Rudder, Prop and Rubbish Extraction

Ok, so I know its been a while since my last post. And I realise it would be reasonable to assume that I must surely have gotten the boat almost ready to relaunch by now. Well, what can I say? Anyone who's checked out my other blog (about my equally glacial outrigger canoe build), will probably have noticed similar tumbleweeds bouncing across the screen there too, which should be a good indicator as to my currently chaotic and interrupted lifestyle. 

In my defence, my job has been pretty nuts lately. I've been doing loads of overtime, working my backside off six days per week, for months and months. It'd be nice to be able to say that I'm at least getting ahead financially, but we're still barely treading water. My job-hunting has proven fruitless so far, and I'm still stuck in a thankless, unrewarding, brain-numbing, lowly paid, crappy, temporary (hopefully) job for the time being.  

But who said life was meant to be easy, right? I'm not whinging. When these two boats are eventually completed (and believe me, they WILL both be completed one day), and are sitting in their natural, watery environment, none of this crap will matter. Hopefully it might even give other mental defectives like myself some sort of inspiration with their own slow projects. 

Besides, Its not like I've been completely idle.

The next challenge I wanted to tackle was the removal of the rudder. I naively figured this should be a doddle. For the uninitiated, there are three pivot points. The rudder sits on the bottom one, and should just lift off - no problem there. The middle gudgeon/pintle is held with a pin, which is secured by a split-pin - no problem there either. The top pivots on a large bolt, which is secured by a Nylock nut, which appeared to be seized solid - hmmm, Huston, I think we've got a problem. 

Access here was quite tight, because the rudder is pretty thick at this point. It meant I needed sockets, and weird sized ones at that (17/18ths ??? - that's why we have the metric system folks). I managed to beg, borrow and scrounge the items I needed, and after drowning the recalcitrant nut in litres of penetrating lubricant, spent many a happy hour sweating, struggling and cursing over it. 

After a few weeks of this entertainment, I had managed to move the nut only a few millimetres, whereupon it really stuck fast, refusing to go any further. I was hoping to save as much of the boat as I could, even nuts and bolts, but it was time to step things up a little. 

Using a thin cutting disc, I attacked the nut (with some perverse joy, I admit it). First one side, then I rotated it 180 degrees, and cut the other side. 

Both halves fell away, and the rudder is now as good as removed. The poor old bolt has had it though.

Now it was time to see what I could do about removing the propellor and shaft. Expecting trouble, I pulled out every weapon in my measly arsenal, and dared the stern gland to resist. 

Surprisingly (and almost disappointingly) this bit gave me no troubles at all. Everything very obligingly came free with a minimum of fuss, although I thought I could hear a very faint chuckling noise coming from somewhere. 

It made sense when I climbed into the bilge to release the shaft coupling.

Thus ensured another few weeks of struggling, spaying, hammering and homicidal thoughts. 

Broke one of my bloody spanners too. Bastard. 

Fortunately, a work colleague (very decent bloke, fellow sailing degenerate and ex-Canadian, with an awareness of Contessa 26s, and a penchant for multihulls), took pity on me. He suggested we go for a cleansing sail, after work one Friday evening, aboard his trimaran on Lake MacQuarie. How could I say no?

What a top afternoon/evening. I can't tell you how restorative that sail was. It was so good to wet the scales again. Thanks heaps Mark. I got home pretty late, and I was buggered at work the next day, but I was mentally realigned again. 

I came home with renewed motivation. Out came Mr Happy Slash. No prisoners.

Its wasn't a completely silly frenzy of destruction. I was very mindful of workplace safety, particularly the risk of fire. I was going to wet a blanket and lay that in the bilge, but then I saw our fire blanket in the kitchen pantry. I quietly slipped it out to the boat (we don't deep fry anything anyway - but still, don't tell the misses), and set it up . 

My secondary line of defence was a running hose, attached to the cockpit with a rope.

Two minutes later, success.

Buoyed by my win, I followed it up with a Council Rubbish Pick Up. I bagged up the mountain of greasy, toxic garbage that had accumulated next to the boat, and arranged for it to be taken away. Looking much cleaner out there now. 

There's still the little matter of a couple hundred litres of foul, stinking, carcinogenic, liquid waste to get rid of, but I'll have to wait for the next amnesty for that. Apparently they'll only let you dump up to 25litres at a time, otherwise its counted as commercial waste, and charge you accordingly. I'm planning to see if I can get a bunch of people to help.

So there you go. I've now got the engine pretty much disconnected and unbolted too, so its ready to be lifted out. I've actually got a couple weeks off over Christmas/New Year, so I intend (with Mark's help) to get the engine out before I go back to work. Then I can really get stuck into getting the old girl properly cleaned out, followed by getting the last of the gel coat off (somehow). 

I'm eager to get Sentina to a state where she can just sit and dry out properly. Then I can get back onto the canoe build again. I need to get it (the canoe) completed and in the water asap. At least then I can get back out on the water for pleasure/motivation again more often. 

Of course, I'd better get proper job by then. Here's hoping 2014 is going to be a pivotal year. 

Hope anyone reading this has a very merry Christmas, and a prosperous new year. 

Cheers guys.