The twelve bronze bolts were removed from the rudder using an impact hammer. They came off with surprising ease considering they have been underwater for the better part of five decades. Once unbolted, it was possible to chip away at the gel coat that encapsulated part of the bronze gudgeons.
The pintles were left mounted to the hull, which made it more difficult to remove the rudder, However, with the help of a crane and after removing the wind vane, there was just enough room to move the 300 lb rudder straight back and clear the gudgeons. Alejandro, shown in the photo, has been hired to repair the rudder, which has some separation and also needs the cheeks attached and fiberglassed over.
Carlos The Rigger and Elvis (his cousin who does not sing) replaced the standing rigging today. Basically, everything was replaced except for the chainplates and the turnbuckles.
The original teak cheeks for the rudder experience dry rot and the previous owner cut the tops of them and fabricated a very ugly stainless steel can to replace them. However, this changed the lines of the boat dramatically. It is not possible to obtain high-density teak anymore and low-density teak does not have the same structural strength. In fact, even the original teak cheeks experience cracks where the bolt for the tiller passed, and that point was definitely the weak link in the design. So, we fabricated new cheeks using the original shape using marine plywood. The original cheeks were 1-1/2″ thick, so we employed two layers of 3/4″ plywood and to afford even greater strength for the stress of the tiller we sandwiched in-between the layers of plywood a sheet of 3/16″ stainless. The stainless was cut to shape with an angle grinder, drilled with cobalt-tipped bits, and the plywood was routed out to accommodate the piece of stainless steel.
The two halves of plywood were glued with epoxy, the edge was rounded with the router, and the cheeks were soaked in resin.
The cheeks will be mounted to the rudder with countersunk bolts (just like the original teak cheeks), but the bolt holes will be filled with resin and the cheeks will be covered with layers of fiberglass, thereby creating a sold fiberglass rudder that will be considerably stronger than the original. we will fabricated a spacer for the top of the cheeks out of the original teak cheeks.
All the teak on the deck has been taken down to bare wood (using a head gun and scraper), screw hols were plugged with dowels, cracks were filled with epoxy and sawdust, and ten coats of Man-O-War glossy varnish has been applied. Once we splash the boat (and are away from the dust of the work yard) we will sand the brightwork and apply a couple more coats of varnish.
The Aegir-Ran has eight Barient winches. Developed more than half a century ago, Barients were the first two-speed winches geared in both directions. At some point Lewmar bought Barient and most parts for the winches are no longer available. Our winches had not been serviced in some time and the primary 28 STS winches in particular were stiff and practically unusable. Winches are expensive and replacing the primaries would cost about $5000 a pop. so we set out to rebuild them. Unfortunately, the 28s were poorly designed with a bronze gear housing mounted on an aluminum base with stainless steel bolts. Electrolysis had practically fused the aluminum to the bronze. To make removing of the 28s for servicing even more complicated were six eight-inch bolts that passed through the hull. The bolts had been gooped in so it was impossible to simply unbolt the winches to remove them for servicing. The order of removal had to be the drum, followed by the gear housing, followed by the base. While it proved possible to disassemble the port 28 without much difficulty, it was clear that the 28 on the starboard side was in much poorer shape. While the drum could be removed, the four bolts that held the gear housing to the base were frozen. After soaking in Liquid Wrench for a day, only two of the bolts could be removed with a wrench. Eventually, two of the Allen bolt heads were stripped.
After three days of effort, the stripped bolts were eventually removed with an extractor using an impact winch.
After a day’s work, separating the housing from the base was eventually achieved by using a Dremel tool and a cutting wheel to create separation and a rubber mallet. The dirt in the base evidenced the winch had not been disassembled or properly maintenanced for decades.
Eventually, all five of the cockpit winches were removed and an assembly line was created to disassemble and clean the parts.
Using the aluminum foil and vinegar trick, it proved possible to polish the chrome to like-new condition.
Luckily, a pair of non-self-tailing Barient 28s were found on eBay that had STAINLESS STEEL bases.
After about nine days of work, the winches were reassembled and now operate like new.
After three days of effort, Omar and his brother removed the genset today. This is a huge relief. Since it was already removed from the engine room and the heavy equipment was in place, they also removed the primary engine from the boat and took it to their shop for servicing. We are taking advantage of an empty engine room to do some work, including installing a dripless shaft seal, installing LPG lines and a tank locker for the new propane stove, maintenance the water generator, and relocate the batteries. Omar will reinstall the engine next month.
A Westerbeke 3 cyl. 5.0 KW was generator was installed in the Aegir-Ran about 2002. Not only was it a very poor decision to put 400 lbs of steel in the stern of the boat, as far as we can tell, it was installed during the rebuilding of the cockpit and dropped into the engine room before being fiberglassed in. There is very poor access to genset and consequently it is not possible to provide proper maintenance. Amazingly, only 50 hours have been put on the genset in twenty years, and we were told by the previous owner that it is “frozen.” Unfortunately, it is not possible to remove the genset with out first removing the primary engine. This was accomplished today by our diesel mechanic Omar with the help of his brother.
We arrived in San Carlos on the auspicious date of 2-22-22 and the next day arranged to move our boat from dry storage to the work yard at Marina Seca to begin the first phases of its refit. We spent the rest of the day emptying the forward cabin and parts of the main cabin. The previous owner had left behind all of their possessions, including their clothes.
