-tinted to look real. So I would scrub it all off with a green scotch brite pad and start over once a year.
Once we made the passage from Seattle to Hilo, Hawaii, I decided to let the teak just weather naturally. After a few years of tropical sun and ample rain, the teak is very weathered with severe surface ridges. Many of the plugs that cover the screws are popping out, exposing the end grain of the teak.
This year, I decided to use Tung Oil. Following common recommendations, I started by cleaning with a detergent/mild bleach wash using a stiff brush, then several coats of tung oil cut with turpentine to help it soak in. Turpentine stinks, so I think I’ll change to cutting with odorless mineral spirits next. The teak soaked up the oil, but as expected within a week of tropical sun, the oil oxidized and went dark. I decided I don’t care. I can easily see where the wood can soak up more oil because it’s lighter. I’ve touched up those areas with more oil, not bothering to scrub first. Also, for the first week-ish after coating, the wood feels a little sticky like oxidized oil. It doesn’t rub off or wash off.
I chose to use tung oil rather than an off-the-shelf teak oil product because I had the tung oil on hand, and my past experience with expense “teak oils” indicated they don’t stop the darkening as promised. Besides, we had a sample piece of teak scrap that we coated with tung oil and left it outside in the weather for about a year, after which time it was dark but not dried out with ridges like our boat teak has become.
Lots of people recommend cutting together tung oil, mineral spirits, and little varnish like Epiphanes, with the varnish acting as a sealer. I don’t like the idea of varnish build-up again, so have not tried that.
Does my teak look good? Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. The weathered-gray teak look is fine, but I just got worried about the screw plugs popping out and exposing the end grain – that’s a good way to promote rot in most woods.
Does the Tung Oil actually do any good? Many folks pontificating suggest my efforts to restore oil to the weathered teak are pointless (or worse, detrimental). Instead a sealer is needed to seal-in the teak’s natural oils.
Does anyone know of a sealer that has some durability? And can be reapplied without removal/sanding? Is it even worth trying to seal in the natural oils on teak that is 50+ years old and badly weathered?
Good news for folks wanting to purchase from the CN Yachting archive. Members of our forum are entitled to a discount as we are considered to be “members of a C&N owners association.”
Here’s what Enrico recently sent me:
if you are member of a C&N owners association I have the right to offer you a totally different treatment. You can choose to have all the material of the yacht you are interested in at a cost of 250 € +VAT, or to choose 20 drawings of any size at a cost of 150 € + VAT . The major part are technical detailed drawings useful for refits or extraordinary maintenances. I can offer 10 drawings you choose at 100 €+VAT.
In addition, Enrico gave me permission to make available the Handbook and List of Drawings. Logged-in members to download these documents from the following menu option (see the black bar above, just under the header photo)
About the Nic 38 > Nicholson 38 Documentation
(Or you can click the link I included above)
If you get the message that it is for logged in members only, you need to log-in using the login box on the right side, just under the black menu bar.
Hi Thomas –
I refer you to a posting I made several years ago, which I just reread and still agree with. And here’s another one.
I would suggest that the worst Achilles heel for the Nic 38 is the cockpit drains, as discussed throughout this thread.
Our boat has FRP decks, but plenty of comments from owners of teak decks suggest their may be another issue for those builds. Here is an elegant solution to their common sagging aft deck problem.
All Nic 38’s are showing their age by now, in both good and bad ways.
They are rugged beyond belief in comparison to the disaster stories I read about more modern boats.
But if they have not been well cared, they could have complex problems, such as the aluminum backing plates embedded in the deck expanding due to corrosion and cracking the deck near stanchions, for example.
And if a previous owner did their own ’embellishments’ to the original design, then it all depends on the skill and care of that work. For example, we had problems with how a professional shipwright installed the windlass for the previous owner. Sloppy work and disregard for the deck stringers lead to a soft fore deck and minor rot of the bollard backing plate 20 years later.
I’ve offered lots of comments about maintenance here, so let me end by saying that if you are looking for cozy and reassuring comfort while 2 people are cruising, the Nic 38 is a great sailboat. She’s no race boat, but sails well on all points of sail and is easy to liveaboard.
Good luck finding the right one.
Marilyn, moderator
Ok, here are the pictures. Note that the movement when using this emergency tiller is very active. In other words, rotating the tiller by several centimeters causes the wheel at the helm to spin rapidly.
Showing the cross section of the end fitting:
Hope that helps.
Marilyn, moderator
We replaced our original Calor stove with a Dickinson Caribbean 2 burner stove. We like the function of the stove a lot – good heat and great control of flame.
However, we had to do some mods to the galley fiddle by the sink to get it to fit. I measured twice before buying – and thought it would fit – but the gap where the stove fits does not have parallel walls fore and aft. So where the gimbals are located, it was too tight to fit.
Note the problem was not getting the stove itself to fit, it was the spacing required for their gimbal kit. The Dickinson gimbal brackets are quite wide (fore-aft), and could easily be replaced with something with a more suitable to the Nic 38 galley arrangement. Then a gimballed Caribbean would fit no problem.
If you are interested, I could take some photos on our next boat day and get more specifics on the gimbal mechanism.
We removed our Valiant water heater and did not replace it as now we sail in a warm climate with ample sun to heat a solar shower bag. Glad to have the space in the galley for storage. Also, we glassed over where the vent opened into the cockpit port side – it’s equally nice to have that space available for our chart plotter mount without worrying about heat and condensation.
Marilyn, moderator
I don’t have a photo now, but will take one when on the boat again later this week.
The emergency tiller is a curved galvanized tube, about 3 cm in diameter and about 1.5 meters long. I didn’t recognize its use on first appearance. We store ours in the aft locker.
Reportedly it’s tough to use – and I can believe it. Just thinking about using it from the aft deck inspires me to want to keep the steering gear well serviced.
marilyn
I hadn’t thought about how the mildewy deck was associated with my failing gel coat, but of course you are right! Our deck is dirty within a few months, and each time I clean it with brush/mild soap, I see more of my gel coat disappearing down the scuppers and forming a white cloud in the water below. However, there is plenty of gelcoat left – no areas show the underlaying laminate.
Don Casey’s book “This Old Boat” has a good description of how to care for failing gelcoat, including polishing, sanding, painting and reapplying gel coat. I’m going to try polishing, and perhaps sanding, but it sounds easier to clean the deck every few months than apply paint or a new gel coat.
It is interesting that you painted it, but you seem very unhappy with the outcome. What paint did you use?
Thanks for the food for thought – Marilyn
