Nevermind (#450) - Rig Refit

[kabauze]

Hmmm...not too many projects on the forum the past few weeks. I thought I'd share some photos and narrative from some of the recent work on Nevermind. I've been refitting the entire rig...and when I say "entire", that means from chainplate replacement and bulkhead reinforcement all the way to painting the spar and replacing standing rigging. So far, I've

• - Replaced the upper and aft lower chainplates
  - Built a new knee and new chainplate for the backstay
  - Fabricated and installed reinforcement posts for the main bulkhead
  - Dropped the mast, painted it, added compression sleeves, replaced hardware & electrical, and replaced the standing & running rigging

Still left to do:

• - Repaint the boom

Let's see if I can gradually get photos from all these steps up on the forum. To get started, I thought I'd share the new compression (or buckling) posts Nevermind is sporting on her main bulkhead. Click a picture to see a larger view.

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Nevermind never had compression posts on the main bulkhead, although every other Triton I've seen has had them. The posts actually seem to be intended to resist buckling of the main bulkhead rather than take compression loads. The factory installations I've seen don't actually reach all the way to the hull. I decided to duplicate this type of arrangement, which eliminates the chance of creating hard spots in the hull around the base of the main bulkhead.



I decided to laminate posts from 1/2" Baltic birch exterior plywood. My design called for 2" width and 1.5" depth, which means I needed three layers in the laminate. I set up a jig to rip 2 1/16" strips from a sheet of birch ply with a circular saw.








A closer look a the jig...it's just a base plate for the saw (a blade-left Porter Cable) along with a rudimentary adjustable "fence". If I had it to do over again I'd use one of the classic "long straightedge" methods to make the rips, because this type of jig pinches the blade too easily (because the "fence" rides on the outside of the piece being ripped).





Twelve cut 60"x2" lengths of ply...



Next step was to laminate the beams. I coated each lamination with unthickened West epoxy, squeegeed off the excess, and then clamped the three layers with light pressure.



After the laminated beams were fully cured, I first "edge jointed" them on the router table using a long straight bit. I had cut the laminations a little wider than the 2" nominal width to allow for this smoothing. Then, I laid out the end cuts and ran a 1/2" roundover bit down the two front edges of each beam.



The completed beams: jointed, rounded over, cut to length, and sanded for varnish. I set up a varnish rig with two sawhorses and small nails in the end of each beam. Over the course of several days I applied 5 coats of gloss and a final coat of satin spar varnish. I'm using McCloskey's Man-o-war.



Next came a test fitting in the boat. Having pre-drilled 5 bolt holes in each beam using a drill press in the shop, I temporarily clamped each beam to the main bulkhead and drilled through the bulkhead with a #7 bit. After drilling I tapped each bore with 1/4-20.



Wrapping up: the final mounting of the finished beams. After the last coat of satin varnish had cured, I took the finished beams down to the boat again and mounted them with 3" 1/4-20 machine screws. There are 5 bolts in each beam - they are spaced every 12" on the long vertical beams (which are about 56" long) and every 10" on the short diagonal beams (about 48").

[Ancient Race]

Very nicely done; and nicely documented as well.

Thanks for the inspiration on a winter weekend.


Greg

[Tim]

Thanks for the detailed report! I look forward to seeing more of your progress.

[kabauze]

I'd been up the mast many times in the two and a half years since I bought Nevermind, and I knew that things were basically sound, but that maintenance couldn't be delayed much longer. Both uppers had broken strands, the mast paint was chalky and failing in spots, many fasteners hadn't ever been lubricated, the sheave was stiff - all the usual litany of things. It was time to drop the spar.




All the fittings on the mast are stainless steel, including the masthead. It's a three part component - two stainless steel plates bolted to a piece of shaped phenolic that fits inside the top of the spar. The masthead was rusty, the VHF antenna was broken off, and the anchor light was non-functional.




Nevermind is a West Coast boat, but has a fractional rig. Like most fractional Tritons, there are three stacked tangs for jib halyard, forestay, and spinnaker halyard underneath the jumper struts. The forestay tang was in bad shape and in fact I had attached the forestay to the spinnaker tang for the trip from San Francisco to Santa Barbara. The jumper strut is made from welded stainless steel tubing and does not have any adjusters at the tip. At some point it had been slightly bent from overcompression. The tangs were held on with sheet metal screws, and the uppers had cheesy aircraft eye swages with small pins attaching them to the single plate tangs. Not a reassuring arrangement for the most highly stressed shroud.




The sheave is a huge phenolic roller riding between two massive stainless steel guide plates and rotating on a 1/2" bolt.




The spreaders are impressive 1 1/4" OD stainless steel tubes resting in substantial stainless steel bases. They were covered with a fine layer of rust. The steaming light and associated wiring was pretty much kaput. The lowers were again attached to their single plate tangs with aircraft eye swages.



Winch and Clutches



The mast base is a shaped phenolic block with a rectangular phenolic tongue bolted to the bottom. This tongue rides in a groove in the phenolic mast step.





Next...painting and rebuilding the spar!