Westsail Upgrades/Repairs – stevenjen

West System Publications

steve — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 15:34:26 +0000

Just a warning:Â This is a bit boat-geeky so you can skip on past if you aren’t doing or planning on doing any fiberglass work.

The West System people publish some really good articles and manuals at westsystem.com.Â Their search is ok, but google is better.Â Try copying this into google to browse through everything:

site:http://westsystem.com/ filetype:pdf

Add a keyword or two like this:

blisters site:http://westsystem.com/ filetype:pdf

to search for a specific topic.

Sanding the rudder.

jen — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 17:30:49 +0000

Major accomplishment of the day! Steven pulled the shaft out. Now it must be sent off for testing.

jen — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 22:20:43 +0000

Priority of the day is to tape the new bootstripe and unload the car.

jen — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 16:30:37 +0000

Scraping the boot stripe.

jen — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 19:10:34 +0000

Sanded one side and 1/3 of the other side yesterday. Ughhh, hard work!

jen — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 15:40:34 +0000

Cutting blisters out of the hull.

steve — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 17:10:34 +0000

The rudder is off!

steve — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 15:40:37 +0000

Whoever put this thing together welded mushroom heads on the ends of all the underwater bolts. Those had to be ground away which means we now need to source some replacement silicone bronze hardware.
The rudder is a bit waterlogged, which we expected, and needs to dry out for a while. We’ll patch it up and give it a proper epoxy coating before it goes back on.
Some really good news is that the gudgeons, part of what holds the rudder on, are fiberglass and not stainless. They apparently switched sometime during the year ours was delivered so we weren’t sure which we’d find. Stainless doesn’t last below the waterline and there isn’t a source for replacements.

Sandstylee

steve — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 14:30:34 +0000

Applying Interlux Interstrip 299E to help remove paint before sanding.

jen — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 15:20:37 +0000