Midships 25 Hull number 65 shall rise again

Its warm and sunny outside. Perfect weather for sailing.
Somehow, however, my version of sailing seems to involve lots of wrenches and tools.

For those of you keeping up with the craziness of SV Sunflower. The current project is the "new" yanmar YSB8.
The previous powerplant, the Baldwin Saildrive is going to CW3Shannon, and is somewhere in the postal system.

Here is the new power plant, sitting the shop.



I bought a pair of these yanmar engines, or so I thought.
Turns out we have 1.7333 engines. I'm short an Injection pump and and the injector, but have everything else in spades. So, I now have a plentiful supply of working spare parts.
Going to fetch it was a 8hr drive one way, so I took the fuel efficient car.... We managed to cram both engines and all the extra parts into my Hyundai Elantra. Pictures exist but don't do the task any justice.

Once everything was home it was time to alternatively ignore everything, and then work feverishly, before ignoring it again. (besides it was cold outside)
Step 1 through 73 is strip it down and repaint, refurbish, and inspect everything.


Step 74 is create yanmar windchimes in the backyard.


Which gets us caught up from the last couple of months to this weekend.
This weekend has been a constant task of prep, hang, paint, and repeat. But the growing pile of new looking parts is pretty rewarding work.

The only real battle I've had with this engine is removing the cylinder.
It is pretty well glued in place, by rust, salt, and calcium buildup.

Here it is bubbling away in a bath of acid.



Hopefully this will convince the engine to give up on this old cylinder, so I can replace it.
While the block is getting the acid treatment, its time to try reviving the piston.

More re-engineing (spell checker doesn't believe that is a word)

Start with prep work. Might as well TRY to keep the dust storm out of the rest of the boat.


Find the 60 grit flap sanding disk.
And fill the entire boat with fiberglass dust by grinding a giant hole in the bottom!


The bottom of the boat is 3/4 to 1 inch of solid glass. I needed a 6:1 sloping angle on the side walls for a strong patch (just ask Don Casey for the details)
Using epoxy and biaxial weave fiberglass fill in the hole, in about 3 stages to keep the epoxy curing at a lower temp.


Here is the finished product, that will keep the seas out, and the boat on top of the water.


The next hurdle will be measuring and building the engine mounts.
This is the engine mount from SV Eastwind, and the rough model for the mounts that I will be making.

Since Stagg has been remiss in his updates I will chime in.

He was having a tough time getting the cylinder out of this engine despite the best efforts of my Mark2 Mod0 cylinder knocker outer tool I mailed down to him conveniently stuffed into one 40 pound flat rate box. Having had enough of my helpful heckling from 1000 miles away Stagg decided to load up his Hyundai and drive up to Kansas City and tell me to put up or shut up.

Turns out that yes, the cylinder was very very very stuck.

No matter...


Step 1: Shatter the cylinder. This will allow us to fight each stuck half separately. The cylinders are cast iron and believe it or not, they shatter without too much effort.


Next take a hack saw and carefully cut MOST of the way through the cylinder at the top. From there, collapse in one side with a hammer and punch. This is a familiar trick to anyone who has ever had to remove a stuck seal. Basically, you just need to break the circle and it will come right free.


Corrosion and debris around the cooling water jacket. Yikes.... This was a running engine!


Just the bottom portion remained. Now we went after it with a large brass block and an air hammer from the back side.

Once everything was out we clean clean cleaned everything up, dealt with the corrosion and painted the inside of the water jacket to hopefully forstall this happening again any time soon.



Water pump was a little iffy.... Replaced the bearings and the impeller, cleaned everything up nice.


Alternator got stripped and cleaned as well as new bearings installed on him too.


Quickly got much better looking as well.


And back into the Hyundai from whence it came.

Igor, throw the 3rd switch.

SV SF is home. Quite litterally.

Now its time to get back to work.

Forthcoming are: new electronics, solar, cushions, and rebuilt yanmar.

The Pieces are coming together.

Here figuring out the NMEA 183 connections between the Radio AIS and the Chart plotter. Of course the wires are color coded! and of course the color codes are different between manufactures.
That is why nobody calls it a standard, instead they call it %#$&@!.

It does work on the table now. Two Raymarine chart plotters with WiFi link to a tablet, and New Horizon Radio.

But things are coming together.

Ongoing projects. Seems like every task requires drilling or cutting a hole in the boat.

Locker vents. non-vented lockers were always evil lairs for dank stuff.


Next on the list. Kitchen counter-top replacement, plus Stove and SS sink.

In the beginning the earth was covered in water, and so was this MS25.
It pretty well rotted out all the wooden bits, and bubbled or stained the fiberglass.


Cleaned up and ignoring the blistered surface.


Add a kero-camp stove and the kitchen gives good service. The low counter-top height allowed for a tall stove like this without any issues.
Might even have been better for trips, since we stored a lot of stuff behind the stove, and could also shift it out of the way for more countertop work-space.


On Lake Superior, a cutting board doubled our work space, while the stove stored the two most common cooking items in pot-holders.
Really pretty happy with this arrangement and would recommend something like it for other MS-25 boats lacking a fancy cooker.

Omni-stove, but really looking at the space behind the stove where we could just toss things and know they would stay there during a passage. (stove as screwed down at this point)

Lets tell the next part of the story in pictures.



Then




How think it your boat's kitchen counter?



The new counter-top will be a 1/2 inch base, with several layers of biaxial glass underneath, a biaxial layer on top with a map, and epoxy barrier as finish.
Preparation complete


Pouring in the epoxy. It takes a lot more than you think!


Removing the bubbles, using a heat gun or propane torch. Easy does it.

Warm spring weather is here. Time for sailing. And as always, by "sailing" we mean not-sailing.

New toy is here. GoHoist 3 Ton lifting thingies.

For several years we had been eyeing a hoist of some sort. Driving several hours, and then paying for a boatyard never made sense in the middle of the country, with a trailerable boat.
But I ran out of excuses when I realized this spring that the fellows making the GoHoist are located just 20 miles away in Dayton Ohio.
I live close enough to go direct to the source. That said, they do a very nice job packaging everything onto a pallet for shipping.

Parts being laid out. It took very little mental effort to assemble, and we did it with just two people.


Basic structure is straightforward, with everything generally under compression as the load is lifted. Pins hold everything together, but carry no load, so it just slipped together with no tools at all.


This one is probably safe. The safety inspector approved it, and then spend the rest of the day sleeping in the shade.


Completely assembled. 8ft Ladder for scale.


Over top SV. Sunflower. Just waiting for the boat stands to be built, and we will be neck deep in projects from the keel to the trailer brakes.


More pictures to follow. After it stops raining.... maybe in August.
Jeez it has been a wet year so far in Ohio.

Now that I have a GoHoist? why of course I am using it as a tent frame!


Makes a roomy tent inside. Finally the boat can be dry, which gives me time to rebuild my cockpit drains in leisurely time.


Cockpit drains are located just underneath the engine compartment hatch... which of course means they get plugged, and overflow into the hull.
Midships and Parker-Dawsons tend to "sink" on their trailers rather than on the hook or pier.
Hmm, look at all those leaves, and the boat was covered for crying out loud.


I have been pondering the solution for years, and never wanted to put in the work. But now it is time.
Starting with these.

Some of these

Dare you to use one of these on your fiberglass.


Boat surgery. (Optional surgery during the shutdown IS allowed on sailboats)


Goodbye micro-drain full of leaves.


Boy the engine compartment looks huge now.




Light spots on the bottom are the repair after removing the old Baldwin Saildrive unit.


Now to rebuild the area using the old hatch, and make sure it cannot leak.


This also allows me to install 2 inch drains that can quickly empty the cockpit of water and debris.

Boy, its been a minute since I (worked on the boat) posted anything here.
Updates.

Building a hard dodger. Just in time for another trip to Lake Superior.


Roughed out here. Getting the final measurements to fit a nice box onto an uneven fiberglass boat.


Put some fancy curvy swoops in it. Looking good is half the reason for a hard dodger.


Also gives us lots more space to bolt in extra stuff. Don't hit your head on the fire extinguisher bolted to the roof.
On the other hand if the stove catches fire, there is a handy fire-putter-outer right above you.

As if the broken rudder issues were not enough a couple years ago. Now the rudder bracket is broken. One can only guess it was damaged in the same event that initially broke the rudder itself.
Either way now is a good time to see how the Midship/Parker Dawson rudders work.



Enhance.....


Enhance.....


The whole frame is slightly sprung, and now that the pipe broke we can see how badly it is bent.