Bravo for the things that work well

[Ann and Neville Clement]

Time to stop complaining and applaud the things that work well.

Bravo for the Wharram string hinges which can be found all over our boat and are essentially free and excellent. We finally replaced metal hinges on the anchor lockers and now have string hinges that do not rust, do not need painting, wear extremely well even under foot, and do not stub my toes. We see no wear on our rudder rope fastenings even after 30,000 miles on the original ropes. Epoxy coat those rudder holes well, or else! Jacques even drilled out large holes, filled them with thickened epoxy, and came back and drilled smaller holes into that epoxy so the is no chance of rot getting in. So clever! So easy and cheap too!

Bravo for the Wharram hatches that do not leak even in a Force 10 offshore with waves breaking on deck. We decided against making the hugh hatch over the galley in our Tiki 46 plans and built two small hatches there instead which are the same size as all the other entry hatches on the boat (we made ours a little larger than the plans). We even built an extra hatch cover that can be used anywhere in case of hatch cover damage while crossing the Atlantic because we are pessimists sometimes. We have the two galley hatches held down by light ropes from thru bolted eye bolts attached to inboard and outboard sides of the hatch cover with light rope leading to cleats fixed just below on the coamings inside the boat so we can lock them for security. We can open them in any direction, prop them with a block of wood 2 x 4 x 6 inches, and by just turning the blocks on their sides or length, this allows us to vary the amount of ventilation we get and if we open the hatches opposite direction to the wind, we can prevent rain from getting in. We added some perspex clear plastic "windows" to let in light for reading and are glad we only made them half as big as the hatch cover so not too much hot sun gets in. We only wish the store bought hatches we have worked so well. They all have had leak issues from time to time, are hard to open, open in only one direction, and cost the earth.

Bravo for the 28 little dinghy inspection hatches Hanneke suggested we let into the beam troughs all over the boat. These are the circular twist off covers and it is essential to get the ones with O rings. We have two each side of each beam trough and they even safely keep the boat sweet when we are away from Peace so we return to a dry and clean smelling boat. Just a little ventillation makes a boat comfy on hot tropical days.

Bravo for Garhauer sheet tracks and blocks which work well, reduce effort in sail handling and are cheaper than you can believe. Google them and if you have questions, talk to Guido who knows. We have sheet tracks for main and foremain with excellent ball bearing block and tackle which even I can use easily and I am not as strong as I was a few years back. We now can tend all sails from the cockpit and that is wonderful when you get old and the decks are wet or bouncy.

Now if we could only do something to improve this rain and fog...

Ann and Nev

[Ann and Neville Clement]

BRAVO for the new manual oil changer Nev got. We got ours on a job lot sale, but you can get yours from West Marine. It is in their current 2009 catalog page 397. It is about $50 US and changes up to 5 quarts in no time, with no sweat, no grumpy, and no mess either. Ann and Nev

[Jeff Kittle]

For people in their build. Instead of a spanish windless for straightening out the wobble before attaching the chine we simply drilled holes and put in eyebolts with large washers to which we attached comealongs. Worked very well. Of course I did not have to buy the comealongs. We had them lying around.

[Jeff Kittle]

launching the boat with beams chained to a conventional hydraulic lift trailor worked very well also. See our pictures. You have to have a wide ramp. it is cheaper than a crane.

[Hans Hammig]

Hello Ann and Nev,

No problem, sail south!

[paul anderson]

bravo for hard plastic applicators whilst fibreglassing they enabled me to really put some pressure on the glass to get rid of any air pockets,they worked far better than the flexible ones i have.

[Hans Hammig]

Hi Ann and Neville,

Your solution for the hatches is excellent! One question though: Are the hatches secured in some way, and how? I mean if you take the cover away, can it not fall over board?

[Ann and Neville Clement]

In the hulls, we have two kinds of hatches.  The first kind is the style that goes over the ladders into and out of the hulls.  The back edge of these hatches has a sail slide arrangement onto two sail tracks and this works well.  We made metal fastenings here so there is security but the design has rope fastenings which a knife can cut through.  At the front edge of these companionway hatches we have the bungee fastenings that are in the plans to keep the forward edge of the hatch from flipping up suddenly in strong wind.  It works for us.  For security when away from the boat, we have two rings which we set into the deck and we have a stainless bar that goes over them and locks in place.  I believe there are several detail photos of this arrangement on our page which Cliffton Thompson put there for us.  We have no camera.

   The second style of hatch we have, is the pair of hatches we designed identical to the other style but over the settee and there is no slide arrangement.  We have a pair of cleats for each of these hatches and a ring with a string on the inside.  When the hatches are open, we prop them with a block of wood and fasten the string firmly to the cleats on the inside coaming.  Again, somebody has photos of this and maybe it is on our page.  This system works just fine and is cheap and fast to make.  By turning the block on edge or on the side, you can add or subtract the windage getting into the galley. 

   We also feared the loss of a hatch while offshore, so we built an extra hatch that can fit any of the hatch openings.  We have never needed it though.

[Hans Hammig]

Thanks, Ann and Neville!