Cockpit rebuild help

[rtyszka]

Hey, its been quite here...everyone working on their boats!!

I started ripping my cockpit out and have some questions. The blue prints don't show the cockpit in any detail (or at all). Can someone send me some pictures of their cockpit? Really the underside of it is what I am looking for. How steering attached, how pedestal mounts. How it is supported.

I spoke with engineer at Alden and he said it was supposed to mount cabin wall on cleat and have 2 posts at rear. Mine has way more support than that.

Again thanks for the help, I appreciate it.

Richard

 

[Anonymous]

Was there someone who was going to post some cockpit rebuild pictures somewhere?

 

[rtyszka]

Cockpit rebuild pictures

Updated pictures from this weekend. Cockpit is gone!

Here is link to pictures with details of what my steering looked like as well as the de-construction

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/ratyszka/my_photos


I am working with the yard on this one (want it done right) I am considering glassing the whole cockpit, bulkhead and cabin sides. No wood. I believe someone in the group did their cabin sides with glass. I really like the look of the wood, but glass is so easy to maintain.

As a side note in talikng again with Alden, this boat was designed for tiller steering and the add of thw wheel an after thought, thus the issues we all have had with support and re-enforcment for the wheel. The engineer said he would run support all the way back to the seats for the wheel.

 

[Dave Richardson]

After trying to post photos on a Yahoo site (my pitifully slow connection speed is the problem) I gave a batch of photos to my son to add to a site he set up when we were returning from Texas. He has promised to add them in the next few days.
Here's the site, although there isn't much of use there yet:

http://hometown.aol.com/boatbumm/index.html

I'll let you know when the cockpit photos are posted.
I'm just now fitting the final corner post, between the plywood floor and the seat. Then comes the finished floor and reinstalling the pedestal, shifter, etc, and I can start on the galley.
We are having fun, right?

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[TomY]

I really appreciate all the info/photos getting posted

with these major projects. My hat is off to both of you, I love to see people dive in and get stuff done.

Weather has me behind and not yet getting the cover off Christmas. Very soon I will get under the cockpit with my camera if I(or anyone else) thinks I can add something. Till then, from memory,...I believe my cockpit steering arrangement is:

Stock sole, teak deck over marine plywood. There is no support underneath-only attached at perimeter to locker sides bulkheads all around.

This upgrade was made to improve the steering: A steel plate(1/4"?) under the pedastal about 2' by 2' with a hole in the middle for the cables. This plate was through bolted to the sole-plugs added to the teak to hide bolts.

The pulley blocks, 2 at the base of the pedastal and two that turn the cable back to the steering quadrant are all through bolted to the steel plate.

All steering stress is transmitted to the plate/pedastal and then quadrant/via cables.

I don't feel it move from the steering linkage-because-the forces are all in line with the sole(on the level plane).

I think the plate is the way to go. Floor flexing(for me anyway) is another issue. This is felt only by bouncing up and down-not sterring stresses. I can not see anyway to reinforce the sole(as it is now) from underneath and consequently may be to rebuild with thicker plywood underneath(not this year, when teak decking begins to leak)

Hope this helps, let me know if there is any angle or question I may help with by taking a photo of my boat. Tom

 

[David]

missing in action

I've been missing in action the last few months. I quit my old job and started a new one. I've been putting in a lot of hours at work and have been reading the site but not taking the time to comment. I've been trying to make progress on the boat though. Right now I'm getting ready to rent a puller to pull the shaft coupling so that I can drop the shaft so that I have room to use a sledge to try to pound the rudder pin up and out of the boat so that I can remove the rudder.

Back on topic, my (currently missing) cockpit had 6 supports under it to the hull. In this photo (http://reno2.com/alden/images/purchase_trip/tn/phto0049.jpg.html), you are aft of the engine looking forward. If you look at the lower portion of the photo, on both sides are seacocks. Occluded by the seacocks are the base of two of the supports. They are about 4x5 inch pieces of 3/8" plywood that was glassed over. All of those bases are now rotten and worthless, so don't use plywood!

I will not be re-installing the wheel. I prefer simplicity and will use just the tiller as long as the boat can be handled easily that way. I also intend to build the cockpit out of GRP. The way I see it, I'll probably have seat-cushions and a teak sole-grating, so why bother with wood that you can't even see?

Feel free to e-mail me any pictures that you want posted and I'll send back a link to them.

 

[rtyszka]

Thanks

Thanks for all the feedback. Tom from what you are describing your cockpit sounds like the orig configuration. Alden engineer said that they were build on 1/2 plywood with a teak sole over the plywood. The bulkhead is attached with cleat and supported (attached) to lockers and supported by 2 legs in aft.

Tom, I would like to come up and see Christmas if you are up to it. Let me know what you think and when you have the covers off.


David, thanks for the pictures, are you focusing on exterior for now (I see you are pulling rudder), or will you work on your cockpit?

Also did I see your cabin sides are covered in fiberglass? I am considering doing the same on Blackstar.

Richard

 

[David]

focus

I'm focusing on the hull. Sanding off the old paint, repairing a blister and stressed section of the hull, pulling the rudder for rebuilding, and strengthening the hull with added stringers and ribs.

I've noticed that some of the ribs in the cockpit area can be easily crushed. I think that they probably had some sort of core material that is no longer functioning. I'll probably add new ribs between the old ones. I'm not sure if the boat needs more stringers for stiffness yet.

I really don't know when I'll get to the cockpit. It will have to be after I'm fully satisfied with the hull stringer/rib issue.

 

[jsmall]

I do not have my boat home yet but I know I must rebuild the cockpit,(it isn't there) How long is the cockpit sole? My bridgedeck is pulling away on one side, How is the bridgedeck supported?
Jiimy Small

 

[Anonymous]

Gentle ribbing

Dave,

Why not use your 'soft' ribs for the forms? Simply add more glass to the affected areas. Presuming the original rib glass is well adhered to the hull, and that you can get the top of that rib glass on the hull clean enough to bond to, and hopefully, get the top surface of the rib a little cleaner, too, you'll have a perfectly excellent job with less trouble and it won't look altered. The N E 38 has a couple of stringers under the cockpit done with the same semi-circular cross section hollow shape and they were used for ducting the engine's bilge vent; pretty neat, I thought. Additionally, the N E 38 has wide bilge stingers, presumably of Airex cored 'glass.

Lots of '60s boats had these hollow stiffeners and ribs and I've always wondered how they were formed so neatly. One way is to dissolve a foam core, but why bother for all those ribs? Clearly, it's the glass that's doing the work, not the core, in ribs like these. There are foam cored stingers in my now-gone-elsewhere 1968 Newport Flying Dutchman; they were cracked through where they passed from under the stiffer cockpit floor to support the forward hull. I simply added epoxy-glass bandages across the cracks, taking care to stagger the amount of added glass so that there was not a sudden change in stiffness at the patch. Worked fine.

It occurs to me that your ribs were damaged during all those years when there was no cockpit and that's what everybody walked on; might not be an inherent problem in the design, but just an accident needing attention.

D

 

[rtyszka]

cockput size

Jimmy, I am working on some hand sketches with sizing and such for the Cockpit, I will share what I have when it is complete.

 

[TomY]

Richard and anyone else is welcome on Xmas.

I can't believe it but I haven't even started on the boat yet. I'm in the midst of too many other items. I have a bit of routine stuff to do which would have been tough in the rainy weather this spring anyway. Let me know Richard anytime you would like to get on the boat, covered or not. I build and enclosure that's easy to get under and work.