aloha,
I was on the mooring ball the whole week and waiting for my haulout. But I got almost everything sorted out. haulout will be on Friday morning. I then hopefully can get the rudder out very quick to start building a new rudder.. I dove down a couple times and inspected the rudder shaft very careful. I hope I can use the old rudder shaft. But I don’t know for sure until I have it in my hands.. SO there’s still a risk but it’s the least I can take. If I have to buy a new shaft that will cost at least 2.000$ more. So hopefully my plans work.
And I talked to the harbormaster and got permission to moore without permission..? sounds crazy? yes to me too. But at least they let me stay until haulout.
It’s the memorial day weekend and I got the weekend special deal from the boatyard. So I stay in the slings until Tuesday morning and don’t have to pay layday fee for the weekend. That means I have to hurry up and finish the rudder as quick as possible..
We’ll see..
Today I had the kickoff-meeting (that sounds way too much like my former life) for the work on the rudder and I’ll meet the welder and the other boatyard staff.. PDF (Pacific Diverisfied Finishes) made a very professional start and Jim, the president, spend a lot of time to make sure everything is ready for tomorrow. They were very nice to me and we talked about all different steps, material needed and what kind of work I can do on my own and when I need assistance from the PDF crew. The plan is to take the rudder out as soon as ZERO is on the hard, inspect it and then make the decision how to repair or rebuilt it. We’ll know more tomorrow.. But we have a couple plans how we proceed if it’s good or bad.
In the meantime I did a couple side-jobs on ZERO and sealed the whole toe-rail and all portholes with 3M 4000. Even when its raining today it was sooo nice to work in a dry area without fighting against the rain more than working on the project kike it was in Hanalei Bay on Kauai.
This evening Michael from BoatUS came and towed me to the slip of the boatyard. It was a very calm day and my friend Brian, who came from Maui to help me, was in the dinghy to push bow or stern into the right direction.. So ZERO is sitting right there where the travel-lift will lift her out of the water tomorrow morning.
I’m not getting bored here..
lets hope the best..Fingers crossed..!
Aloha
Good luck we are hoping for the best.
I can’t see well in the photo where the shaft/rudder broke.
We just did a 6 month haul out and did some repair to our rudder. There were support struts welded onto the SS shaft and then bolted through the rudder.