Kiss my ass Rivets

Ever tried to remove a rivet? It is freaking maddening. I would usually just end up choosing the nuclear option and trash what ever it was I was working on to get the little bastard out.

One of the many ToDo items on my recent mast project was to remove and replace a crapload of rivets on my mast and was not really looking forward it. Until I found an awesome little tool that makes it freaking simple as hell.

This is that tool:

It’s called a Rivet Removal Tool which is a pretty ingenious name when you think about it. It’s a tool, that removes rivets. Seriously, how do they come up with this stuff?

I guess it is kind of expensive (approx. $60), but I’m a sucker for single use tools. Tools that are designed to do one job and do it AWESOME!

Once I started using the thing, I ended up replacing more rivets than originally planned. It basically works like a drill bit, but has an extra part that grabs the rivet head and keeps it from spinning. And that is the part that drives you fuggin crazy if you don’t have this tool.

Now I can save my nukes for other things that I swore I would NEVER take off again and used 5200 on.

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We are no longer a power boat!

There is nothing natural about the photo below.
No mast

Like most boat projects, this one took longer and cost more than we had originally planned. We thought we’d have the mast off the boat, everything done and mast back on in about 2 weeks……………………

Everyone done laughing now? Lets continue.

It was actually 6 weeks. Although to be fair, we didn’t do anything project related over the 4th of July weekend.

The biggest time sink was not actually the work on the mast.  We had a few projects that would much easier to do with the mast down and compression post out of the way. But once the mast was down, and we started digging around (our first mistake), we discovered a few other issues that required attention. Classic scope creep!

I put up a post a couple weeks ago that outlined some of the new stuff we added to the mast. And in addition to all that we also replaced ALL of our standing rigging. This was not planned, but we are glad we did it. In the process of getting quotes for new rigging, we found out a little secret that apparently not a lot of people know about. Fisheries Supply does rigging. Does it very well, and quite abit cheaper than some of our more “famous” riggers in the area. Fisheries does not come out to your boat, so I imagine that is where a lot of the savings are. But if you are willing to do the heavy lifting, pull your rigging and bring it to them, they will do the work and give you back some very nice/shiny new boat jewelry for you to re-install on your boat. And the price difference was a jaw dropper. Having an account at Fisheries Supply helps alot here as well.

With the mast down, we pulled and inspected the chain plates, which is only proper. They were fine, but there was a small bit of rot in the decks near the areas where they go through the decks. This was one of the unexpected bits. But, Tawn took care of that. Some of the chain plate bolts need replacing. The actual replacing of the bolts is easy. Finding exact replacements for bolts that were installed in Taiwan in the early ’80s, is neither easy, or cheap.

We also remounted our windlass (Lofrans Tigres). The previous owner had it installed in a manner that created a persistent leak when it rained. We tried every trick in the book, but could never figure out how to stop the leak completely. So while the mast was down, we redid the mounting and plugged the old holes. So far, so good.

The biggest and to me scariest bit, was removing the compression post. We did this for two reasons. One was we wanted to remove an old, leaking 20 gallon fresh water tank. That tank lived just forward of the compression post. Without removing the compression post, the only way to get it out was to cut it out. Which I almost decided to do. This brings us to the second reason for pulling the compression post. The compression post had about a foot of fresh water standing in it. The water got there from running down the wires coming down from the mast. There is no good/easy way to completely prevent this water from traveling down the wires and into the compression post. But typically, there should be a small hole or two drilled at the bottom of the post to allow the water to drain out on it’s own….on our boat, there was not.

With the post out, we drained the water and tested the post for soundness and drilled a drain hole and put the post back in place. I type this up in a quick paragraph or two, but honestly it was a lot of hot, dirty, itchy work that we could not have done with out the help of a couple very knowledgeable and helpful friends. You have no idea how grateful I am to my friend Ethan for his help with the fiberglass.

I know I should take pictures of all this as I’m doing it. But to be honest, it never occurs to me to take a picture while I’m actually doing the work.

Tawn took a picture the day after we re-stepped the mast. It’s the best I could do. :)

With mast

And I promise, that picture was taken yesterday, not months ago.

 

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Backup paper Charts.

Paper charts.

Everyone says they have them, or plan on getting them. I’d be willing to bet that half of those people don’t really have them, and/or never get them. Or, if they actually do have them they are horribly out of date.

I’m solidly in the out of date category myself. But to be honest, computer navigation systems are getting so friggin reliable, robust, AND cheap. Paper charts are becoming more and more backups for your backups.

You could go with a dedicated navigation system like Garmin, or Simrad (Installing this on our boat now), or anyone of the other options available. You could save a bunch of money and go the iPad route and install Navionics. Or do like we did for years and run some version of Navigation software on your laptop, plugged into a handheld GPS. The possibilities are almost endless.

All that being said, stuff on boats get wet. Electrical stuff getting wet, does not equal awesome. So back-up paper charts are still a good idea. One of the major drawbacks to paper charts though is the freakin’ cost. Which probably contributes to why a lot of boaters either don’t have paper charts or “plan” on getting them someday. It sucks paying a few hundred dollars for something you will most likely never use, or are out of date, or you don’t even know how to use properly.

Which brings us to the reason for this post. I was poking around NOAA’s website the other day and found they have an experimental program going on. Check it out here. The booklet format is experimental, not the charts. :)

Quote from the website:

The NOAA BookletChartâ„¢ is an experimental product that you can print at home for free. They are made to help recreational boaters locate themselves on the water.
The Booklet Chart is reduced in scale and divided into pages for convenience, but otherwise contains all the information of the full-scale nautical chart. Bar scales are also reduced in scale, but are accurate when used to measure distances in a BookletChart. Excerpts from the United States Coast Pilot are included. Most chart notes are consolidated on a single page for easy reference. Emergency information for the charted area is printed on the back cover.

Printable charts from NOAA are not a new thing. What is new is the booklet format. Click the region and sub regions you want, download them as .pdfs and print them out at home or work. Or go to something like Fedex.com’s online printing have it printed out and bound for around $30 per booklet. Which is a lot cheaper than than buying all those charts the old school way. And they will be up to date.

The really nice bit, is that in this format, each edge of the map is marked so you know which page to flip to.

Being a bit of map geek. I prefer to plot/navigate on the old school, large charts. But having these booklets on board as a back up is great/cheap alternative to spending tons of cash on charts for regions you are just passing through.

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Moving

Moving to a new webhost and domian registrar. Site may be down for a bit over this weekend.

It’s done and moved. All should be back to normal…

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