Lots more pictures!!!!

So, we decided to cut our losses and redo the cross sheeting bases. Our original design counted on being able to find #8 machines screws that were long enough to go through our ratchematic block, risers, aluminum base and the fiberglass on the sides of the cockpit. The longest we could find, anywhere at all, were 3 inches, and we really needed 3.5 inches in length. We had already drilled the holes, which would come back to haunt us.

After thinking about it for a while, it was decided that we would start over, and this time we would tap the holes and insert stainless steel heliocoils so we could fasten the ratchematic and riser directly to the aluminum plate. I found more aluminum and glued the plates together the night before, but when we went to cut them, the poor little Black and Decker jigsaw was not up to the task. One last trip to the Home Depot Tool Rental section and we had a Rigid handheld band saw. As you can see, it made short work of the roughing out of the new plates.

Since this was our second time, finishing the plates with the tabletop belt sander went a lot faster. This time we installed the heliocoils as per directions. It went smoothly, but boy those little suckers are expensive! This made more sense from an engineering standpoint, now we had stainless fastening to stainless instead of just threading the aluminum and having the stainless screw into aluminum. This is much stronger and will come apart later if we need it to. That is pretty much all we got done that day as David had to be an adult and go deal with issues at work. It was also 109F degrees that day and it was too hot to do much else, even too hot to go swimming.

Finally! After almost 2 months of engineering, re-engineering, more re-engineering and lots of gazing at our navels, we have the cross sheeting blocks built and attached to the boat! New Harken Ratchematics and 150 cam cleats mounted on custom aluminum plates, attached to the deck on the side of the cockpit. I am really looking forward to trying these things out!

Here is the final product from a different angle, starboard side, along with the new Harken 8A aluminum winches!

A view from the top. I am pretty proud of these things, David and I worked our butts off and I am very happy with the results.

This is the setup on the port side.

A view of the outside of the cross sheeting system, with a detail of the aluminum plate extending the ratchematic bloch over the shear of the side of the cockpit. As you can probably see, there ended up being enough of the forward screw protruding from the bottom to use a nut. Our original design probably would have worked, but that would have been way to easy. The screws on the inside of the block are through the deck and sealed with 3M 4200 with fender washers and nylock nuts on the inside. Once again, David had to deal with some work issues, so we didn't get it in the water today. I kept working on some things.

Detail of the starboard side mast base with an entry into the mast for the red topping lift. The green line is the spinnaker pole downhaul. The block and line on the port side is the jib halyard and turning block. The vang is attached to the aft of the mast on the new mast base.

The entries for the white main halyard and the blue spinnaker halyard with the cleat for the spin halyard. This will allow the spin halyard to be released from anywhere, usually by the crew who is brining the spinnaker into the boat. They can gather the foot and then just reach up and release the halyard themselves, leaving the foredeck crew alone to clean up the foredeck.

A close up of the deck organizer with the topping lift and downhaul for the spinnaker pole.

Got the doghouse winch for the jib halyard and the cleat and riser installed. Had to make the riser myself, I used the same VHWM plastic that was used for the risers on the cross sheet blocks.

Got the new jib turning blocks and cars installed.

I bought really low stretch line for the mainsheet and gross trim. The gross trim running through the head knocker block on the boom will allow me to dump the main out fast when turning down wind, and will allow me to get it back in fast when coming to the leeward mark!

Main blocks and new traveler with new mainsheet!

Backstay adjuster (Ok, this isn't new, but what the heck)

Inside the boat, after installing all the bulkheads and tie downs, and cleaning out a couple of pounds of dirt! The big prizes are in the dark and light blue bags on the right. A set of brand spanking new Bartlett sails, main and genoa. Pictures next week, I have to have something to write about next weekend. (Ok, in reality, I didn't have the camera out when I was showing the sails off and everyone was going "Ooh" and "Ahh".)

So, here we are, almost ready to go. The plan for next sunday is to meet early, tune the rig, replace a couple of screws with the correct versions and then go sailing. We want to go out for a couple of hours and have a short shakedown before the race next weekend. Hopefully, all will go well, I like working on the boat, but it is time to go sailing (and to put the checkbook away for a while for a well deserved rest!)