Off season work… and things I think I think

Now that Turnstone is out of the water, it’s going to be some off season maintenance for the next few months. Before storing her, though, it was time to at least get the centerboard inspected and redone if necessary. This was the only thing the previous owner said really ought to be done before a serious journey, so it’s been on my mind all summer. It seemed fine this summer at Redfish, but I could see it was pitted through the centerboard trunk inspection port, it would occasionally cause issues when I tried to raise it (sometimes had to swerve back and forth to change the water pressure on it before it would go all the way into the trunk), and it banged in the trunk quite a bit at anchor.

Since lifting boats off trailers scares the crap out of me, I went with the professionals and took it to Chapman Boat Repair in Boise… Chapman was recommended to me by Joel from Rudder Craft (formerly IdaSailor), whose shop is just down the row from Chapman. Between Joel and Chip Chapman (both super nice people, very helpful) we got the centerboard figured and redone.

First step was lifting the boat off the trailer:

and inspect the centerboard:

Yikes! Turns out centerboard is aluminum, and had been painted with copper based bottom paint, which was actually eating the centerboard. Chip removed it, had it sandblasted, and coated it with epoxy. With Joel’s help they also attached new plastic guides to it so it hopefully won’t rattle as much in the trunk, and should retract more reliably. Unfortunately, I don’t have any pictures of the finished product, but it looks great through the inspection port.

As for the “Things I Think I Think”, with apologies to Peter King for stealing his line, I’m creating a list of random thoughts related to sailing, and the first has to do with the fine help I got in Boise from Chip & Joel:

http://www.pictureofnectar.com/sailing.php#thingsIthinkIthink

Next up will be creating a new drop down portion of my rudder… I think…