Peace IV
Haul Out 2006
After much effort and planning Ann and Neville were able to have Peace IV hauled out for keel and mast repairs. If you have been following their letters on the Wharram site you will know that they almost lost the entire rig when the forestay fitting failed just after leaving Norfolk this spring. Through excellent seamanship, and more than a little divine intervention, they were able to drop the sails and secure the foremast. Since then they have been plagued with setback after setback when it came to finding a yard where they could haul out. We have a discussion about hauling a Tiki 46 here. Eventually they were able to get Peace IV hauled at Walter Greene's yard in Yarmouth, Maine. Below is a series of letters from Ann to Tiki46.com about their repairs....
June 28 2006
The sail "Down East" to Maine was
typical in that we had a good following wind, lots of sunshine for part of the
trip, and got socked in with thick fog the rest of the way. The Maine
sailing is complicated by fog, zillions of tiny islands and rocks, and more
lobster pots than I could ever have imagined. With our two outboard motors
located in a vulnerable position between the hulls, it made for a rather
sporting exercise in slalom sailing between the floats.
We got into the tiny Cousins River and could not see either shore from the
middle even though I could probably throw a stone across. But once the fog
lifted we saw lovely woods, a seal, a doe nursing her two spotted fawns, and a
family of ducks swimming down river. We anchored in the river which dries at low
tide but the mud flats are friendly to our twin hulls. Then we took the dinghy
up to see the place Peace will be hauled.
The yard is full of hot looking multihulls, and the sheds are well organized
and bright. It is not run like any boat yard I have ever known. If you need to
use any of their tools or equipment, just ask and they are happy to let you - it
is more like a club in that regard. On this rainy day, lots of work was getting
done.
It has been raining here in Maine for about 70% of the time all spring long
so folks kept working outside until the rain got pretty heavy. That was just
after the turn of the tide, so we had to leave before coffee break but will get
better acquainted when we are lifted ashore.
Walter was kind enough to row out into the river when we arrived and he came
aboard to see our boat and discuss the haul out and our boat's particular
characteristics. He and Nev poured over the plans. We feel confidence in him,
but I suppose I will worry until we get back into the water all safe and sound
at the end of the job.
June 29
There will be a huge crane to haul us out. It
must reach out into the river to get us and then lift us completely out. Because
of the reach, the crane must be large. The other multihulls are smaller than us
and lighter because they are foam and fiberglass construction rather than
plywood, so they are lifted out on a small trolley or using a small crane
attached to part of a bus. But the big crane is here often enough so we saw many
places where its feet had been set on the shore earlier in the year.
There is a bit of a home grown atmosphere here in that all the yard's own
lifting gear is home made, but it looks tough and reliable. There are obviously
lots of clever people and no lack of knowledge or skill in building,
maintaining, or sailing the fast, foam sandwich multihull racers including lots
of trans Atlantic sailing and racing. This yard is multihull central for New
England, that is for sure and lots of the names are familiar because the folks
are famous.
A couple just stopped by in their dinghy from the big house at the bend in
the river. They brought us a bottle of wine to welcome us to the Cousins river,
came aboard, and were kindly and amusing. Apparently they wondered what kind of
boat we had here, took a digital photograph, sent it by email to a catamaran
friend, and he looked at it, sensed that it was a Wharram, and went on line to
the Wharram website. Then he saw Peace IV and our letters, emailed the couple
back, and said we might be open for a visit. So now Peace has new friends here
in Maine and we have another reason to be grateful to the little electrons that
made all this possible.
I also have some very old friends only 3 miles from here who may drop by when
it is too rainy to work. And my childhood playmate, Martha, and her husband Bob
might stop by. They live in Vermont and have a small travel trailer so might
take the pretty drive and help for a little while. This boat sure attracts nice
people to serve her needs!
July 1
They lifted us out yesterday and everything
went well. And the crane man said we weigh 10 tons so we will have to put Peace
on a weight loss diet. Fewer spares, maybe less stores, perhaps fewer books, and
maybe fewer tools. She is admitedly pudgey in those areas.
With the foremast mast out now, we are relieved to see
that the slight damage to the mast case is even less than we thought and the
mast is only minimally damaged. Considering the 9.5 knots we were doing when the
top forestay fitting failed, it was lucky we did not see the mast falling over
the side, but that mast case held and it will be easy to make it stronger than
new again. We already replaced that top forestay fitting and will now make
further improvements so as to prevent any more of that kind of excitement. The
hulls are almost pristine and Nev is easily removing the keel bands and there is
no damage there at all. The anchor chain tore off three of the bands, but it
happened by ripping the tops off the screws without damage to the hulls at all.
So he is fairing it all, I will add more epoxy, and we will just have a longer
snubber to keep the chain away from the hulls. Everything needing repairs can be
either bonded, filleted, or coated with epoxy or wrapped in fiberglass. It is
all so simple. Considering how hard we have sailed this boat, she is in
excellent condition. Thanks to fiberglass and epoxy.
I guess our only problem is that England did not do well in the soccer. Oh
yes, I forgot to mention the mosquito bites... a Maine specialty.
July 13
The crane we used was an 85 ton machine and
it was able to reach out and put us into the river very gently. I think Peace's
own 8 lifting strops worked well in a choke around the inboard port and
starboard edge of crossbeams at
station 1, 3, 7, and 9.5.
As they tightened, they scuffed the beams slightly but we were planning to sand them and repaint anyway. There was no damage of note otherwise. Our straps were 2 inch wide and 14 feet long proper commercial lifting strops. With proper use of shackles, they can be adjusted to fit.
A bunch of photographs were taken by Ken Lapoint and he may get
them to this website or the Wharrams eventually. (Pictures
are posted - Clif) Ken was extremely
helpful all day long and gave us lots of encouragement. He discussed his ideas
about the boat and found him to be interesting and jolly company. It does creak
a bit when the crane lifts the boat, but not as much as sailing in stormy
weather. The beam lashings work just fine. And ours are still the same ones we
first put on 4 years and 25,000 miles ago.
We found that two gallons of antifouling paint gave us one coat when used
with a roller plus a little left over to give the keels an
extra coat and the
wearing surfaces of the bows, keels, skegs, and rudders. We have been told
that red antifouling has more copper in it than the other colors. So our boat
now wears red unders!
It is interesting how visitors to the yard
reacted to our boat. They saw the other boats, but came and studied
ours. They
always wanted to ask questions and were eager to come aboard too. The Tiki 46
sure turns heads! Now we can put things back in place after our haul out and
enjoy some much needed rest. Nev must tighten the rigging again, we will get the
sails back up, and the decks will be washed as we go along. Currently "the
little elves" are scrubbing for us (in other words, it is raining hard) so that
will clean off the worst of the yard dirt. But Maine gets a lot of soot in the
air from the winds over Ohio etc. So even after only two weeks up here, I can
see a gray film on deck. But simple detergent and a brush will clean that up
just fine.
Off to sleep now.
Love, Ann and Nev
Here are some additional notes from Ann and Neville about the causes of their damages and more details on the repairs...
Mast Repairs
We decided a couple of years ago that we did not really like the
design of
our mast at the bottom. There is too much stress at the bottom, aft, and we have
had troubles there. When we were on our maiden voyage approaching Madiera, the wood at the base
of the mast split and the base of the mast wiggled forward about 4 inches and
the rigging went slack suddenly. I guess it would have fallen back on top of us
pretty soon. Lucky for us, it happened in daylight and I noticed it, and Nev and our two
crew immediately set about to fix it. We dropped sails, hove to under bare
poles, and the guys went to work. They got some blocks of hardwood I had
scavenged from the trash in Portugal and used it to brace the base of the mast
against the huge stainless steel bollard we have which is well fastened just
forward of the mast. That prevented the base of the mast from wiggling any
further forward. Then they slacked off the rig and got out the little 5 ton
hydraulic jack and pushed the base of the mast back into place and used more
wood to keep it in place. It made a horrid noise, but it worked. Good guys!
Remember this is out in the open ocean... They tightened the rig, put some temporary fastenings on those bracing
blocks, and we continued another couple hundred miles to Madiera. No problem.
In Madiera, we lifted the mast out, and Nev and I made a replacement hardwood
piece to repair the broken area at the aft bottom of the mast. But we were not
convinced it would do the job because there is a huge rake to our masts. We
needed to be SURE that mast base would stay right where it was supposed to. We were given a huge block of hardwood which the guys bolted in front of the
base of the mast to prevent it ever slipping forward again. Then we put another
big block of hardwood in front of the main mast too. I do not like to worry, so
that made me happy. The mast bases are now trapped.
When the fitting at the top of the forestay gave way a few weeks ago, we were
doing 9.5 knots to windward with all sail up in moderate seas and the mast
snapped back and that caused the base of the mast to kick forward and press hard
against that big block in front of the base of the mast which did its job and
held it in place. Also the mast leaned hard against the top of the mast case
which has been repaired now.
We could see no damage to the mast, but needed to inspect it from top to
bottom with the mast on the ground to be sure. We lifted it out last week. Nev had already put a much better forestay fastening up top than our rigger
had provided so that weakness in the forestay fitting is now eliminated. And now
we have discovered that the inner forestay fitting is also wimpy and must be
replaced with a proper one. That will be ordered today. All the rigging wires for the shrouds etc are hooked over some wooden thumbs
that stick out from the mast. I looked at these very closely yesterday and
decided that even though I could see no damage, it would be a good place to put
a nice epoxy fillet on each side of each of those thumbs. So we ground off the
paint, and I put in the low density fillets. And now the whole mast is sanded
and will get painted. We ground the paint off the base of the mast and inspected the bare wood. The
piece of hardwood we had placed in Madiera had been broken off, but there had
been no further damage to the base. There were three old looking, dry cracks
leading up from the base. These have now been opened out and force filled with
epoxy in increasing thickness (see mast case repair). Nev made a piece of wood
for me to glue into the bottom aft of the mast tomorrow, and that will make it
just like the plans. But we have decided that is not strong enough. I have
placed a huge fillet beside each side of that hook of wood that sticks out in
front of the base of that mast and I will build it up to rounded shape. Then, we
will wrap the base of the mast with three layers of fiberglass, and that will
make it much stronger.
I do not think that piece of wood at the bottom, aft,
base of the mast will hold the mast in place. There is too much rake for that.
Our block just forward of the mast is needed and there are pressure points to prove that it has been useful. We are glad it is
there and now the fillets and fiberglass will hold it all in place so it can
withstand great pressure against the block if we ever have problems again... I do not think there is anything to worry about now. I do not like to worry.
Ann and Nev
Foremast Case
The damage occurred when the forestay fitting at the top of the
mast failed.
(We have since upgraded that fitting which our British rigger had selected.) We
were doing 9.5 knots to windward going around Cape Charles in moderate seas with
all up when the original wimpy fitting broke, so the sudden BANG allowed the
mast to snap back and it slightly peeled the top 8 inches of the mast case back
a little causing two cracks to form. But that is a heavy mast, the forces were
horrific, and THE MAST HELD UP THERE! I think that was remarkable. The cracks were located on port and starboard where the top 8 inches of the
back of the mast case is glued and screwed to the sides of the mast case.
And we
needed to figure out how to fix that so that we could be certain and sure it
would be strong and keep rot out. We first needed to dry out the crack, so Nev drilled down into the crack from
above in two places on each side using a 3/16 inch longish drill right down the
cracks. Then we kept it dry but in the breeze for several hot, sunny days and it
dried nicely. The next thing was to get epoxy into those cracks. Nev found a 3 dollar
culinary syringe at the supermarket made to add flavoring to meat roasts. It has
a large bore 3 inch long needle and I filled it with a mix of epoxy and pumped
it into the drill holes while plunging the syringe in and out of the holes. This
seemed to force the epoxy throughout the crack and glue started to flow from all
the areas. That was reassuring! Next, I thickened the epoxy with a little low density filler and pumped a
slurry of it into the drill holes. This also squirted out of all areas of the
cracks. Again I made more epoxy even thicker and pumped it in. And finally I
made a mix about as thick as peanut butter and managed (with effort) to squirt
it in while raising and lowering the syringe in the drill holes. It no longer
flowed out of the cracks - it stuck in there. Next, I made a small fillet on the inside corners closing the inside of the
cracks using half micro fibers and half low density filler. When this went
leathery, I added a bigger fillet of low density on top and let it get leathery.
Finally I took an old 4 inch grinding disk as a filleting tool and added a third
layer of low density filler. I also made a thick mix of low density filler paste
and smeared it over the aft side of those cracks so the glue could not run out.
I next added some low density filler to round out the aft corners of the top
8 inches of that mast case so I can later put three layers of fiber glass around
the top of the three sides of the mast case there. You are maybe laughing now that I made it that overly strong. But I will not
be worrying about those cracks anymore. I do not like to worry.
Ann and Nev
Keel Repairs
When we built the boat, we had put strips of stainless steel an
eighth of an
inch thick and one inch wide from the bows all along the full length of the
keels. These were bedded in sikaflex (similar to 5200) and screwed down with
inch 8 stainless steel flat head screws. We imagined they would offer us added
protection in case of grounding. Later we regretted having them.
When the first 6 foot keel strip came off two years later, I dreaded rot
getting into the screw holes or maybe cracks forming or ply delaminating due to
wet getting in. My imagination dreamed up lots of nightmares. Then two more
strips came off and I worried myself sick. Well, when we finally got the boat hauled last week, we learned that there
has been NO DAMAGE to the boat at all. The screws were originally put in place
with epoxy so those holes were sealed all along. What happened is that the
screws were stainless, (and we did test them with a magnet) but we bought them
in a bag and had no way to determine quality. Apparently they were not very
resistant to corrosion because the heads simply melted away leaving the stubs
which could not hold the stainless steel strips in place. The strips just fell
off when the screws melted. They were not ripped off as I had thought. Nev managed to get most of the screws out when he removed all the rest of the
strips and we ground off the others. Then we counter sunk the holes put in new,
high quality stainless steel screws coated in epoxy, and plugged them in good
with low density epoxy filler over each one. All the old holes and screws are
now bedded in with epoxy so they are safe from corrosion.
So the keels are now fair again, the holes are filled, and I have put three
coats of epoxy to seal them in even further. I like to be sure because then I
will not worry. Lessons learned: Stainless steel keel bands are not needed. We will protect
the keels from the anchor chain by using an extra long rope snubber line which
might rub but will rub gently whenever there is wind against tide at anchor.
Sometimes that happens in places like Georgia. NEVER EVER buy stainless steel screws from anyone but the best dealers. Those keels are STRONG, and there is no need to worry. In fact, our hulls
look excellent all over. The boat was built from new with fiberglass and several
coats of epoxy and fairing compound, then barrior coats of epoxy with copper
powder and this has all made an excellent protection. There has been no damage
at all. Soon there will be six gallons of ablative paint on there so we will not
be bothered with marine growth. Even I will not worry now.
Ann and Nev