Satisfactory Bedding

Lots of work done this weekend, re-bedding the pulpit, six chain-plates and a winch. The latter was a big deal for me. The main halyard winch on the coach-house seemed to be the source of a high reading on a moisture metre and a crack that appeared next to it. As in many things related to boat maintenance, the whole process was a first for me.  I used the technique I blogged about last week using butyl. This seemed to work well. The real test will be whether it keeps the leaks out. On Saturday, I dismantled the pulpit, levered off the chain plates and removed the winch. It was surprisingly easy once I had the right tool, a nifty weird-shaped scraper I bought at Home Depot. Other than slightly warping one of the chain plates (nothing a hammer can't fix I hope), it was easy. I think I determined the cause of the moisture issue as the winch was barely bedded. Water would have been leaking under it gradually and seeping into the core. I took all the nuts, bolts, washers and chain-plates home and soaked them overnight in acetone. Next morning I spent an hour cleaning them up, removing old epoxy and other gunk. On a side note, you can't be too careful with acetone. I spilled some on a perspex porthole and it created some horrendous streaks. One more thing to fix. Then it was down to the yard to get down to the real work. Thankfully, my sailing buddy David Duquette showed up to assist. Laying on the butyl was easy. It did not look quite as pretty as in the image but it's very simple to apply to whatever you are bedding and a lot less messy than epoxy. Putting the fittings back on was not as simple. Four hands were essential. Re-installing the pulpit was a combersome process with two us but would have been impossible alone. The bedding seemed to have filled in under the four pulpit footings as the butyl squeezed out like putty evenly around each. A very satisfying sight to behold. Bedding the chain-plates was a sinch except for the one I warped. Oops. The winch was another matter. Actually bedding and tightening it down was easy enough but two problems arose. Firstly as I tightened one of the bolts, water squeezed out of the core. This is a big deal as it seems serious enough that I will have to replace the core here. Bugger! The second issue is that for the life of us, and there were three of us by this time as another buddy, Mike Lusty showed up to supervise, we could not properly re-assemble the winches. I am sure I will figure it out but frustrating none the less. The biggest anxiety of the weekend is the head-stay. The mast was un-stepped in November and on horses in a different part of the yard. I have rod rigging so you need to be super-careful with any joint. I inspected the swages and what-not carefully with a magnifying glass. No issues except one big one: the head-stay is bent at the top. This could be a massive pain. The only thing I could figure is that it happened when the yard un-stepped it and put her on the horses. I spoke with one of the yard managers and he is having a rigging guy look at it. It's a big enough concern that I actually had nightmares about it.