I just returned from a week visiting the Long family seat in upstate New York, http://www.cruisingonstrider.us/Queechy.htm, where I was the test occupant of the cottage just renovated for rental http://www.queechylake.us/. Since it is right at the end of the Taconic Parkway and 20 minutes from Tanglewood, in the direction where you can sneak in the back way without dealing with the infamous traffic, I expect it will be rented when I visit next year. It was a nice change from life afloat this summer.
I went down to the yard this morning and cleaned off the brown discoloration around the lower topsides. Marykate On & Off Gel made short work of it. Mask the waterline with so the bottom half of the tape is bent out to direct any drip away from the boot top (or just bottom paint in my case), brush on, spend a few minutes checking underwater gear, hose off. It’s like the ICW never happened. Magic stuff.
That bit about checking the underwater gear? That’s the rub. The boat has been sitting for a week and I noticed a line of moisture around the junction between the propeller strut and the hull. The strut feels solid but, when I wiggled it, I could see the water winking. The stress of that prop blade coming off in the Chesapeake and the vibration of motoring a mile at idle into the harbor loosened the strut. I never would have run the boat even that far if I knew a whole blade was missing but I thought I had just picked up a snarl of rope.
The struts are fixed very solidly in these boats with deep bury in the fiberglass structure and two through bolts. There’s no danger of it coming adrift but that slight motion combined with water penetration isn’t a condition I want to run another few thousand miles with.
These boats normally have a thick fairing about half way down the strut. I chipped mine off a couple years ago after finding some cracks. It turned out to be cosmetic, consisting mostly of un-reinforced resin and putty without any structural bond to the hull. It was just put there to make the strut look stronger at boat shows and only slowing down the water flow to the prop with resultant slight increase in vibration and fuel consumption.
I’m not in a position now to remove and re-install the strut as I would probably end up needing a new rudder quadrant and shaft as well as some other parts by the time I got all that old stuff apart. I’d also rather be cruising in Maine in August than doing a job like that.
I chiseled the hull back to the solid laminate and was pleased to find that the gel coat and fairing putty are pretty thick in this area.
This is one of those things where, if I were being paid for my professional opinion, I would probably say, “Oh, no, you’ve got to take it completely apart and….” The nice thing about being a boat owner is that you can ignore your own advice. I’ll keep an eye on it and, if my fix doesn’t work, I won’t be as mad at myself as someone might who wrote me a check.
I plan to run a laminate of either unidirectional fiberglass or carbon fiber along the hull skeg and down the strut clear to the barrel. This will only be about 1/8” thick and tapered. It should flex enough to insure that the covering doesn’t crack loose from the strut. The strut isn’t moving enough now to cause any vibration under power so the slight stiffening of the epoxy laminate structure should prevent any further working.
A secondary benefit of this reinforcement will be that I can then use bottom paint on the strut without worrying about the copper pulling the tin out of the bronze. The strut already is a bit red from an old electrical problem so the additional reinforcement will make me feel a bit better motoring hard in dicey situations even if it isn’t actually making it much less likely to break off.
I’m glad I have this to distract me from looking too closely at the rudder. I’m going to have to think about doing something about that in another year or two.
I went down to the yard this morning and cleaned off the brown discoloration around the lower topsides. Marykate On & Off Gel made short work of it. Mask the waterline with so the bottom half of the tape is bent out to direct any drip away from the boot top (or just bottom paint in my case), brush on, spend a few minutes checking underwater gear, hose off. It’s like the ICW never happened. Magic stuff.
That bit about checking the underwater gear? That’s the rub. The boat has been sitting for a week and I noticed a line of moisture around the junction between the propeller strut and the hull. The strut feels solid but, when I wiggled it, I could see the water winking. The stress of that prop blade coming off in the Chesapeake and the vibration of motoring a mile at idle into the harbor loosened the strut. I never would have run the boat even that far if I knew a whole blade was missing but I thought I had just picked up a snarl of rope.
The struts are fixed very solidly in these boats with deep bury in the fiberglass structure and two through bolts. There’s no danger of it coming adrift but that slight motion combined with water penetration isn’t a condition I want to run another few thousand miles with.
These boats normally have a thick fairing about half way down the strut. I chipped mine off a couple years ago after finding some cracks. It turned out to be cosmetic, consisting mostly of un-reinforced resin and putty without any structural bond to the hull. It was just put there to make the strut look stronger at boat shows and only slowing down the water flow to the prop with resultant slight increase in vibration and fuel consumption.
I’m not in a position now to remove and re-install the strut as I would probably end up needing a new rudder quadrant and shaft as well as some other parts by the time I got all that old stuff apart. I’d also rather be cruising in Maine in August than doing a job like that.
I chiseled the hull back to the solid laminate and was pleased to find that the gel coat and fairing putty are pretty thick in this area.
This is one of those things where, if I were being paid for my professional opinion, I would probably say, “Oh, no, you’ve got to take it completely apart and….” The nice thing about being a boat owner is that you can ignore your own advice. I’ll keep an eye on it and, if my fix doesn’t work, I won’t be as mad at myself as someone might who wrote me a check.
I plan to run a laminate of either unidirectional fiberglass or carbon fiber along the hull skeg and down the strut clear to the barrel. This will only be about 1/8” thick and tapered. It should flex enough to insure that the covering doesn’t crack loose from the strut. The strut isn’t moving enough now to cause any vibration under power so the slight stiffening of the epoxy laminate structure should prevent any further working.
A secondary benefit of this reinforcement will be that I can then use bottom paint on the strut without worrying about the copper pulling the tin out of the bronze. The strut already is a bit red from an old electrical problem so the additional reinforcement will make me feel a bit better motoring hard in dicey situations even if it isn’t actually making it much less likely to break off.
I’m glad I have this to distract me from looking too closely at the rudder. I’m going to have to think about doing something about that in another year or two.
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