Time out for the Thanksgiving holiday

We've all taken a few days off here and there over the past two weeks to visit with family for the holidays. Production welding continues... most of the final interior welding is complete except for the tank tops, and work is continuing on the outside seams. The plates are first welded from the inside, then the seam is back-gouged on the outside using carbon-arc and grinding. This opens the seam back into the first weld so that, when it is welded from the outside, there is full penetration and no gaps. Its a lot of work but this makes for a very strong weld. All the exterior plating is being done this way. The wheelhouse and stack are just about finished and window cutouts should be done soon. My plan is to drill all the holes (350+!) for the exterior bolt in windows and doors, fit them up, then remove them for lifting the wheelhouse into place. They will be re-installed after the painting is done. Also have the anchor winch stripped and prepped for galvanizing. This took longer than I thought as there are a lot of pieces to it. The parts also very heavy and some barely fit in our bead blasting cabinet. With the galvanizing and a few new parts, this heavy duty winch should easily last us another 30 years. -PB

Anchor winch, etc.

We found a very stout deck winch for the boat this week. Boats, one of our neighbors at Galilee Harbor, was looking to sell his winch and its just what we were looking for in terms of size and construction (big and heavy). It was probably built about 30 years ago. It's hydraulic with an oil bath chain drive. I disassembled it a couple of days ago and am now looking for a rebuild kit for the hydraulic motor, which needs new seals and bearings. If I cant find a kit, we'll have to go with a new hydraulic motor.  The plan now is to get the parts all cleaned up and send them to the galvanizer for a hot dipped zinc coating. Then we'll reassemble the winch and load it up with 300 feet of 3/8 high test anchor chain. Still working on the design for the anchor roller.

Also finished the fabrication work on all the bitts. Looks like a lot for a boat this size when they are all sitting on the palette but they will all have a necessary spot on deck for tying up the boat, towing, being towed, etc. Final welding on these will be a good indoor "rainy day" job.

Engine

We've been doing a lot of finishing up work on the engine assembly. Nothing major, just a lot of little details. Here's some recent pictures...

wheelhouse

Wheelhouse is coming together. Now that it is assembled, I am revisiting the helm layout... will probably go with two helm seats fwd and some sort of built in seating and table aft. This is about all we have room for but should be a nice space. There will be three steps up to the door to the aft deck. We built in a scuttle so you have full headroom all the way up the steps to the aft deck. The other door will exit to the stbd side deck. The windows are all heavy bolt in bronze frames with 1/2" tempered glass. I'll be doing a lot of drilling when it comes time to install those... I re-crated all the windows and doors after I inspected them when they were delivered, but I'll be unpacking them again soon and will put up some pics of them then.

Cap rail and other details...

Quick update and some pictures... Cap rail is completed. This finishes off the top edge of the hull plating and defines the shear line of the boat. Also installed a very heavy duty hatch in the forward anchor well. It has a nice coaming so any standing water in this area won't rain down on us when we open it from below. Production welding continues on the interior. Wheelhouse will be going together this week. Also, sending the rudder and prop shafts off to the machine shop for final machine work. Finalized the engine placement and will be starting on fabricating the engine mounting brackets. Also began fabricating bitts (made from heavy stainless pipe and round bar).

Detail, details...