Pylasteki

Pylasteki is a 1961 Pearson Triton sailboat. She is one of my personal project boats... I am rebuilding her as a blue water cruiser.

Enjoy, if you have any questions or comments, drop me line: rocknrod@gmail.com

Zach

Sunday, July 26, 2009

Day 17








Day 17

Today I ground down my through hull patches again... This seems to be a generic way to start the day. I'm impressed with how much glass it takes to fill a boat this thick! Still have a ways to go on two of them. I'm using a really flexible batten to follow the curve of the hull, that and my semi-tuned finger tips for the vertical curvy'ness.

With that done I marked my lines on the cockpit sole and sides... and cut out the sole forward the plywood support, and leaving some meat around the top so it would hold its shape. Tritons are beasts... I can step on the edge of the sole I left (4-5 inches wide depending on the location of the reinforcement...) and it hardly deflects. I think if they'd run the reinforcements side to side instead of fore and aft, it wouldn't bow and squeak!

Anyway, took about 2 minutes to cut it out... and about 5 to just look at it and visualize where the lower water pump bolt... distributor clamp... and transmission clutch adjusting bolt... used to be. By golly, with a lift up lid right there, I might keep an inboard in a triton. Idea noted...

With that done I cut out the starboard cockpit bulkhead, and ground down the tabbing. It had 3 layers of roving... and mat. By golly, that made a lot of dust!

I then went to town cutting out the cockpit locker lid drains. These things have a crazy amount of drop to them, I'm thinking Pearson intended them to be stiffeners... but if you've ever tried to pull a fender out of a locker, or worse... shimmied inside one to take something loose from the deck... they are some kind of in the way. I do believe they'd probably still drain downward with the lid underwater though...

After that I measured down from the deck at intervals, sort of the reverse of lofting a boat... and made a template for my plywood bulkheads that will run along side the cockpit. I then cut out the wooden reinforcement on the port side, that kept the cutout for the locker lid from bowing in and out. I'm bringing the plywood up almost to the edge, as I want the thing never to squeak again when I step on it. The cockpit is the one place on a triton, besides the chainplates... that doesn't scream absolute, absurd overkill... so it must be brought inline with the rest of the boat. Grin.

With that done, I cut out a template for the starboard cockpit bulkhead... and ceremoniously tossed the old skinny one overboard.

I'm going to install my seacocks officially when I've glassed in everything. Stupid... yes. I just know I'll need an access hatch somewhere, in order to put on a hose clamp or something dumb... and the only way I know how to get it right the first time, is to install it when the rest is already there. I call it the heater core theory. Cars, they start with a heater core as the blank slate... then they put a firewall on oneside, with a hole slightly smaller than the core... then they install a dashboard to its backside... Fastest way to replace one, is to buy a new heater core and build a car around it... Nothing on this boat will be like that if I can help it!

I then got started sawzalling out the starboard side cockpit locker lid drains... and had a guy wander out of his boat around 9:30... guess he was spending the night aboard... So I quieted it down and packed up for the evening.

Zach - clogged up another set of pre-filters, and wondered why the world started spinning... Obituary reads - "Suffocated by respirator."

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