Tent and Window cover

 When the boat was bought there was a tent placed to cover the steering cabin completely. This tent was in a bad condition and a new one was made in house by my neighbor Jan who helped me over the years with restoring the boat. Going over several web sides covering the Storebro 34 I noticed that originally there is no tent to cover the steering cabin, this also explains to me the two large drains in the steering cabin floor. The pictures contain some dimensions and additional text as further explanation, but as with any boat port and starboard side might not be the exact same length and height.

The old tent was not used as example for the new tent since the windows in the tent did not lined up with the metal supports which keep the tent up and in position, it was just used as an idea how to fabricate the new tent. Materials were bought and with the help of U-Tube short films a plan was made to fabricate the tent. The metal support was kept as original and positioned the same way onto the deck. One disadvantage of this tent is when it is closed that during arrival and departure the aft deck is difficult to reach since the railings on the aft cabin are covered by the tent so there is no way one can keep " One hand for the boat and one for yourself"

The tent is connected to the hard top by way of a aluminium rail with a groove where a tendon ( Cord) is placed in, This tendon is sowed to a strong material where the actual tent is sowed on.

The connection to the hard top is made with a zipper to be able to remove the complete tent when required, mainly during a sunny day. The zipper is also connected to strong material to give it a reinforcement for holding the zipper onto the tent.

To make sure that not all the tension of the tent is placed onto the zipper a Velcro connection is made between both sides of the zipper,on side onto the rail in the roof other onto the tent.

The tent is kept in position and giving the required height by two round metal bars which are on a sliding rail which is mounted on the roof of the aft cabin.

The tent is hold into position around  these round bars by means of tent material and a full length zipper, this way the tent can be removed from the support bars .

The side windows are now made in line with the tent supports, which gives it a nice look from outside, originally the supports could be seen from the outside through the window.

On positions of the corners and where tension is expected where the tent touches the hand rails additional tent material was sowed onto the tent at the inside this way expecting that the tent will last longer.

The tent around the forward side windows I would make it different if a new tent is made in the future. I would make it a straight line with the roof , which would give it a nicer look in my opinion, this was not done since we followed the original design at this point. One challenge could be mounting the tent clips under the roof, difficult drilling a hole.

The height of the tent was kept the same as the height of the roof of the steering cabin.

The aft  window can be completely opened for a not so sunny day but still warm enough to sit dry while sailing. This is accomplished by a zipper on either side of the window.

The tent is made in such a way that on the aft side it hardly touches the hand rail and in such a way preventing rubbing of the tent against the hand rail and this gives the tent a straight line from the top to the bottom at the aft side.

Below some pictures with dimensions. At the aft side both corners straps are placed to give some tension on the tent and to keep it in place , supports are mounted onto the aft cabin roof.

Over the last few years I noticed that the wood in the steering cabin started to discolor again , my boat in the marina faces south, asking my friendly neighbor Jan again if he could make a window cover for the steering cabin.This cover goes over the forward window and side windows. I admit it is getting a bit dark inside but on the other hand temperatures stay a bit lower and the discoloring of the wood will be slower.Minor advantage the sliding side window is now also covered which will prevent from water entering inside.

The cover is as with the tent connected with clips onto the wood a few at the front and the sides, to make it easier for fabrication the window wipers are placed on top of the material.

On the side the cover is placed under the tent so that the gap between the tent and the wood is minimized. In the past I had some ingress of rainwater and even snow depending off course on the wind direction.

Where the cover meets the tent the cover does have so called tent rings , this way the clips hold the cover in place and under a minimum of tension.

2020 Upgrades Depth/speed Meter & Rudder indicator.

                                                      Depth/speed Indicator

The , I presume original speed indicator was broken, looking over the internet and even at the second hand market in the USA where the meter originates from I was unable to find the required part to get the meter operational again. Additional the installed Garmin fishfinder started to leak around the hull support beginning of the year. The plan was to remove the fishfinder/depth meter and reinstall it and to buy a new speed sensor. When the boat was out of the water and trying to remove the depth meter this was not as easy as expected, I presumed that the unit was placed with caulking into the hull, unfortunately this was not the case , the unit was installed with epoxy therefore I ended up with drilling the unit out of the hull, small drill around the shaft of the unit placed in the hull. The thread was damaged but not beyond the point that the system could not be used anymore. 

Since the speed indicator was broken as well I bought a new system where I had the speed and depth in one unit. I'm not into catching fish.

The holes in the hull of the original units were closed with a plug and the new units were installed.

For the speed indicator this was rather simple drilling a hole of the correct seize and fitting the new unit flat against the hull with caulking, although under an angle the wheel will be rotated by the water flow. This unit was placed under the small hatch I have in the main cabin for easy access incase the wheel would be blocked due to growth or dirt. One can then remove the shaft with wheel and place a temporarily cap on the unit fitted into the hull to perform maintenance on the actual speed pick up, wheel.

The advantage of this unit, Manufacturer Clipper , is that the actual speed indication can be adjusted , this way, even if the speed indication is not correct after installation it can be corrected on the display unit. These days there are apps. available on the telephone where one can check the actual ships speed and the speed indicator can so be adjusting to the correct value. 

The depth meter was a little more work since it needs to point straight downwards otherwise you would not get the correct measurement under the keel. To compensate the angle from the hull a small piece of wood was installed inside to fit the depth meter straight into the hull pointing downwards.

On the outside an original, from the manufacturer supplied, under the same angle, housing for the depth sensor was installed as well. The wooden block was pre drilled with the holes in the same position as the outside unit. The wooden block was placed on the hull and the holes were drilled through the bottom of the boat.

All was then degreased and was installed with caulking. Afterwards the inside hull was painted again.

On the outside as can be seen from the next picture both units are close together and close to the keel so that no damage can be expected to the units when the boat will be lifted out of the water the next time . by means of a boat car or slings.

The actual  display unit was placed next to the maneuvering stand in a small wooden case.

                                                                        Rudder Indicator

Since the speed indicator in the center of the maneuvering consol was removed I ended up with a big hole. To make sailing and maneuvering with the boat a bit easier I installed a rudder indicator.

                                                                     Pick up unit 

This is not a difficult installation a support needs to be made on the right height  a connection between the rudder stock and the pick up and last but not least some wires to be ran between the pick up and the actual rudder indicator in the console as well as a power supply. Following the manufacturer's instructions this whole installation did not took more than a few hours.

                                                                Rudder indicator

 

2020 Upgrades Trim Flaps , Stern Ladder,

  2020 Upgrades Trim flaps , Stern Ladder

When the boat was out of the water in August 2020 not only the propellor shaft seal supports were replaced but also some other minor upgrades were installed

When I bought the boat it was outfitted with a Bennet trim flap installation at  the time of the restauration I decided not to install the trim flaps one reason was that the switch was broken the other was that I was not planning to drill more holes in the hull.

While sailing with the boat at higher speeds it was noticed that the bow came quite a bit out of the water and the stern was drawn into the water, although this might look nice while sailing the result is that the ships speed does not increase that much while additional fuel is consumed and with the present fuel prices the plan was made to install the trim flaps this time. New switch was bought from Bennet in the USA the whole system was tested before installation , pump and plungers which move the actual flaps and all was found to be leak free and in a good working condition.  The actual installation of the trim flaps I will no discribe since this is per manufacturer different and I would be copying their instructions.

During one of the test runs it was noticed that the boat sailed smoother through the water with the trim flaps in use, speed trial I have not performed yet since some yearly maintenance is required on the engines at this moment. The controls for the trim flaps are placed next to the steering wheel while the hydraulic pump is place in the aft cabin under the bed against the engine room bulkhead.

Hydraulic unit.

The controls for the trim flaps are positioned next to the steering wheel. Each trim flap can be controlled individually.

The trim flaps were positioned as far as feasible in the direction of the sides of the ship to get the maximum support from them.

                                                   Swimming ladder

The dek of the boat is about 1 meter above the water line so when one falls overboard will be very challenging to get back on board. After long discussion with my wife it was decided to install a ladder at the stern of the boat. Herewith started a challenge to get the right ladder which require a certain amount , 3 steps, under the water line.  With a height of 1 meter above the water line this was not as simple as one would expect. Eventually we found a ladder with 8 steps from  Batsystem  which is suitable for our boat.

                       As can be seen folded out we do have the required 3 steps under the waterline and with the trim flaps moved as far as possible to the outside it will be no issue to get onto the ladder from the water.         

Ladder as can be seen is above the water line while the ship is in the water.

 

Sliding Windows

  Sliding windows

Since I wanted to restore the boat and keep it as much as possible original the plan for the windows was  to keep the system the same and not installing a new type of window frames.
I have looked around received some samples but in my opinion the aluminium window frames will not look nice with the classic look of the boat, even though one can order them in black for example. 

Although the above statement is not totally correct as can be seen in an earlier blog the fixed windows were installed in the frames with a modern suitable window caulking instead of the original design.

For the sliding windows it was decided to stay with the original design which is a silicone sealing where the glass slides alongside and between the chrome guiding strips at the top and bottom of the glass.
After testing different types of clear silicone from the building market I chose one which is used in bathrooms and is UV resistant.

Till so far this works fine, and if it fails, relatively easy to replace.

Since the actual sliding windows always leaked during heavy rainfall  and water started to collect at different spots in the boat especially in the aft cabin at the aft side corners, where also a lot of damage was found when I bought the boat, I had to come up with an idea how to stop this water ingress.

Looking around for sliding windows and after a long call with a supplier of sliding windows it was decided to stay with the same system and make some modifications. During the call I learned, statement from a manufacturer, sliding windows almost always leak, the best thing to do is to make sure that the water does not enter the boat, but drains outside.

With this information I decided to find a solution and install a "gutter" around the sliding windows with a drain to the outside.

On the building market I found a hard plastic "gutter" which would be suitable for my windows.

  A U-shape hard plastic with a lip.

The lip was cut off to get a U shape "gutter" where the sliding window would be fitted into.

This  U shape was the same size as the width of the area where the sliding window was fitted onto. 

This would be all fine but the area where the window slides along side the silicone seal it would not be touched and this would create additional water ingress between the U shape gutter and the sliding window, therefore the area where the window touches the silicone seal the material was removed.  

Everything was removed the metal strip and the wooden support for the sliding window .

The plastic " gutter" was installed between the wooden support and the metal strip where the window slides over, this way fixing the plastic in place.

 The plastic was closed at both ends with a small piece of plastic glued in place while the plastic was glued with silicone at the vertical seals for the sliding window.

At the end of the "gutter" a hole was drilled to the outside to drain the water, aft ships side.

Into this hole an aluminium pipe was placed, the outside diameter of the aluminium pipe had the same seize as the hole I drilled resulting in that the pipe had to be inserted into the hole with some force, this way getting a tight fit, where the pipe stuck through the plastic it was slightly widened to get a good fit with the plastic as well as that at that point glue was used.

To make the windows slide a bit easier alongside the silicone and over the metal rails some silicone grease was added, I hope that over the coming years the silicone and grease become a smoother surface then at this moment resulting that the windows slide a bit easier then at this moment.

As can be sen from the next picture the "gutter" is hardly visible.

For the Vertical sealing of the sliding window I have tried different materials amongst some of the car industry windows, all of them did fail or had in a short time rust particles and algae growth. I ended up with soft rubber hollow material  which is normally used to keep a draft out of the house on door frames.

 This material was glued in the space of the vertical window frame with super glue the original glue strip was removed from the rubber. When the window is closed it pushes slightly the rubber in creating a good seal against water ingress.

As can be seen from the next picture a little bit of silicone was added to the window frame and glued against the vertical window seal creating a watertight construction. 

Till so far after the above installation I have had no water ingress into the boat anymore through the sliding windows in the ship.

Additional I have installed during the construction of the boat rain gutters above the sliding windows to reduce the water which will run from the roofs over the windows a simple L-shape piece of wood which is slightly longer than the sliding windows.

This piece was fitted against the ships hull above the windows and where it overlapped the windows it was glued with silicone caulking.

As can be seen from the next picture the water is now running over the fixed windows instead of the sliding window where it can enter the boat.

Propeller Shaft seal foundation

 Propeller shaft seal foundations 

Two years ago when the boat went into the water most of the hull became water tight after some weeks , there was only one issue with the wooden foundations where the bronze unit with shaft seal was mounted onto the bottom of the ship. This foundation on both sides kept dripping water and the only way I could stop it was filling the surrounding of the wooden foundations with Etan grease, which actually hold for almost two years without an issue, boat stayed dry. Since I did not see this as a final repair it was decided to remove them inspect them and if required replace them at the moment the boat would be out of the water for the normal underwater works.

With the knowledge I have from this boat it was expected that the wooden foundations would be fixed with screws through the bottom of the ship. When the boat was out of the water the paint was removed around the propellor shaft where it was expected that the screws would be fitted into the hull.

The next step was to remove the screws, first the plug material for the screw was drilled out with a smaller drill the the actual plug seize one need to be care full not damaging the screw head to much since it will then be difficult to get the screw removed, with a little scraping the hole can be cleaned and the screw easy removed .

 

With all the crews out, shaft and the bronze shaft support removed  I noticed that I would never get the wooden foundations out.

The reason is that it was impossible to remove the foundations since there are two transversal frames  running over the foundations which needed to be removed.

Instead of cutting out the complete frames I removed small sections out of the frames on the forward - and aft side of the foundations.

                                                              forward side

Aft Side 

With these small sections removed, with the use of a multi tool, I was able to get the wooden supports removed from the ships hull. Although this was not as easy as anticipated. I ended up with cutting the caulking between the different sections with a hack saw blade and a wedge between the support and the ships hull, this way slowly separating the pieces from the hull and each other. Unfortunately I lost the pictures of this removal. It is time consuming and one needs not to rush this task otherwise there is a change that the wood of the hull gets damaged, eventually the caulking will get loose from the wood. One important part is to take measurements of the foundation height on different places to the hull before the actual removal is started this since the supports are not 100% straight in lengthwise direction.

                                 Removed foundation grey area is where the water ingress was

When the foundation were removed one could clearly see that it was build up out of two pieces which were hold together with caulking as well as that the bottom piece of the two was fitted with caulking to the ships hull.

The two pieces together also shows that there has been water ingress between them, those are the grey areas on the pictures, caulking just fell off the wood.

                                                          Two pieces on top of each other

One of the reason that the caulking failed could be that the boat has been out of the water for several years and that by drying out of the planks the caulking got loose from the different areas of the hull planks and from each other. Below picture shows areas where the caulking was not attached to the wood.

The parts were cleaned and removed from caulking to be able to take the proper measurements of the wooden pieces as well as further inspection to check if they could be reused.

It is clearly to see from the next picture that the two pieces are shaped under an angle to keep the bronze shaft seal unit horizontal in the boat.

As can be seen from the next picture it was not possible to reuse the removed pieces of foundation some of the wood was deteriorated and had grooves were water would pass through.

The decision was therefore made to make two brand new foundations, instead of using two pieces I planned to make them from one piece. Unfortunately I had not the wood with the right thickness therefore I glued with epoxy two pieces together to get the correct thickness.

Then the part came were the wood needed to be shaped in the right form, first part I used a planing machine .

Then good old manual labor was used to get the pieces under the right angle.

During the shaping of the foundations regular checking was done to see if they are still straight , this is important since if they are not straight/flat they might not fit with the minimum caulking required onto the ships hull.

Before starting with the holes for the propellor shafts the foundations were measured for the correct seize , thickness and sanded to take most of the roughness away.

Next step was to decide where the holes would be positioned in the new foundations for the actual propellor shaft. Center line was drawn on the new foundations and the old one was placed on top of the new one to get an idea of how and where the holes should be made in the new foundations. Blue line is the centerline of the wood and the red line is the approximate oval hole for the propellor shaft. This picture also shows that there were so many holes in the old foundations that it was anyway a good step to replace them.

 

First a hole was drilled in centerline and approximately center for the opening.

Next the hole was made larger with a reciprocating saw, of course following the lines for the expected opening in the foundation. Lines were drawn on the old and new piece to make sure that the depth of the opening for passing the propellor shaft would be the same as original. This was done on both sides of the wood incoming shaft and outgoing shaft of the foundation. 

Then old fashioned hand work started with a chisel to create the opening for the propellor shaft. Important part is to mark the foundations well like port and starboard but also top and bottom this since the openings are not the same at the bottom and top side.

 

Some modern measuring method for checking the depth of the opening.

After the openings are completed on both sides the final thickness of the foundation was completed  and it was checked if all was flat .

All was sanded on both sides and ready to be installed in the boat.

 

Installing in the boat was so called dry installing to see if the propellor shafts would be in the middle of the hole of the foundations as well as that they would not touch the wood. Some adjustments needed to be made to the new foundations, minor sanding .

When al was to my satisfaction the next step was to check if the bronze shaft seal support would be in the correct position. This with the new foundations in place temporarily fixed with a few screws through the hull of the ship. The shaft was temporarily mounted with the coupling onto the engine and it was then checked if the shaft was  approximately the middle of of the bronze unit. At this point the bronze unit was fixed in place with 4 screws. In my opinion it is not useful to spent a lot of time to get the shaft exactly in the middle of the shaft seal since the boat is out of the water and although fixed on quite a few supports under the keel and supports under the hull forward and aft the boat will be different in the water

With the unit in fixed position it was now possible to drill the holes through the foundations and hull for the mounting bolts and nuts. Due to space limitations a long drill was required. The good news is that the new holes in the supports ended up in the old holes of the hull planks.

 

With all prepared for the installation of the foundations the hull and foundations were degreased for final installation. The actual mounting of the foundations was done with caulking for this purpose. I made sure that a thick enough layer was evenly spread out over the fondations to make sure that a 100% seal would be accomplished between the foundation and the hull. The foundations were fixed in place with the screws through the hull from outside. Holes were pre-drilled in the foundations to prevent splitting of the wood.

 

With the foundations in place they caulking on top was sanded off and they were painted. I noticed that antifouling paint will not dry on caulking therefore I used a commercial wood primer , which does dry on caulking, before using antifouling primer and antifouling paint. 

What was noticed at the hull outside was that the holes for the bolts were rather large this was solved by cleaning the holes and installing wooden plugs.

When the glue was cured the holes were drilled through the plugs from the inside and this way I had the exact hole for the bolts I wanted to use. 

Next step was to install the bronze shaft seal units with caulking onto the new foundations.

Bolts were installed with caulking around the thread and at the end the whole bottom was cleaned up and treated with anti fouling primer and normal anti fouling paint. 

On the inside the removed pieces of wood, from the frames, were glued and screwed back in the same position before the boat went into the water.

Looking at the above picture only thing left is to clean the bronze shaft unit which is a nice job for the winter time.,

After the boat was in the water for a few days and after two test runs the alignment of the shafts was checked and as I expected some adjustments needed to be made, but no leakage around the new foundations.