Restoring Aslan

[Brucel]

Here she is, almost ready to sail. I still haven't finished the bottom of the hull, I have to figure out how I can raise and crib the boat above the trailer. I'll need to raise the boat about one foot above the trailer to get in there and paint.

I positioned the motor mount towards the corner where the transom is a little stiffer. When using the motor I lock it in the motor in the straight ahead position and use the rudder to steer. That is why the less mainsheet in the way is better. I'm going to attach the mainsheet to the boom and run it through the two pulleys as shown in the first picture. If I need more mechanical advantage I'll tie in the pulley with the becket as in the previous post.

Still have to do all the legal stuff such as register the boat and trailer, get a license plate for the trailer, and get insurance and go through the quarantine for the lake. Our city lake is a mile away and requires a quarantine to keep some invasive mussel out of the lake. It's worth the hassle because we can be at the lake in 10 minutes.

The last picture is Aslan at our city lake in 2009. The lake just big enough to sail in, a mile long and half a mile wide. Dana Point Harbor is about eight miles away if we want to sail on the ocean.

We'll be sailing this summer.

[Brucel]

I figured out a way to paint Aslan without having to raise the entire boat. I put a bottle jack between the boat and trailer on one side, lifted it a couple of inches, then blocked it up. I dropped the bunker board down and that gave me enough clearance for a small diameter disposable roller. After the paint cures for 24 hours I'll raise the bunker board to the original height then repeat for the other side. Then all I have to do is paint the spots where the block is holding up the boat.

This is a very stable setup.The one side is a single point of contact but the other side is covered by the entire bunker board and the keel. Kind of a tripod type setup. The drawback is you can only do one side at a time. That's fine, I can take a couple  of days to do this; I'm retired and I live in earthquake country. In Southern California you never crawl under a rickety setup.

To do the bottom of the keel, I'll probably crib up both sides and a single point near the bow. I'll only need a couple of inches between the trailer and keel just like the bunker boards and bottom.

[Brucel]

Aslan is back on the trailer for now. The bottom of the hull is painted except for the bottom of the keel and some holidays on the sides of the keel. I'll have to crib up the entire boat to get those spots.

I built a mast crutch that bolts to the inside of the cockpit. It's held by two bolts and wingnuts and is very rigid and it only takes about 3 minutes to install or remove. I'll keep the crossed sticks in the boat and throw the new mast crutch in the truck when I launch.

I've got most of the standing and running rigging installed as best as I can remember it. I'll have to raise the mast to fine tune and correct any mistakes I've made in the rigging. If I dismantle half of the roof on the canopy I could raise the mast today but I'll wait until after our desert trip. I'm going to take the old trailer out to the desert and that will free up my side driveway to pull Aslan out from under the canopy. Yeah, I'm that lazy.

[Brucel]

Just for fun I thought I would post the inspiration for my color choices for Aslan. My TV lives in a cabinet and above the TV sits this model of a gaff rigger I got at a thrift store. I look at this model every day and I liked the color combination. While I liked the combination there was something not right. In Dana Point Harbor there is about one million sailboats with a white hull. Boring. What if I flipped the color scheme? White cabin, red stripe, blue hull?

I downloaded a drawing of a Weekender (the drawing in the printed Weekender builders manual) and used a photo painting app to paint up the drawing. I liked it, Cindy liked it even more. We bought some sample colors at Home Depot and tried them on the boat. That is what we were looking for.

I would recommend any one having trouble deciding what colors to use on their home built boat to go through the same process. Find an image, drawing or photo, use a photo painting app and get an idea on how it will look. It doesn't have to photo perfect, just an image with the main colors. Then get some paint samples (about $6 each at Home Depot) and confirm your choice on the boat. If it turns out ugly you can always paint over it.

We are using a name brand, quality house paint on Aslan. That's what Frank Hagan (the builder) used back in 2001 and it held up for 25 years. You won't need marine paint if you store your boat on the hard like we do.