Summer 2020

 This was the summer of Covid. As it turns out we have been socially isolating for years.

Spring: When getting to the boat this spring I discovered much water in the boat. All the desiccators were filled as was the bilge. Even the empty fuel tank had water in it. Next year I will not leave all the ports open. I finished installing the new tiller. The shaft extension was added as well as the tiller head. I made a teak block to seal up around the hole in the deck. I installed a new morse control. The shifting cable was frozen  so I had to buy a new cable. Rerouting the cables was easy and there were no major modifications necessary. 

I then cut a hole in the bulkhead for the chartplotter. Apparently I damaged one of the connections and I had to get it repaired. Once in place it all worked fine.

I then glassed over the old binnacle holes and painted the cockpit with Kiwi Grip.

I finished installing a foot pump in the head. None of the hand pumps I tried worked very well so I went with the foot pump. I rerouted the hose from the bow tank to go directly to the head. I did put a valve in line so I can shut off the head from the tank.

We were launched June 25th. When putting it into gear apparently I hooked up the shifting cable backwards. Who would have thought that moving the lever on the transmission forward would be reverse. Anyway it was easily fixed.

Summer: I added 35 feet of g-40 5/16" chain to main anchor. This was attached with a peenable link.

Fall: we were hauled August 28th with 373 nm sailed

I then removed the fuel tank which you can see in another post. It definitly had a good size hole in it. I then unstepped the mast. The radar dome was filled with water. Apparently the installer had never removed the protective tape from the breather tube. Turns out electronics do not work well under water. While the mast was down I installed an anchor light and put foam pipe insulation around the wires going up the mast. There had been virtually no protection on any of the wires.

 Fuel Tank Removal

A couple of years ago we had noticed diesel fuel in our bilge. After pumping the fuel tank dry we hooked up a outboard motor fuel tank to the motor and have been running on that since. It was now time to replace the old fuel tank. A year ago I removed all the screws in the main salon area of the floor. This would turn out to be helpful as a year of walking on the floor helped to loosen the glue. 

To get started I removed the bottom of the corner seat of the port side settee. The plywood top is one piece with the rest of the settee but the bottom just unscrews. Then after carefully measuring the hole size necessary I used my skill saw and cut down the two long sides. I was careful to cut  along one of the holly strips. I then used an oscillating tool to cut the ends. Here I just cut through the plywood veneer. Then after removing the trim boards from around the small hatch in the floor I stuck a wide chisel in and pounded away trying to separate the floor plywood from the subfloor. It took a while but eventually the glue began to give way.

Once that outside edge started to lift I got a chisel and then a pry bar under it being careful to not damage the floor. Then it was just working my way down the edge until suddenly the whole thing just popped out.

I then proceeded to cut the ends of the subfloor with the oscillating tool and it popped right up exposing the fuel tank.

We had installed a composting head several years ago and so I was able to just cut the sewer pipe and hose which connected the head to the holding tank and remove it. For those of you with regular marine heads this pipe was filled with dried solids. I then cut the stringer out and the fuel tank just lifts out. At this point it dawned on me to worry if it would fit through the companion way. It did but by the barest of margins. And I wrestled it out onto the ground.

As you can see the fuel tank rests in a fiberglass pan. There are drain holes in several spots but it is not to contain spilled fuel but rather to keep the aluminum tank out of any water that may get in there.

Surprisingly the tank was in pretty good shape and I had a hard time finding where the leak was. There was some corrosion on the aft bottom as you can see but it did not leak there. It was only after getting it home and rolling it over that I found the leak. On the bottom there was a small piece of corrosion that was filled with black gunk. When I cleaned it out I could stick the probe right into the tank. 

People keep asking if I could repair it but my feeling is its a 40 year old tank and owes me nothing. For the trouble I went through to get it out I will put a new aluminum tank back in. We have ordered a new tank from Luthers Welding in Bristol RI. He has the plans already and has made them before. 

I made a temporary stringer and replaced the two floors so I could walk in the boat and now its on to the next project while waiting for the new tank.

Summer 2019

Summer 2019
We were motoring along one morning when I checked the bilge and discovered it was full of diesel fuel. We immediately returned to our mooring. There I used my oil change hand pump to pump out the fuel tank. Of course it had close to 40 gallons in it. Most of this was donated(?) to Knights Marine. I dumped the clean fuel into their yard truck. The last 5-7 gallons was pretty black so that was dumped into the marina's waste oil barrel. I then bought a 6 gallon outboard motor tank and hooked up the fuel line and the fuel return line to it. We ended up putting it under the ell section of the settee which meant the lines managed to fit easily. I got it all hooked up and started up the motor and it all ran fine. we did buy a diesel jerry can which we will keep on deck to refuel. I found using this method that the motor uses about a gallon of fuel an hour when running at 1700 rpms.

I had made a new main sail cover which we installed.

Fall 2019
I removed the original sump pump from the motor compartment along with most of the wiring and hoses.
I installed a new foot pump in the galley. There will be a dedicated faucet for the foot pump. It will fed by the hose for the manual pump that was there. So now to get pressure water you would have to close the manual valve. I installed the old manual pump into the head completely removing any pressure water from there. The head faucet was quite decrepit.
   I removed the head intake thru hull and filled the hole with fiberglass.

In preparation for installing a tiller in the spring I removed the steering wheel and pedestal. i was amazed that all the nuts came off without too much trouble.

Winter 2019
This off season I rebuilt the salon box that we had stored food in. It will now hold all of our water jugs for drinking. Pots and pans will be in the hold that had the turntable.
I built a tiller from white oak and ash. The oak came from Anne Coggers property. It was ripped into 1/4" strips and then laminated around a curved form. Then I cut and carved it to shape.

Spring 2019

Spring 2019
I finished up glassing in the stern bearing and got that all sealed up. I bought a new bronze bolt and installed that. I wanted to put a dripless stuffing box in but after ton of research I decided to go a different way. This was mostly because there was no way to fit it. With the old stuffing box  there is about an inch of clearance to the coupling. So I went with a new packing which is called GFO. This is made from some high tech material and is designed to be put into place and left alone. I tightened it down a bit and the after it was in the water I backed off quite a bit. It didn't leak at all.

Over the course of the winter I fabricated a new engine panel box. I made it out of fiberglass using the old broken one as a mold. I installed this using butyl tape and installed the panel back in. I had gone through the wiring and removed many wires that were not being used.

I Kiwi Gripped the nonskid on the lower deck as the old finish was quite slippery.

I went to work on the nav station. I have never liked the idea of a nav station as there is very little use for one now days. Ours was a very thin box under the opening lid.  It just wasn't thick enough to anything more than some pencils in there so I cut out the bottom where it overhangs and built a deeper box that fits in there.

Now you can actually put something in there. I also added some shims so that now the table top is level and things will not automatically roll off.

I finished reinsulating the ice box by glassing in the plywood and then painting it with Brightside

I hired out the aligning of the motor to Alec Binder who had done some work for me before.

I installed all 4 new batteries this spring. I purchased 4 new Lifeline group 27 AGM batteries to replace the gels that were in there. I had to adjust the regulator on the alternator to AGM setting.

I also installed a new 35lb Mantus anchor which fit quite well on the bow roller.

Fall 2018

Fall 2018

I started reinsulating the ice box by removing all the shelves and trims of which there was an amazing amount. I then lined the box with 1" pink styrofoam. I will put plywood over this and then fiberglass it all in. The ice box will be considerably smaller but then we barely even use it.

I then winterized the motor. I also removed an old transducer plug which was located in the very bottom of the bilge. I then filled the hole with fiberglass and epoxy. Then I started on the cutlass bearing project. All the bolts on the shaft coupler came off easily enough ( surprisingly). It is weird how Cape Dory did this. There is a rubber shaft log which is hose clamped to a stern bearing but the hose clamps are buried inside the hull and there is no way to reach them or check on them. After much pulling and swearing I finally got the prop off and the shaft out. The stern bearing though had to be pried off and I destroyed some of the fiberglass that surrounds it.

I then set about rebuilding and hopefully reinforcing the area around this. The top bolt came out fine but I suspected the bottom bolt was fiberglassed in so I just left it.

I did buy a new hose and will wait until spring to finish this and align the motor.

I did some more rewiring as the battery cables were a hodge podge of wires and connections. Turns out one of the gel batteries had failed and needs to be replaced.

Summer 2018

Welcome to the site for SV Nutmeg

Nutmeg is a Cape Dory 36 sailboat, hull # 131. We purchased Nutmeg in January of 2018 and launched her that spring in Rockland, ME.

Spring 2018
Prior to launching we removed the old head and installed a composting toilet. We had bought a "C-Head" composting toilet for our old boat and we liked so much we immediately put in this boat. This was pretty straight forward as it fit right in where the old head was. I had to disconnect the hose and plug the thru hull. Also had to plug  the hose to the holding tank. The holding tank is integral with the hull so I did not do anything with that but I may yet in the future.
    There was a slight delamination near the rudder shoe at the bottom of the hull. I ground this out and refiberglassed it with heavier fiberglass. I sanded it all smooth and then painted the bottom.

I removed all of the standing rigging except for the two forestays and brought them home. I had new ones made copying these and reinstalled them.
   I installed a 50 watt solar panel with the accompanying charge controller. Also I made screens for the overhead hatches which fold down when you want to open the hatches. This is much better than Velcro.
   I installed two coaming cleats that we bought from Spartan as there were too many lines being attached to the coaming cleats that were there. They were expensive but I think it makes it safer and easier to use.
   I removed the stupid lazy susan turntable from its cabinet and that made for a lot more space it there. Not quite sure what we will put in there but it is a much better use of that space than the turntable.
July 2018
We were motoring along out of the harbor when we heard a big clank and then the motor stopped. We turned around and sailed back to the mooring. After much analysis it was discovered that the transmission had destroyed itself. I guess that's what happens when they run out of oil, my bad! After consulting with the local diesel mechanic we had the boat hauled and the engine removed. The new transmission was installed as well as a new damper plate for the motor. It was then reinstalled into the boat. I get a kick out of how so many hours of work, sweat, swearing etc can be reduced to a simple sentence. Oh well.

   While the engine was out I spent time cleaning up and painting the motor mounts and engine compartment. I removed a huge amount of wires that seemingly served no purpose. I found a literal ball of wires at one point which turned out to be the wires from at least three different radios that were no longer on the boat. I filled most of the back of my pick up with wires that were no longer connected to anything.
August 2018
Finally got the boat back into the water in the middle of August. It was fun living in the boat yard but it was getting old and it was good to be floating again. In trying to align the shaft it turns out that the cutlass bearing is probably bad so I will replace that this fall.