S/V Deep Playa - Pearson 424

When we bought our Pearson 424, we knew right off the bat we had to replace the portlights and the teak eyebrow trim along the outsides of the cabin top. The existing portlights were old and leaked causing the interior teak veneer to delaminate, no structural issues. The plastic windows were also hazed over and they just looked poor. At the 2009 Seattle Boat Show we made the first decision towards the beginning of this big project in that we purchased our new portholes from New Found Metals, located in Port Townsend, WA. Its always nice to be able to support local businesses.

The new portlights are either slightly larger (in case of the 5”x12”) or much larger than the existing portlights so there is some work to enlarge the holes once the existing portlights are removed. Doing all of this prep work is actually really easy using the templates provided by New Found Metals. You clamp the template in place, trace your lines and cut out the new hole. You also use the template to drill all the holes for thru bolting the portlight to the outer trim.

One time consuming piece is handling the bolts. You have to custom cut the bolts that attach the portlight to it’s outer trim. Every hull is a different thickness so they can’t really stock every possible length. I used my handy vise, cut them with the Fein Multimaster, cleaned them up with the dremel and a sanding wheel and then used two bolts to ensure the threads were clean. Here’s a video of that process.

As we’re replacing the portlights, we’re also putting up new wood along the interior teak along the insides of the cabin top. We will match the new headliner to this when we replace that as well. Painting it all white will brighten the boat considerably and visually make the cabin feel a bit taller. We’re using 1/4” plywood, primed on the finished side at the workshop prior to installation. We epoxy the new wood to over the top of the existing wood. That is a pretty involved process of making a paper template, cutting out the new pieces, dry fitting them (which involves a lot of tweaking) then making the cut outs for the portlights and then finally epoxying the new wood in place.

Here are a bunch of photos which roughly chronicle the process. Click thru for larger pics or to see more. They look awesome, the glass is so clean and clear I keep thinking they’re open!

Ticked a few things off the to do list the past few days.

New Years Eve day, Dawn worked on the masts and booms filling all the holes we don't need anymore with Belzona 1111. Thanks to Tom at Seaview for helping us get started. Dawn is really good at these kinds of projects that require being neat and detailed oriented. I'm better at breaking things an making a mess.

The bilge hoses have all been replaced. This took a little longer than planned because I used stiffer hose which added some unforeseen complexity. It also became delayed due to an apparent shortage of 316 SS hose clamps in the size I needed. Fisheries Supply in Seattle is horrible at managing their stock, but their prices are better than West Marine. Included in this a Perko bronze strainer for the manual bilg pump and an inline check-valv on the stern end of the seconday\large bilge pump. I am considering walling off the aft-most section of the bilge to minimize the area which stays wet. We would place the primary pump in that section but if we had more water than that then it flow over the wall and we would kick on the secondary pump. We also need to put a float switch on the primary bilge pump, currently it is only enabled by the breaker switch.

The Walter Machine RV-20 V-Drive has a raw water cooling chamber on the top of it which is prone to corrosion. Eventually it can corrode through allowing sea water to mix with the oil in the bottom half of the v-drive where all the gears are. This would be bad. Several owners have cleaned up the corrosion and used Marine-Tex to protect the area before hooking everything back up. Some owners (including my surveyor who also owns a Pearson 424) have removed the raw water cooling altogether. The corrosion in my unit is so bad that it damaged one of the bolt holes used to attach the top plate to the v-drive so I am going the route of leaving the unit dry. So now instead the raw cooling water going from the strainer to the v-drive and then to the egine it now goes directly from the strainer to the engine. I will install a temperature gauge on the v-drive to monitor it for overheating and I left the hoses in place so I could hook it up back if it ever did overheat. Eventually we will probably replace the v-drive, but that is not something we wanted to do right now.

I have not finished this yet, but the anchor washdown pump was not protected by a strainer. I purchased all the hoses, clamps and the Sherwood strainer. This will get installed completed tomorrow. I would have finished it today, but I forgot to buy the mounting bracket.

I also capped off the vent thru-hull that used to be part of the holding bag system. I will also being putting a plug on the inside portion of the deck fiting for pumping out. I thought about removing and glassing these closed, but I don't this it's neccesary, capping them of is adequate redundance. I also put a plug in the thru-hull I eventually plan to use for the water maker. It has a ball valve, but I like the added security of the plug as well. This is something we'll do just before we plan to leave.

All in all it was nice to tick a few thing off the list, but we still have a ways to go!

The boat has been moved form sitting in the yard where the bottom was prepped and painted, some keel damaged was repaired (oopsy), the v-berth was prepped by me, and the windlass was removed. The boat is now sitting inside the prep tent. I’ve not been to it yet, but I’ll go tomorrow and take a bunch of pictures.

Tom from Seaview gave me a call about some blisters he saw along the waterline. We’re not sure if it’s just a paint issue or if there is some gelcoat damage. We’ll know more when they start to prep for painting. This is one of those “known unknowns” which could be nothing or could be expensive. We’ll find out soon enough.

The yard is prepping the boat for repainting the stripes, and I aguess polishing the hull as well as a bunch of fiberglass projects including closing up some thru-hulls, reinforcing the v-berth and moving the windlass. I also have a lot of chores to do:

• Grind off a thru-hull so it can be pushed in and then glassed closed.
• Remove the teak trim from the deck where the windlass was removed.
• Cleanup the water jacket in the VDrive and sand off the corrosion on the input shaft.
• I have a lot of measuring to do to determine the wire lengths needed for the new electronics and mast lights. I’ll start with just the lengths needed for the masts plus some extra so I can put in terminal blocks or connectors which will allow the masts to be pulled without cutting any wires.
• I also want to work on replacing the hoses below the waterline. I’ll pull the hoses, measure them and pickup new hose from Fisheries or West Marine.
• Dawn is probably going to star on the portholes or at least getting all of the pieces in place to make it happen.

Very busy weekend!!

I’ve been working on a document describing the refit we plan to do on Deep Playa. I thought it would be good to share it with all of you and see if anyone has feedback but also so others might benefit from seeing what I’m doing.

Here’s the first half of the document, still lots of specifics to figure out, but a good start.

Overview

This refit plan for Deep Playa includes replacing the standing rigging, re-bedding and improving the deck hardware, replacing and improving the running rigging, and new bottom paint and hull polishing.

This section will cover the highlights of the projects by area (Rig, Hull, etc) but the meat of the document with all the details will cover the projects in the phases they will be carried out.

This document will be reviewed with several yards and riggers for additional input and to help select who will do the work.

We like to do our own work where it makes sense (saves us money, teaches us key maintenance or survival skills) but there are times where specific expertise or time consuming work makes more sense to be done by a professional . To what degree we do things ourselves is to be determined.

Standing Rigging

The wire rope standing rigging appears to be original and it is overdue to be replaced. Replacing it involves dropping both masts, replacing all of the wire rope, inspecting an possibly replacing the chain plates, inspecting and possibly refinishing the spars, having new wire rope rigging made and then re-rigging the boat. At the same time any electrical, communications or running rigging projects that affect the standing rigging and the spars need to be done as well.

Planned Upgrades

· Adding a isolators to the main backstay for the SSB antenna

· Conduit for in-mast wiring

· Strong Track

· Running Rigging Related

o Route all halyards internally

§ Add Spinnaker and Mizzen staysail halyards

o Rope clutches for main, mizzen, jib spinnaker and mizzen staysail halyards

o Inspect sheaves and probably replace, internal routing probably changes them all together

· Spreader Boots

· Electronics & Communications

§ Main

· Masthead NMEA 2000 weather station

· Masthead VHF Antenna

· Masthead LED Anchor and Nav Lights

· Masthead Davis Windex

· Spreader LED lights

· Foredeck Light

· Hailer Mount

· Ensure the crane has all that is necessary for planned sails

o Spinnaker halyard

§ Mizzen

· Masthead NMEA 2000 GPS

· Masthead AIS (backup VHF) Antenna

· Spreader LED lights

· Foreword Light

· Self leveling Radar Mount

· Ensure the crane has all that is necessary for planned sails

o Mizzen staysail halyard

Open Issues

· Refinishing the spars – What’s the cost

· How many things that are bolted to the spars need replacing?

· Main and Mizzen reefing are a mess

· Rigger needs to be identified

· Rigging Inspection Needed

Running Rigging

All of the lines for the running rigging except for the Jib Halyard and the Mizzen Sheet are in a very sad state and need to be replaced. In addition to that there are several very flawed installations such as the main sheet winch and main traveler which are also functioning poorly. At this point based on pricing and helpfulness I am plan to use Garhauer almost exclusively.

Planned Upgrades

· Move main sheet winch inboard

· Replace main traveler

· Add rigid boom vang

· Increase main sheet purchase

Open Issues

· Can I get a bulk discount from Garhauer?

· Should we do this before we make decisions on our sail maker?

Deck Hardware

Beyond the rigging fittings which will be pulled and rebedded all other deck mounted hardware will be rebedded as part of this the lifelines will be moved to the toe rail as well.

Planned Upgrades

· New Garhauer toe rail mounts for life lines

· New lifelines and fittings

· Bow trim piece is broken and needs to be replaced

· Moving the windlass foreword and the hawse pipe out of the berth

· Add additional bow roller

Open Issues

· Will we use wire rope or line for the lifelines?

· Should we add any fittings for jack lines?

· Can we afford new stern pulpits placed on the toe rail? Would include:

o Bimini

o Solar Panel mounts

o Stern reel mount

· Close the Bow Tank Hole?

· Will a horizontal windlass be needed

· Can the existing windlass handle two anchors

· Will the toe rail track need to be shortened to accommodate the lifeline changes

Hull Work

The main two parts of this project are new bottom paint and polishing the gel coat. In addition to that we want to evaluate all the thru-hulls and see if any might be eliminated as well as make modifications to our ground tackle management.

Planned Upgrades

· Remove unused thru hulls

o Toilet overboard

o Toilet intake

· Stainless steel on the bow to protect hull from anchors

· Bow padeye for anchor snubber

· Rebed and inspect starboard hatch

· Combine knot meter and transducer

· Inspect cutlass bearing and plan to replace

· Upgrade transducer to one with temperature, maybe not a thru-hull; maybe add or instead use fish finder type.

Open Issues

· Do we “plug” or glass closed unused thru-hulls?

· Should we close off the galley sink intake?

· Is the crazing in the gel coat around the hull a problem or just an age issue? Will polishing clean it up? Should we even care?

· What Hull paint should we use? Need to look at the PS articles and compare NW to CA paint results

Headliner, Portholes and Hatches

Removing the headliner is a necessity to do all the other work; we plan to replace it at the same time as well. The damaged teak along the cabin top will be covered so it blends with the new white headliner as well to create a visual lift to the salon. The leaky and sealed closed portholes will also be replaced with the New Found Metals portholes we acquired this summer. The hatches are also questionable (the aluminum is brittle in places) and leaky they will be replaces as well while the headliner is out. In the final installation the teak colored strips holding up the headliner will be painted white to blend them with the headliner.

Planned Upgrades

· New Found Metals Portholes

· Replace hatches

· New headliner

· New cabin top wood (cover up teak)

Open Issues

· Brand of hatches TBD, New Found Metals is supposed to be making hatches this fall

· Headliner material is TBD, Originally wainscoting was the plan, are we really over that?

Two weeks ago I took off work on Friday to work on a bunch of projects one of which included using epoxy and I wanted to take advantage of the warmer weather and have an extra day to get things done. That Friday went pretty well and I worked on cutting the hole in the cabin top and sealing the edges with epoxy so I can install the mushroom vent for the composting head (more on that to come) but about 11pm that night the Flu (or maybe food poisoning) hit me and I was down and out for about 4 days. Well this weekend I’m feeling much better and Dawn and I are ready to tackle the to do list. Here’s the goals:

• Finish Installing the mushroom vent in the head
• Wire up the DC power to the fans in the composting head
• Change the Oil, Oil Filters and Fuel Filters, remove sediment and water (don’t think we have any water) from the RACOR catch bowl
• Check the Port water tank for a leak. I think one of my fittings is leaking :-(
• Check the Propane tank overboard vent – I’ve not expected this since the purchase. I want to make sure its not clogged or broken
• Secure the Plumbing – All of the plumbing is working great but all the lengths of hose need to secured under the salon floor. Not hard, but time consuming since the work space is so confined

That list feels a little ambitious, but I think we can get it done. I have a bunch of pics from cutting the hole in the cabin top for the vent and I’ll take some more as I get everything installed and do a write up about the installation process.