The Periwinkle and Stargazer Blog

Well, I realize it's been a while since the last update but things have been busy otherwise and boating has been at a standstill due to crappy weather.. Not like it's getting any better but I thought I would get on with some preliminary work on Stargazer as my goal is to get both the port side interior done and the hull completely repainted before sailing this season gets underway.

Without further ado, here are a couple of before pics of the port side:

From one angle:

and the other:

As you can see.. it's very ugly. As with the galley side:

Here's the final for that, the previous owner had done a real hack job with the paint and setup. The original layout of the boat seems to have been changed a bit over time and if all goes well then maybe this will be the last! Who knows..

Anyways, my first step was to gut it. I need all the ugly vinyl off the wall and let it dry behind there. As I took it off, it was of course no different than the starboard side and had a lot of mildew on the vinyl itself on the back and also on the hull. When I get in there next I'll have to plastic everything off so I can sand away at it and then put on a coat of paint to inhibit and kill any remaining. Same as the starboard side.

For planning, I will once again turn to my trusty 3D software and see what kind of concept I can come up with. It should be spacious and functional, built out of mahogany of course. I need new shelves and possibly a bit of a cubby to put stuff in and close it away. I also need a permanent spot for the radio and stereo. A couple of "cigarette lighter" sockets would also be handy so I can connect back up the portable fan and anything else I want like a charger for the phones etc.

Here is how it looks now:

From one angle:

and the other:

This entry was posted on January 9, 2012 at 9:25 PM and has received 56 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

A quick note before getting into the updates. There is a mobile version of this blog for those on phones or tablets. Loads quicker and all that. Anyways, up until now I actually hadn't properly set it up and it was showing some default values that come with the software. I've finally got around to fixing that, so the mobile version should be up to snuff now.

On with a couple of pics that Terry sent over. He's made good progress on the aft end of the boat with pretty much the whole engine bed area done now:

With that, there is also the cockpit that needed to be nicely cleaned up after all the holes got filled in:

Terry likes to make his boats bullet proof, check out the Periwinkle I (the catboat) for proof of that with one and a half inches of marine plywood all around plus fiberglass..

Either way, this is great progress and it's just a matter of time before he gets the tank in, engine mounts and then the engine. Need a bit of plumbing in there too for intake and out for cooling and the scuppers need somewhere to drain out to too. Getting there.

This entry was posted on August 12, 2011 at 12:03 AM and has received 162 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

I've finally got some updates for the Periwinkle II here. Terry has been extremely busy on the boat and it's hard to tell from a quick glance, but quite a few items have now been completed and it's not long now until the new engine can finally go in. According to Terry though, it looks like he won't be going sailing this year, just too many things to finish up.

First up is the obligatory shot of Terry hard at work:

That's after a night of fiberglass grinding all over the place. The boat was a mess, here are a few pics to show that..

An immense amount of fiberglass dust but it's all cleaned up and the aft end of the boat is looking pretty sharp. A lot of work was done back there to smooth things out and get rid of shoddy workmanship back there from either previous owners or original builders. Terry is very meticulous and doesn't like to see anything out of place or under his standards. In other words, the boat should be completely rebuilt by the time he's finished with it!

Moving on to another item he needed to get on with, there's a problem with the current wiring in place. The electrical lines that come in happen to cross to the starboard side from port for no real apparent reason other than to supply electricity to one light. From there, the electrical then goes back across to the port side to supply juice to the rest of the boat. Strange setup for sure and the wire is just in the way:

Of course, Terry can't leave a rat's nest like this hanging around:

So that all got removed and the holes that you can see here:

have been filled in and the whole area is now ready for a good coating of fiberglass. That's nicely cleaned up compared to what it used to look like:

Last but not least in this particular update is the new supports for the new fuel tank. The current (now removed) tank was a small tank in the lazarette. It leaked too I think.. anyways, completely inadequate and Terry is going to have a custom one made up to accommodate his heavy usage of the motor that he's going to put in once he finally gets this boat on the water and ready to go. Just for fun I'm sure he'll zip around at full throttle just because he can!

Anyways, the supports are custom made fiberglass pieces, here is one in a test fit:

It's just a matter of time now before he gets all that fiberglassing done back there, a coat of paint, tank supports, engine supports, plumbing and ... I think that's about it and then he can get the engine in. Not long now!

This entry was posted on August 8, 2011 at 10:30 PM and has received 116 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

I'm completely unsure of exactly how many parts this is.. all projects have been rolled into one, engine, galley, head.. Either way, here is Terry's latest!

First, an iPhone self portrait showing the non-functional knotmeter above the compass in the aft cabin bulkhead. It's gone now, and the hole is filled in, along with various other bolt holes on both sides of the companionway.

The light is shining into the open end of a seat back where I am about to take the piece of fiberglass on the bench and glass it into the floor of the storage space behind the seat. The original plywood stopped about an inch short of the hull, leaving a gap that small objects dropped through, and since it didn't connect the seat to the hull, it also didn't provide any strengthening to either the hull or seat. The top and aft end of the seat back were not properly connected either.

This shows the port side aft on the boat with fiberglassing tools and the holes in the forward end of the cockpit where the engine instrument panel and blower had been. These have now been filled in. Details below.

**Quick note by Graeme** - If you have ever seen the show "Breaking Bad" on AMC you'll quickly realize how much Terry looks like the character Walter White. It's uncanny here...

I have connected the seat back and seat to the hull, filling the gap, and am about to install a level floor in the storage compartment, which will more securely attach the seat to the hull.

The floor and upper connections to the hull are in place, along with a connecting fillet to the aft end bulkhead, but are not cleaned up yet.

The hole in the aft cabin bulkhead where the non-functioning knotmeter was removed prepared for fiberglass repair.

This is the space where I have to work to strengthen the aft bulkhead under the cockpit, and install supports for a diesel fuel tank. It's roughly the size of a coffin, and may become one if the fiberglass fumes become too strong while I am crammed into there. On this occasion, I was doing preparatory grinding on the aft bulkhead and hull to prepare for fiberglassing. It's actually much longer than it looks in the photo, which sort of telescopes the aft end forward.

While I'm under the cockpit grinding fiberglass, Marlise is getting the dinghy painted in it's new colours, which will match the new paint scheme on the boat.

The holes in the forward end of the cockpit where the old engine control panel and blower were have been ground to a taped edge and blocked off with wax paper and plywood to create a temporary backing to fiberglass against.

This stick is jamming a piece of plywood and wax paper against the aft bulkhead of the cabin where the old knotmeter hole is to create a temporary flat surface I can fiberglass against.

Here is how it looks from the cockpit side of the hole with the blocker in place and the hole ground down to a taper so the fiberglass will get a good bond without creating a bulge in the bulkhead. It will later be reinforced from the inside.

Meanwhile, back at the rudder shaft, I need to remove the old bolts holding the lower end of the shaft to the aft bulkhead so I can replace the corroded bolts and reinforce the bulkhead and rudder support. The bolts had unfortunately been crudely fiberglassed over, so I had to chisel the fiberglass away from them, and from various other areas where it had been poorly laid up and was not well bonded, saturated with resin, or had air bubbles around sharp bends that had not been radiused off to a gentle curve that the glass would bend around without forming a bubble. More on that later.

Back at the cockpit bulkhead, the holes have now been fiberglassed in and the area is ready for a couple of layers of mat and roving wrapped around the sides of the cockpit to restore it's strength.

A small hole where the sink drain pipe had been run aft and out through the side of the bunk support was also filled in.

The damaged bunk sides where some past owner had sawed them in half to remove a sewage holding tank were also repaired.

Back in the aft lazerette at the lower rudder shaft post support, I chiseled off a large air bubble that had formed when someone had tried to bend inadequately saturated fiberglass around a square corner; something that never works. The bubble had gradually filled over the years with dirt and debris including grease and needs to be removed and replaced with a solid well saturated glass layup around a properly radiused corner. This is typical of the things you find when working on older boats that have had many owners, some of whom were not what you might call craftsmen, or even competent. The fiberglass reinforcing that someone had added over the original rudder support was poorly saturated, full of air bubbles, and not well bonded (or even bonded at all in places ) to the hull and bulkhead. It was also covering the bolt heads, making it impossible to replace corroded bolts without chiseling it off the bolt heads. It all needs to come out and be restored properly.

The storage locker behind the seat back is now properly glassed to the seat back, seat, hull, top shelf, and aft bulkhead of the locker, sanded out and ready for painting.

The hole where the knotmeter had been is now glassed in from the outside and the inside has been prepared for glassing the reinforcing support in place.

And the reinforcing fiberglass is now in place on the inside, completing the repair of that particular hole except for fairing the new fibreglass in to the aft cabin bulkhead on the outside and restoring the vinyl cabin liner on the inside. This is how fiberglass work is supposed to look: clear, completely saturated, and with all excess resin and air bubbles rolled out.

And that's it for this set of updates. The fiberglassing of the knotmeter hole was completed around 4 AM, so time to head for home and do the laundry and have a good shower to get rid of some of the itchy fiberglass dust and particles. This is one job I'll be happy to see disappearing in the rear view mirror.

This entry was posted on July 9, 2011 at 10:22 PM and has received 179 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

I'm just about at my last update here as I can't imagine doing much more work to the galley other than some finicky stuff. I do have some lights to go in, so that will probably be the last update I think. hrm.. well, maybe a few pics on what I might refine.. I'm not sure who I'm kidding here, it may not be in the next couple of months but I'm positive I'll have more updates as I perfect the galley. The thing is, I have to start using it to know what else I want it to do! Soon.

Anyways, priority number one was to get a lid on the cooler so I could actually use it. First step was to get a lip created for the lid to sit on. I am still humming and hawing about what to do as a final finish, so for now I just used some pine I had lying around. I routered out a lip and cut the pieces to fit the hole. Actually, I cut them to fit a piece of teak I had that I was going to use for the lid. After I came to my senses about that (as this could very well be a temporary fix for the lid) I ended up with a slightly smaller opening due to the teak piece only being so long. Either way, no big deal.

I cut the new piece to go in as the lid after it was all fit and measured down to the millimeter (yes I used metric, it's easier). Went home and cut it, next time I went back I fit it to be sure and then took it back home to apply the countertop laminate (same as the counter in the galley), install the hardware and then take it back.

I applied some weather stripping foam that I got from the local marine consignment store (cheap!, but the product was brand new) around the edge the lid will sit on to help it seal better, but I doubt it makes that much of a difference at this point.

Finally, a fitting of the lid.

There's lots to do with it still but it works for now. I tested with a couple of jugs of ice (as you can see in the picture) and after 6 hours of being in there I could barely get a 1/3 of a mug of water out of the two of them together. After an hour of them being in the car I got a whole mug of water between the two of them. I think the majority of the melting happened to cool the cooler down, after that it would be very slow to melt. Putting my hand in the cooler itself I could feel it was quite cold. Perfect. Should work really well.

I'll post soon on why I was able to test for 6 hours. Let's just say, it sure was a nice day that day.

This entry was posted on June 24, 2011 at 8:36 PM and has received 131 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

This is a few days late just due to an immensely busy life at the moment...

Anyways, Terry has made great progress and we're going to see a lot more out of him the very near future as he's busy working hard on getting the boat ready to go back in the water. Here are some pics and details of what he had to do recently (from Terry):

I needed to get the damaged area around the three holes in the aft bulkhead cut out more or less square and filled in with a piece of plywood that I can fiberglass against. The first thing I had to do was relocate the wire coming through one of the holes. This wire is supplying all the electrical power to the boat, so I had to disconnect and remove the old breaker box, relocate the wire, put a temporary plug on the end of it, and plug it back in to restore power so I had lights and could use the Sawzall and grinder.

Here I am cutting out the rectangular hole in the bulkhead from the cabin side below the cockpit floor. The rudder post tube is in the foreground with the grease nipple. Had to be careful not to cut that.

The working area appears roomy in the photo, but is actually about the size of a coffin. You can see the old damaged area in the cut out pieces. Very difficult to try and get it more or less rectangular in these conditions. There is a lot of stuff on the other side of the hole I have to avoid cutting into, and the fan on the Sawsall is throwing all the fiberglass dust in my face.

The replacement piece being cut to shape. This took many many trips between the boat and the bandsaw in the shop, up and down the ladder and crawling back under the cockpit each time to try it against the hole again until I had a good fit.

Looks like snow, but it's actually horrible itchy fiberglass dust from grinding the inner hull. Not fun. (from Graeme here, I know exactly what this stuff is like... it's really horrible and gets in everywhere and anything)

Sweeping up the worst of the dust. (from Graeme again, Terry is very brave and careful to do that, I would just get a strong shop vac in there to get it all out instead of sweeping)

The bottom swept out a bit revealing the smoothed over filled in through-hull holes ready for glassing on the inside. I only got about a quarter of the grinding done last night.

Dry fitting the new filler piece of plywood in place.

Epoxied in place. Lots of cleanup to do here when the epoxy sets. I needed to get this done tonight so it could be setting up while I am working in Richmond tomorrow (well, today, actually). Finished up about 5:30 AM; got home about 6. It's coming up on 7 now, and I have to get a few hours shut eye before heading for Steveston, so into the shower and off to bed.

More to report soon!

This entry was posted on June 23, 2011 at 10:14 AM and has received 116 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.