South African "Catalina" 22

[greg_m]

Update time: Been a while but I have been busy between the rain showers! We have gotten some late snow falls over the Western Cape mountains which has brought the daily temperature down to around 12ºC where I saty and much colder in the higher lying areas... but we get the wind from their direction so although the sun is shining it's actually icy cold in the wind. Which is no good for outdoor epoxy work!

I have started to work on my boats keel. It was previously sandblasted but has got rusty in our sea climate here... so first and acid wash to get rid of the rust, a wash with clean water, completely dry off and then a coating of epoxy resin tinted white because I had some white tint left over!

The one side is a little concave where it fits inside the keel box. So I have decided to fill in the area with fairing compound which then extended into covering the whole surface with fairing compound. In these temperatures though it's taken forever to harden! So this is very much still a job in progress...

 

[greg_m]

Bow eye - another job done! ... but not finished off

My boat did not have a bow eye! So for future use at a mooring ball or for easier handling on the trailer, I decided to add a bow eye. To install it correctly I first mad up a jig to fit over the bow so that it could be used to guide the drill fair and square!

Came out alright and I'm happy with the fitting. Not completed because I still need to figure out the fore stay tying in with the bow eye support mechanism. Never had one before.

The bow eye is required for the boat flipping upright method ala @CloudDiver

 

[greg_m]

Keel box mould update: Ok, so I have been working on this for a while, on and off. It is now at the stage where I spray it with a suitable non-stick coating prior to actually laying up the glass laminate.

It is shaped to fit exactly inside the old keel box. Only difference is it will produce a "sleeve" that is about 2mm clearances instead of the nearly 20mm clearances that exist. You can read about it in a previous post. I glassed the mould with CSM and cheapo poly-resin. Then sanding it showed lots of hills and valleys - as is to be expected. So I used an automotive high build spray filler to build up the surface between sanding flat again. finally i had a luverly flat smooth dimpled surface! So out with the automotive spot putty to fill the little voids. That sanded back to a smooth flat surface ready for final primer and non-stick coating! This weekend hopefully although the weather looks like lots of rain...

 

[gdudik]

No reinforcement on the inside of the bow eye? Mine has the old single-bolt design that the early bolts came with, but inside is a big old block of wood to help spread the load.

If you're trailering properly, I wouldn't think that there would be much load on the bow eye, since you should float the boat onto the trailer. But there might be much more load on it when using it to flip the boat.

 

[greg_m]

No reinforcement on the inside of the bow eye? Mine has the old single-bolt design that the early bolts came with, but inside is a big old block of wood to help spread the load.

If you're trailering properly, I wouldn't think that there would be much load on the bow eye, since you should float the boat onto the trailer. But there might be much more load on it when using it to flip the boat.

Thanks the heads up... I was however not finished with the installation. The fiberglass laminate is well over 1/2 inch thick in the bow area so more than sufficient laminate strength. I will however be adding an epoxy putty reinforcing in place where you have your piece of wood! I'm still working on the tying it into the fore stay support as well.

 

[greg_m]

Keel box mould update: So after filling and sanding the mould smooth I painted it with an ordinary auto gloss spray paint in black colour. Looked actually quiet impressive if I say so myself!

Next step is to actually lay up some cloth and resin...

 

[greg_m]

Keel box moulded insert: I first polished up the mould as per instructions from the glass cloth and resing supplier. Several coats of polish and buffed to a healthy shine. Almost a shame to actually ruin it with a glass cloth layup! I used two layers of 450gram woven fabric on either side with an epoxy laminating resin. This then was covered with peel ply to ensure good adhesive qualities when I install it into the slot.

 

[greg_m]

70HP 2-stroke Yamaha outboard motor cylinder head and water jacket replacement: So the last time I went out with my friend and his son on the RIB the motor started to cutout due to high temperature trip! It did happen on a previous trip but we put it down to to much trim/tilt and the suction for the water pump was not properly immersed. However on this trip out on the bay the motor cut out a few times. I offered to take a look.

What I found was such severe corrosion from inside the water cooling space that the actual water jacket cover had been pushed outwards and holed from the inside! So off with the top end of the motor, clean out as best, build up corroded areas in the block with epoxy based metal filler as best as possible, new gaskets, new bolts and new cover. All boxed up nicely, put back together and test run. Motor sounds really good... we'll take it out for a spin sometime soon.

Of course it was not so simple and took a couple of weekends to sort out. Three bolts snapped inside the block when tring to loosen them. No matter how much Penetrol was used it did not help loosen the corroded bolts. I had to then drill out the broken parts in stages trying not to damage the aluminium block in the process. Then I tapped out the holes as well. That was a major hurdle but very happy with results of my efforts!

 

[greg_m]

And now for some fun: Summer is slowly arriving, well Spring actually and we are getting some really nice weather. So out with my classic BMW F650GS that I fully restored from scrap yard two years ago and off on a breakfast ride around the Cape Peninsula with my favourite little buddy going with as passenger! He had never been on a "big bike" before... had a really good ride followed by a really good breakfast at my local yacht club, False Bay Yacht Club! We set out at 9am and with stops to explore all the beach spots and Millers point ski boat launch site we ended up having breakfast for lunch...

The canon he is sitting on in the last picture has been refurbished for the FBYC Opening cruise gun salute which was to take place the following week!

 

[greg_m]

Imperial Yacht Club, Zandvlei, Cape Town, where I sail my refurbished Extra dinghy, opening cruise ceremony was also held late August. It was a rather cold blustery and windy day but we made the most of the pomp and ceremony. Some youngsters did go out on the Team racing boats but they are ... well youngsters!

 

[greg_m]

So, as of last night, 20/09/2018, the boat has been turned upright and is sitting on temporary bunks on it's trailer. I will update this post with what pictures I have. Unfortunately the batch of photo's I had leading up to the turn over have been lost - I managed to float test a second phone this year so far... damn water 1 ... cellphone 0! It was an Apple iPhone 6 that has zero water proofing!

My previous phone was the Sony Xperia XZ which although is waterproof and a very nice phone... it however went down to the bottom of a local fishing harbour and although I did free dive down to fish it out, the depth was way more than the phones watertight integrity!

So alas, I'm at a loss in terms of phones and pictures stored on them

 

[Slartibartfass]

I f you use iCloud Photo your photos are backed up automatically......

 

[greg_m]

I f you use iCloud Photo your photos are backed up automatically......

Yeah... but then all your photos are scanned by bots!

 

[Leeward Rail]

I f you use iCloud Photo your photos are backed up automatically......

Yeah... but then all your photos are scanned by bots!

ANY smart phone now will automatically upload any photos you take, to some account you have.

My personal favorite is opening a free flickr account and installing the flickr app.
That way you can chose to keep them private or let family/friends or the public see them.
and it is platform agnostic so you don't need to use hardware from one single company.
Linux, Windows, OSX, iOS, Android, etc. all work with Flickr.

This type of thing, keeps the photos safe so if you lose your phone you don't lose your photos.

Another good option is having a phone that has a slot for a removable SD card. Unfortunately iphones do not have this, so it it not platform agnostic.


If you are concerned about security.. the company "sync.com", is a service like dropbox, which can host photos and files.
It uses end to end encryption, and the company cannot decrypt your files. (unlike "Dropbox" who have already had a security breach, and can also decrypt your files)

 

[greg_m]

What she looks like presently... work progressing on inside and deck... slowly between rain showers! The keel lying in the foreground is still needing to be faired and painted. Wide angle shot so it looks a bit stretched.

 

[greg_m]

I have managed to salvage some photo's of the preparations to flipping the hull over. It took quite some time to get up the necessary courage to do this but once we decided on it and set a date... it happened fairly quickly and without issues!

I had to install a bow eye first as the boat did not have one at all and I had to fabricate a bracket for the stern as the boat does not have and rudder gudgeons yet. In front the boat would be hanging under the front wall of the double garage and at the rear it would be hanging from a wooden beam. We secured two 10mm rawl bolts with eyes into the front wall and lashed a rope sling on the wooden beam at the rear. Then we lifted the boat off the trailer using the jack up and tie up method. jack up the trailer, tie up the boat, lower down the trailer and see if it holds

It held front and back. We then turned over the boat with ropes tie to the aft shroud eyes and rawl bolts with eyes in the side walls. This was to prevent unwanted flipping and control rotation speed/angle. Twas a good thing because half way flipped I had to lower the rear end a bit to clear the roof beams.

All ended well and the boat now resides back in my front yard. Still a hectic amount of work to do... but progress is being made.

 

[greg_m]

When the boat was still upside down I fitted the keel slot sleeve that I made using the mould plug as a guide to ensure everything was straight, true and lined up correctly. There was gaps between the original slot and the new sleeve which I tried to fill with a resin/sylica powder slurry type mix that was poured down into the gaps hoping that it would run down and fill the gaps. This worked mostly !

The idea was to then let that set up and remove the mould plug before flipping the boat over. This plan did not happen. The boat was flipped over before getting to removing the plug. On trying to remove the plug, which should have been an easy pry out with a couple of screw drivers and a crowbar turned into a marathon effort...

I eventually had to resort to cutting the top off of my nice new sleeve and get fairly aggressive with a large hammer! Eventually the plug came loose and was persuaded to vacate the slot! Of course now the boat is on a trailer and the trailer is not original to the boat so there was a mismatch. I had to cut up the plug into pieces to get it out from between the boat and the trailer frames.

What prevented the plug with plastic sheet lining and being highly polished from sticking you may ask - resin and silica powder slurry is the answer. The how... must have been pouring it sloppily when gap filling and some ran down between sleev and plastic lining materials.

So that led to scraping out the unwanted resin from inside the slot sleeve while lying underneath the boat. Unpleasant but done. Now I face the task of putting the lid back onto the sleeve as well as the lid back onto the actual original slot. I have used a large pine wood plank as a temporary coach roof/deck support post if you are wondering about the big plank in front of the casing.

Photos show the sleeve still in one piece then cutting top off sleeve, then slot mould plug being removed. You can see there is still a significant gap to fill in front and rear parts. Sides are solid. I'm happy = making progress.

 

[Hardhead]

Greg - this has all been some impressive work. Not only have you done a great job - you have literally wrote the book. I though I was tenacious, but you really have some persistence and motivation. When it's done you might be in shock. Really impressive-

 

[greg_m]

Greg - this has all been some impressive work. Not only have you done a great job - you have literally wrote the book. I though I was tenacious, but you really have some persistence and motivation. When it's done you might be in shock. Really impressive-

Thanks the kind words. It's a case of "too much in it to forget it!"... when I look back over this thread I also think "hells bells...what possessed me?"... simple answer is a little boat that does not want to give up either! It just sits there and taunts me...

 

[greg_m]

So... one of my requirements was to change the keel hanger bolts. On my little ship though these were inserted from inside the boat down wards and then glassed over to seal. What I did not know was that the hole were drill through at an angle and then the bolts were bent vertical under the boat to accept the keel hangers!

So I "Dremelled" away the mounds of fiber glass that covered the bolts, managed to get a socket spanner (wrench in Americanese) onto the bolts and try turn them out. They turned but not by much and definitely not out! So, out with a hammer and from under the boat they were easily knocked upwards. However I did have to gouge away quite a large recess for the bolt heads to clear the casing sides.

I am now considering the options for beefing up the installation but also, looking at the Catalina Direct website spare parts, to try and match with similar bolt weldement setup.