Lewmar hatch internal frames repair

Plastic is basically durable and long lasting. But some types are still vulnerable to age and sunlight. Our boat from year 2000 has Lewmar low profile hatches, with thin plastic frames/fairings on the inside. The frames are taken out occasionally when I need to lower the saloon roof sheets. I have some solar panel cables and oher stuff in that area, and thus the frames are unscrewed and lowered when I need to check on it. This handling of the frames is destructive as they become old and brittle.  

The picture above shows the result of several unmountings/mountings of the frame. The area around the screw hole has broken up and disappeared. 

The orange area is old fiberglass reinforcement of the frame rim. The green area is where repair of the rest of the frame has started.

With som pieces of wood and some clamps, the sides are straightened and reinforced with fiberglass. The corners are done afterwards. I sanded the plastic to ensure that the resin will stick.

2 sides done on one frame.

Some pieces had broken off from the frame.

Above picture shows the start of the repair of the screw area. On the underside a piece of very thin glass fiber mat (30 g/m2, buildup is unwanted because of flushness to the roof) was saturated with resin. It was so thin that I should have used two mats to avoid small holes. The blue-ish stuff is resin thickened with microballoons and filled in from the other side.

I was lucky to have some small scrap 2mm fiberglass sheets from another project. These pieces were made to reinforce the destroyed screw hole areas. Small glass fiber sheets can also fairly easily be made with a couple of glass plates or something similar.

  

A mixture of resin/microballons was again used to fill and glue the pieces in place.

The frames were treated with plastic primer and painted with an oil based silk finish paint. I think they came out OK. Only disadvantage I can see is that a bug screen might drop 2mm lower from the frame and thus theoretically could create a crack for small bugs entry. It remains to be checked. Countermeasures would be taken :).

After a while I decided to try to fix a frame that was in reality even worse off. It had been repaired with polyurethane glue, but that glue is rather flexible and does not stiffen the frame much. In addition mould has a tendency of forming on it, and it does not work well as a filler of cracks. The polyurethane had to be removed. A glue remover (Tec-7 Remove All) was used. It is quite strong, and did in some spots dissolve the plastic slightly. So the answer to this is to have a bit of patience and not use too much glue remover at a time.

Removing old polyurethane glue. Not really a fun job. But most boatowners would not have put this on in the first place.

There was an old reinforcement of the rim in this frame too.

Glue removed. The frame is in bad shape.

This time I chose to make a rough mould out of epoxy tooling doug. One single screw attachment point on the frame was in good shape, so I could pack the epoxy tooling doug in some plastic cling film and press it down from the underside to make this mould. 

The mould is here attached with clamps, plastic cling film is used to prevent resin to adhere to the mould. 

Once again resin with micro balloons was used, carefully distributed with a sharp vooden stick and good glasses....

 

Resin was also put into the large cracks. For the small cracks, some softer car repair putty can do. It is best to avoid sanding of the frame, as it has a special surface structure that would be affected. Most of the putty was wiped off with alcohol and a rag before it dried. The screwpoint areas did not have to be especially smooth and nice, as a reinforcement would be resin glued on top.

Reinforcement pieces in place as with the previous frames. In addition small sheets of glass fiber mats were put on the underside also here, as well as under cracked areas. Finally the sides were straightened and beefed up a bit, also as with the other frames. 

I think the result is acceptable, and hope the repair will last. 

Hidden storage resources in the Privilege 37

The P37 is the smallest boat in the Privilege range. And even though it is a spacious yacht, the need for more storage is always there. I believe in being restrictive regarding bringing all kinds of stuff on board, but being organized is always a good thing. More storage places give better order.

So I have been looking for creating extra space and found a few solutions. Some may be well known to many P37 owners, some might be a useable tip.

This area above the oven I have seen in use on other P37's. We use it for dry food, and it holds quite a lot. A concern when making the shelf was the oven below and heat from it. Aluminum foil was used under the shelf. It was also a challenge to make a shelf that would fit tightly so nothing would spill down. The access hole was too small for a big shelf. So it was made in two parts that could be screwed together in the middle. Some innerliner was used to cover a couple of less than beautiful areas inside.

Under the nav station there is considerable room. The starboard part of the water tank is inside, but there is also a lot of air. We used to have a small printer in there on our Caribbean trip. A floor will have to be made also here. The door was simply cut out and some flanges fitted inside on the rim of the bulkhead. Absolutely worth the effort I believe. 

Our version has this bench/workstation with an upper shelf. Under the shelf there is also space available. Tools and small plastic boxes will fit in here, and I find the solution very handy. You do not have to make a floor here, the bench continues all the way in. But some rubber mats are nice to stabilize the things inside.

This is about work space. We like to make good food when cruising, and for that several pots and pans are in use. Even a large galley-down kitchen can feel cramped then. This hinged shelf supported by strings is a nice place to temporarily put a frying pan or casserole when some other food needs the burner. Very often in use.

 At last something about reducing space taken. I am puzzled about the original mounting of the cupboard doors in the galley. They were protruding out horizontally, also making it difficult to look inside. I had to really bend down. New hinges were installed, and it gave some relief. I wish the doors could be lifted even higher, but at least it helps.

I have in mind even more places that could give more storage, but that means much work for less room. Maybe others have found some good solutions too.

 

Volvo Penta MD2030 cylinder head top cover gasket improvement....?

 The top cover gasket on the engine is made of rubber. Nice for re-use, but my experience is that it is hard to get it leak-proof when re-installing. The rubber string is tubular and needs some pressure to flatten out. In addition there are two gaps between the sections making up the gasket, where it seems oil could leak.

When adjusting the valves, I decided to try to make a more leak-proof solution. So I just used a piece of white paper to make an impression of the gasket in one piece by pressing the cover down on it. Black oil gave a template that I could cut out with scissors. After bying a 2mm gasket sheet it was fairly easy to cut out the gasket using nail scissors around the sharpest bends.

The gaskets were installed leaving the original rubber gaskets in place. It has worked fine.

Replacing transom rubrails.

 The transoms took a beating in the 2020 autumn storm winds, while being moored in a harbour without our presence. The boat ripped off mooring lines and scrubbed towards concrete. The port transom got the worst damage.

Both transom rubrails were damaged. The port transom also sustained hull scratching and damage, puncturing the crash compartment. 

Original rubrails could not be found, and most of the alternatives were not even close to the  appearance and quality that was wanted. At last a model from Taco Marine in USA was found, it is a bit slimmer and made of vinyl instead of rubber. But otherwise it looks very similar. Inserts of different colours can be selected. I believe rubber would be better because it probably takes small hits better without leaving marks than vinyl. But one has to use what is available. The major repair was made on the dry.

The crash compartment was cracked open.

The stbd rubrail could be replaced while on the water. Using a heat gun the rubrail could be reasonably bent to fit the transom. End caps were made from glass fiber using the (too large in my view) stainless ones in the kit as moulds. I can recommend this solution for transoms. ( I have no shares 😉). 

Installing a holding tank pumpout system.

It sems likely that the future will bring more sailing areas that require yachts to have pumpout capabilities. Thus I found it is sensible to start considering solutions. I am actually not that happy to do it yet, as there will just be more parts, work, costs, weight and systems prone to failures and trouble. Available space for tubing is also required. Such space is not that easy to find on our boat, most of it is already used. As for parts, many manufacturers offer such, but still it is important to find the best ones for own use. I ended up pressing on with the project because after about 6 months of thinking solutions and looking for parts, I could as well finish while it was all fresh in mind. 

Pumpout system solutions will be different for each yacht, so there is not so much reason to describe ours. But there is one part I did buy that I think most should avoid. 

I want the pumpout deck fitting lid to be as low into the deck as possible, so the possibility of stumbling is eliminated and the appearance is nice.

This Rutgerson deck fitting was bought through a webstore. It looked OK in the picture, and the price was good.

At first I thought that the plastic rim was supposed to be below deck, so that one could screw the lid down to flush onto the deck. But no,that was not possible, and not the intended way. The plastic rim is to be above deck, and the stainless steel lid on top of that. Thus I was disappointed with this product, and searched for another. I did find one, and of course it was more expensive...

The Osculati model does allow the lid to come all the way down to the deck, enclosing the plastic fitting. To lower another millimeter or two, I made this sanding tool so I could remove the anti-slip surface under the deck fitting:

 

Using it with a drill made a nice recess for the deck fitting:

The Osculati fitting is a fairly low-profile solution:

A look at the emergency steering system.

 

I guess most sailboats of some size have an emergency steering tiller that can be coupled to the rudder if the other steering systems should break or fail. There is usually some kind of hatch that can be opened to get access to the top of the rudder post. On the Privilege catamarans of our model and others of the same age, the access is through a "screw-in" hatch in the transoms.

I have had to use this one time in calm and nice conditions when a rudder got stuck and thus was disconnected, leaving the other rudder available only to the autopilot or the emergency tiller. Going into a harbour, the autopilot was no option. Since that I have been thinking that if I ever have to use the system offshore in more than moderate waves, seawater is certain to enter through the hole. Underneath is the shore power charger and some other stuff, so seawater is not welcome in that area. But I did not do anything about it. Likewise, the tiller itself has been stored under some sails in a locker, and not easily accessable. Quite complacent. So I have now made a more accessible storage position for the tiller. And also made an arrangement to plug the hole when the tiller is in use. It is not completely water proof, but will prevent open flow into the hull. The charger will still have to get some kind of top hood to protect it fully.

In addition, a tiller extension was made out of a carbon tube. The forces on the rudders are great, and I fear it will be hard to steer the boat in open sea.

Simple materials, the plug from some styrofoam-like sheet (a bit softer) and the cover from canvas. Joined together with polyurethane glue.

I hope we will never have to use these things.