10th August

Still ticking along in slow motion.  Nice summer weather so lots of other things to do.

Did a trial fit of the mainsail on the mast and boom (on the ground) to work out the reefing system and halyard block on the masthead.  Worked out what I had to order and playing the waiting game for running rigging and fittings to arrive in the postal system.

Hand rails bolted and epoxied into position and teak plugs glued in. Marked the deck where the handrails contacted the deck and removed the paint with a Dremel Tool and taped it all up before gluing.  Gave all surfaces a good clean with acetone before gluing.  Can chisel the plugs off tomorrow and give them a sand.  Going to bolt and  seal the mast step bracket on tomorrow.  All the wires are through the deck and will be connected under the mast step (with removable connectors).  They will be waterproof (I hope).  

Thinking about wheeling Nuts out the workshop in a couple of days and stepping the mast.  After mast step is sealed the boat is waterproof and can be left out in the rain.  

 31st July

The little bird was correct.

Sails got delivered.  1 mainsail, 1jib with hanks (with reef), 1 jib without hanks (with reef), 1 roller furling jib, 1 storm jib and a gennaker (white and yellow).

Did a trial fit of masthead fittings.

All holding brackets made and fitted.  Used Duralac paste on all rivets (monel)  and tapped threads as well as isolating stainless steel from aluminum with a plastic layer.  Hope to reduce electrolysis.  Removed all the bits for final fitting.

Sealing the top few inches with spray foam after fixing the wiring and pushed in foam with PU sealant.

Got messy bolting the lid on.

Foam squishing out.  Should make a good seal.  Going to let it cure overnight and can then mount the tricolor  and solder up the wiring.  Got 30 kg of foam buoyancy inside the mast.  Getting closer to raising the mast.

 29th July

Ticking along.  Been fiddling with the mast.  Bought some conduit  and cut all 7 meters length with a hacksaw blade held in my hand to split the tube and slide up the inside of the mast.

Was a bit of a mission but managed to push all the bits through. Conduit was in 3m lengths so 2 lenghts and a bit.  I dont want the wiring inside the mast to flop about so fitted 16mm diameter tube on the internal  aluminum T.  It is just wide enough to fit the VHF coax and a 3 core cable for the tricolour and anchor light. (common negative).  Bought a Navipro Led Tricolour and Anchor light.  Was expensive but very light in weight and low consumption. 1.2 watts so easy on the battery.

It is required by the Atlantic Challenge to have the mast foam filled.  I made a template and dug out my hot wire foam cutter.

It worked well and cut lots of 50mm thick sections to push down the inside of the mast.  Each piece displaces 250ml (I measured) so 4 bits gives 1kg of buoyancy.  The problem is that I can only push these tightly fitting foam pieces down for 2 meters to the forestay fitting as there are a bunch of pop rivets in the area.  

This gives about 10kg buoyancy in the top 2 meters of the mast and I can push up about another 20kg of buoyancy of looser fitting foam from the bottom.  That should give the whole mast positive foam  buoyancy.  I will weight the mast when finished to check.

Foam has been pushed in and the wires fed through the conduit.  Next job is to make the VHF antennae and Windex mount.  I tested the VHF antennae  (an old one I had) and the SWR was 1.2 on channel 16 and 1.6 on AIS frequency (around 162MHZ) with 50 ohms impedance.  That is good for those that understand that stuff.  I was listening to marina traffic from my home on the other side of the island with the antennae on a table outside my workshop.

A little bird told me my sails are on Faial.  Fingers crossed.

 25 th July

A few hours in the workshop.  Sails missing so taking a guess for the masthead halyard block hoist.  Not too complicated as not going for a boom topping lift halyard.  Too many strings from the top of the mast are a pain in the ass.  A topping lift could be a spare main halyard in a push though.

Going to try make one of these new fangled boom kicking strap support lift gismos.   (Im getting old but the new wipper snappers have some good ideas)

The last of the holes drilled through the deck for the handrails.  Need to buy  8 longer bolts for the center line fixings as they go through  2 layers of deck ply along the centreline.

Next job is to remove all the work I have done and epoxy seal all the through holes drilled to seal the ply edges and can then finally fix it all into position.

Launch date is finalized !!!!!  It will be on the First.  ....... (opportunity)

 24th July

Done some work on the mast but waiting for the sails to arrive to do the masthead.  All prepared for hoisting and setting up sheeting points and deck cleats for halyards and reefing lines etc.  Sails going on a mystery tour of the Atlantic according to the tracking.  GLS seems to mix up the Atlantic Islands and my sails are sitting in Madeira as apposed to the Azores.

Hand rails and mooring cleats going on.  Still in slow boat building mode but had a great days fishing. Another 10 meals in the freezer and a very happy cat.

19 th July

Font went funny  but so what.  Back from France after too much wine and treats in the food department.  The French are kings when it comes to eating.  

Mast and boom  arrived at shipping agent here in the Azores a few days before my return and they delivered to my home after paying the bill!!  Transport cost was more than the cost of the mast and boom!!!!!  That is one of the pleasures of living in the middle of the Atlantic.

The wrapped up sausage

Package getting peeled

All packaging cleaned off.

Trimet did a very good job of packaging with lots of protection and took ages to remove but...

The mast top got squished by poor transport handling.  Not Trimets fault.  I organized the transport and they did a good job of protection  packing.  I think even God has forgotten where the damage occurred.  How many trucks? Port handling in docks and containers and local warehouses. Mast has already travelled  close to 4000km to get here.  Anyway not a big deal.  Only the top 20cm and managed to straighten it out to almost perfect.  

Mrs Nuts still in France so still in slow boat building mode but started doing mast stuff.

Bolted mast step into position.  Was a lot of prep as the mast maker had made the step from the Setka deck plans and made it at the angle of the deck.  (my fault for bad communication) I had made a mast support pad which was horizontal so had to modify the stainless base to be horizontal.  Lots of cutting, grinding, drilling, passivating and polishing.  Also started making lower shroud and inner forestay attachment points as well as gennaker hallyard mounting for the mast.

Just a picture of the galley cooker with a chopped up aluminum pot as a fiddle fixed in place to hold the kettle in place.  Also have a cooking pot the same diameter.  Just need to find a frying pan to fit for those suicidal Mahi Mahi.  Still need to fabricate some clamps to the left for holding food / coffee mugs etc.

 8th July

Yes! Im still alive.  Taken some time off from Nuts.  Catching up on other jobs and filling the freezer with fish.  Had nice weather here in the Azores so spent some time on the sea and home and fishing boat maintenance. Off to France tomorrow for a family reunion and some nice boulangerie experiences.

I did a few small jobs on Nuts though.  

Made a bunch of hand rails.  Using up my precious teak.  All ready for mounting when back from France.  Also did a bit more electrical work inside (nothing worth a picture) and cooker got its fiddle. 

Hopefully can start work on the rig and deck fittings when I get back home towards the end of next week.

Next update in 10 days or so.