Saturday, May 26, 2012

Wha? There's 400 lbs of lead in the Anchor Locker.?.!.

We dropped the anchors and emptied the chain and rope from the anchor locker. A little ashamed to say it's the first time we've seen the bottom of the locker. The rope and chain covered this:


8 ingots lead.

Zoomed out



We don't have to put lead in the keel after all, we have to take it out of the bow. The boat no longer needs weight compensation for the heavy Mercedes with the new our light yanmar. Bow heaviness problem solved.

Anchor locker closed


The anchor locker drains to the compartment below it with the circular entrance, to the compartment in the pic below, shown with the drawer pulled out.


This is looking through the hole where the drawer was to the wall separating that compartment from the one with the circle hatch. Like everywhere else, the plywood was de-laminating and pulled right off. The two boards behind it are not attached to eachother, and are flexible. Since they are not providing structural support we may replace it with something breathable like a panel with holes or maybe even a screen. Solutions to come..



The next place water drains to is the sub-floor where the mast support and keel bolts are. Remember the cedar blocks we pulled out? The beam next to them was almost as easy. The pile of wood scrap is the remainder of it after we ripped it out. So the mast actually had no support. And even without it, the cabin only compressed about half an inch. Not bad, tough little cabin roof.

We are thinking about forgoing removing the bathroom wall/mast support to replace it with aluminum tubes; and instead clean up and epoxy the bottom of the wall there and slide aluminum plates underneath to support it. It will be much cheaper and faster. And our metal guys is swamped at the moment, we need him to reinforce our tiller head, and who knows when he'd be able to get to the mast support.


AJ popped out the floor cross beam, which broke free from it's fiberglass tab. We scraped off all of the fiberglass tape that was on the floor. The stuff is nasty sharp.


Ta da, you can see the keel bolts. They are in great shape. Too dirty to tell, but despite having spent so much time in water, they have virtually no rust.


This is the starboard bulkhead. It is the wall the heater is mounted to that separates the closet from the main cabin.


Inside the cabinet you can see the base of that wall rotted out too.


I pulled off one layer at a time until it broke through to the closet.


We will replace the base of the wall and fiberglass it in.

Here's more delaminated plywood. Whoever added it all, did not treat any of it. All the plumbing and drain holes were never painted on the inside, thus all rotted out. We will epoxy and paint all wood that gets wet.


We're about to conquer the sub-floors. We will start with the anchor locker and work our way back to the engine room. All sub-floors and compartments will be cleaned, stripped of paint, old fiberglass tape and rotted wood. Then re-fiberglassed where needed and painted.

4 comments:

  1. they don't put slabs of lead in the anchor locker for a fresh smell. it was likely there cause your previous engine was fucked-up-heavy, and weighed the ass down. you'll find out what your new engine needs when you sail her. your previous owners were pretty meticulous, i noticed. still though... previous owners.. and you know how i feel about them!

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  2. Ha, I don't think I can call anyone who sailed without a mast support, epoxied over dirt, had exposed wires in the bilge, and painted the engine with $5 Walmart spray paint, meticulous.
    But yeah, it's obvious that the bow had to be weighted to compensate for the Mercedes behemoth. Yay tiny yanmar!

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  3. Bill Luders was a good designer, and im sure he had it all worked out.
    having said that, my luders 36 has always seemed a little down by the stern (and this is with the perkins 4-107 diesel). I didnt find any trim ballast up forward, but then judging by the scribed waterline, the bow does seem a bit high> a couple inches maybe.
    once while sailing the boat in strong headwind and into a strong current with a double reefed main and partially furled heads'l I found it very difficult to tack--the boat would not tack-- and I had to fall off and gybe (wear ship)> this worked ok, but it surprised me because the boat usually spins on a dime like a dinghy (this is with the wheel steering). probably if I'd shaken out the reefs all would have been well> but I was single handling the boat, in a narrow situation and it was blowing hard. oh yes, and the perkins had suddenly stopped the night before.
    in annapolis at the boat show, I was talking with a guy about the old luders-designed Navy 44' yawls. this guy was saying the yawls were great sea boats but he thought the high freeboard up forward made for a dry boat but also provided a lot of windage when tacking in strong winds. if you check out a picture of them, the sheer/profile of the luders 44 is very similar to our luders 36 (see what you think: http://www.navypaxsail.com/content.aspx?page_id=22&club_id=873452&module_id=69662). (by the way, at the same boatshow, I went aboard a 1969, yawl rigged version of the Luders 36)>
    I'm wondering if the previous owner was trying to balance the heavy diesel and maybe try to provide more 'bite' up forward so he added the ballast. I bet when you re-launch, and get the boat down to the load waterline with all your water, fuel and gear aboard, you'll find that the boat balances nicely.
    if not, well, you got some good lead....

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