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14 &15-August-2015 – Trip to Chicago to watch the Air and Water Show

My brother and I took Friday afternoon off to sail down to Chicago so we could watch the Air and Water show Saturday from the lake. I wanted to average at least 5 knots in order to get there at a descent hour, so we had to motor-sail most of the way. We put the boat up at the 31st Street Harbor because all the other harbors in the Chicago Harbor system were full due to the airshow. A big storm from the north chased us down the lake, but it didn’t hit until an hour after we arrived.

On Saturday we headed up to the area off North Avenue beach to anchor and watch the airshow. After the airshow we headed back to Waukegan. Again, I wanted to average at least 5 knots so we would get there at a descent hour. With little wind, we had to motor the whole way back. Again, there were storms in the area, but they all remained over land and non hit us. Not a drop of rain.

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Project – New mast base plate

The Contest 29 mast is stepped on the cabin top and is a tabernacle design.

The halyard winches were originally mounted on the mast, but my dad had moved them back to the cockpit to make it safer and easier for him to sail single handed.

He had mounted halyard blocks on the tabernacle as part of moving the halyards back to the cockpit.

Over time though, the pressure placed on the blocks / tabernacle to raise the mainsail caused the lag bolts that mount the tabernacle to pull loose.

I decided to move the blocks off the tabernacle and designed a new mast base plate to put the blocks on.

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Winter/Spring project – New Hand Rails

Towards the end of last season, while dropping the mainsail, I accidentally stepped on and cracked one of the handrails.

I decided to build a new complete set of topside hand rails to be a bit stronger than the originals.

There are 4 hand rails topside and 2 inside the main cabin.

I bought a piece of teak on eBay that was 60” x 1.25” x 5”.

I brought it to work and ripped it into 4 pieces 60” x 1.25” x 1”.

Ripped into 4 pieces

I routed the top corners, using my miter saw I put a 45 degree chamfer on each end and then rounded the bottom corners and sanded the entire hand rail using my orbital sander and 120 grit sand paper.
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Routed


Chamfered


Sanded

I used to the original hand rails to locate the mounting holes.

Drilling mounting holes

I brought them to the boat to insure they fit properly prior to varnishing.

Yeah! They fit!

I then put 5 coats of varnish on them.

Varnishing

The original hand rails were held in place on a threaded rod with a nut that was counter bored and capped .

Though the counter bore and capped is a nice finish, I decided that I wanted to make the new hand rails easy to remove. So, I bought stainless steel coupling nuts online from eBay and used them in place of the original nuts allowing me to use bolts from the top of the handrail to hold them in place.


Threaded rod


Coupling nut


rubber seal


Fitted in place


Bolted


Looking good!

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18-July-2015

Had a great sail until a storm popped up on RADAR. Had to head back in hoping to get back before it hit.