From Garden to Sound

Fleet trailer courtesy of Eric Finn. The trailer has seen better days. Considering it is such a wonderful (and cheap!) resource for the Tbird community, we should really take better care of it. Some how and somewhere the manual for using the trailer has gotten lost. I have tried to put up some pictures here as a temporary aid until someone else does a better job.

 Below, the I-beam is mounted on the two smaller jack stands. We tried to get the I-beam as close to the keel as possible. 

Stabilizers slide in on the I-beam to stabilize! (Tried to keep all the weight on the I-beam though). 

An important note: The trailer comes with a third jack stand to support the rear of the Tbird while the trailer is slide in. This jack stand is not tall enough, requiring you to either block it up, which makes it quite wobbly and me nervous (from someone with one Tbird drop on his record...). Instead, we used two tall jack stands (barely visable below), which were able to support he rear end (placed under the bulk heads), but still left clearance to assemble the aft trailer beams/stands.

 Removing the aft trailer beams to allow the trailer to slide below the I-beam and between the jack stands.

 Below, ready to slide in. We had to dig out some soil trenches for the wheels to allow the bottom of the keel to clear the trailer. Measure twice!

 The trailer slide in, and the aft beam and stands re-attached.

 Slowly transferring the weight from the I-beam and jack stands to the trailer.

 All ready for her adventure! (Don't forget the bolt down the keel, and strap her down when some heavy duty ratchets).

 The most nerve-wrecking 25 mins of my life...

 Last time we used a Gin pole to pull the mast, which worked fine. This time I splurged for the cherry picker which made it even easier.

 Touch up the bottom on the keep with bottom paint (not sure how much of that actually stays on???).

And we're off! A tremendous thank you to John, Dona, Vidya, Stewart, Bill, John G., and Andrew!  

Bottom Paint and Last minute touch ups

The time had finally come to bite the bullet and buy that expensive can of grim fighter. One gallon of Interlux VC offshore got 2 full coats plus some extra on and around the keel.

 Due to time/money, we were not able to repaint the topsides. Maybe next time shes out.

 Fire engine red stripe!

On the wait list for Shileshole!

After much thought Zoe will be moving into the salty waters of the Salish Sea this summer (mid-July is the goal). Going to miss Weds night racing with the other birds, but its time to explore some new waters. Hoping to make some trouble at these Sloop events too...

Barrier-Coat-On

The G/flex epoxy filler sanded off alright, but did not leave a smooth surface due to the fact that it was to runny during the application. We used QuickFair microballon filler for the small diviets and g/flex 610 for the deeper holes. The later was the same stuff as the 655 but comes in a cauking tube and self mixes when you squeeze it out, very simple and only applies as much as you need.

Zoe had been sitting on a wooden stand but needed to be moved to jack stands to allow easier painting of the entire hull. Because the wooden support on the ground prevented the center stand from being placed, my dad had to do some quick work with a chainsaw to make it work.

Removing the old wooden stand. If anyone would like to borrow it just contact me.

Very happy it didn't tip over!

4th coat of Interprotect 2000e

6th coat

Goodnight for now Zoe, more work to come next June!

Thanks Dad!

Experimenting with G/flex

Finally all the bottom paint has been sanded off using a dual action orbital sander. Took a lot longer than using a grinder but as it was my first time taking bottom paint off, probably left a lot less gouges.

Underneath the majority of the barrier coat (Interlux 2000) was still in good shape. Around the keep join was a small crack in the epoxy filler. Also, two of the keel bolt heads had gotten some water underneath the filler (below). These were sanded and grinded out.

The keel joint had previously been sealed with 3M 4200, and epoxied over. While still flexible and in place in most places, the cast iron keep side showed rust everywhere along the joint. Crawling the forums I came across a newish product from West Systems, their g/flex products (650 and 655). Reviews were good, and it has the added benefit of being sandable. Anyone else use this before?

Below is the first application of g/flex 655 (the thicker version). It was still a little to honey like to apply to the  keep joint, mainly because the join is at a non horizontal angle. Next time I would add some thickener. The next day it was rockhard. We'll see how the sanding goes!

Removing the old (7yr) bottom paint. 

All the way off, time to start filling!

Thunderbird Internationals 2012

A short video of the 2012 Thunderbird Internationals from the perspective of Thunderbay. Big thanks to Duane for letting us play around on his sweet boat (and for all the delicious bbq!!).