I finally feel as if I’m getting there with Goes Around Comes Around
the 21 ft Shock Santana sailboat I bought in the end of July.So far I have varnished all
outside wood on it, including the tiller and rudder. I have painted the
top decks with a good oil based floor/deck paint. Glidden $16 a
gallon stuff. It seems to have worked very well. (it even specified on the label that it was suitablefor painting boat decks) I got a light tan/sand
color for the no skid areas and a gloss white for the rest of it. It
was white decks and dark blue on the no skid before. It was very hot in
the sun on the blue, you couldn’t walk bare foot on it during the day.
Now it is very cool even in the hot noon sun. Here are before and after pictures.
A couple years later I got a email from a guy asking how the paint job had held up. I wrote a little blurb about it that you can see here. Paint job Follow Up
I removed theplexiglas sheet that Hans the previous owner had screwed
over the front hatch opening after the original hatch blew off on
Interstate 95 when he was trailering it back from Florida. I bought a
new hatch $60 and installed it. Talk about a comedy of errors. The new
hatch was about 8 inches longer than the old one so I used the rotozip
to cut out the hatch opening to the new hatch. What I didn’t take into
account was that the forward deck is not flat but has a definite arch to
it. when i put the hatch in the new opening the outside ends of the
hatch were about 3/4 inch above the level of the deck. No sealing that.
I ended up taking some half inch Plexiglas that I had sitting around and
creating contoured shims in the gaps and using 5200 sealant/caulk/glue
to affix everything in place. It works and doesn’t look bad either. Was
definitely fun though cutting the wedged shaped shims out of Plexiglas
on the table saw.
The original paint job and the sheet of plexiglass that the prior owner had screwed down over the hatch. The blue paint got so hot in the sun that it would burn any exposed skin that came into contact with it.
What it looks like after I repainted her and installed the new hatch. With the new paint job you could walk barefoot anywhere on deck even on the hottest summer day.
I also made a new companionway hatch cover out of a piece of two layer
polycarbonate. It is much lighter than the two pieces of plywood that
were in there and also lets in lots of light to the cabin area. cost $0
A couple weekends ago I went out and raised the mast ( by myself ) It
was doable singlehanded. I think that if I make a line to hold onto
raising and lowering it that it will even be fairly easy to do. Anyway I
hooked up all the rigging on the boat that I had and found that I was
missing a few things after hooking the sails up. (the sails look like
they are new. I know I should have pulled them all the way out of the
sailbags before buying the boat but we just pulled them a quarter of
the way out and what we could see looked excellent. all the way out they
look even better) The stainless clip to hook the clew and foot of the
mainsail to the boom were missing and also the fitting to attach the
foot of the jib to the front of the boat. I think im remembering which
is the foot of the sail and the clew. lol I knew that day as I was
sitting out there with a book looking at the rigging in the book and
comparing it to my boat.
I got a new gas tank $24 and the fuel line $19 to go to the engine from
it but haven’t tried it out yet.. that is still a big question as to
will the engine work. Hans told me that it worked fine the last time he
used it but that has been a while.
A couple days ago I picked up a few stainless fittings at Home Depot for
the boat. Boaters world was 3 times as expensive and I think the
fittings were made by the same manufacture. I also purchase several
lines to replace the halyards(lines that raise and lower the sails) one
is missing and the other is very old and faded. $25 for all told
I am going sailing soon. I don’t care if it is freezing cold… lol I
want to get it in the water. I had thought that I was going to get it
all together and sailing within a week or so of purchasing the boat but
ran into title and registration issues. I sent off the paperwork and DNR
sent it back saying that there was a lien against the title. I got hold
of Han’s and he had gone thru bankruptcy in the mid 90’s and sold the
boat to his brother. Later he got it back and paid back his brother but
never got the lien signed off after paying. He sent the paperwork to his
brother in Mississippi and it got back to me in a couple weeks signed
off. DNR sent me a new title and registration in my name a week or so
after I sent it back in again. Hurray!!!!. cost $90 for title and
registration and misc fee’s to them. By then it was late September early
October. Since then I have been spending a few hours every weekend doing
this or that on the boat fixing little things up. Every time I turn
around I see something else that needs a little work.
Todo list includes
- Sandblasting trailer and repainting.
- Giving the hull a good scrubbing.
- Sandblasting and repainting the keel (keel is 500lb cast iron
centerboard. It is 12 inches deep with keel up and swings down to 5 ft
deep in down position. This setup is nice for cabin space as it does not
intrude at all into the cabin. I guess we will see how it does for
sailing. - Hook up the running lights to the battery
- One of the steel angle iron guides on the trailer that guide the boat
keel into the keel slot on the trailer is missing. Weld new one on.
A lot more work has happened on the “Goes around, Comes around” I’m not sure I even remember what all I have done.
First I welded in a replacement keel guide on the trailer and painted that. I also remounted the leg on the front of the trailer.
Next I installed a battery and distribution panel. The panel you can see in the below picture is the distribution panel and the battery is in the compartment you can see just below it.
I don’t think that she ever did have a distribution panel before. I cut out a hole and mounted the panel. Then repaired and rewired the running lights. I still don’t have an all around white light. The mast never did have a light mounted on the masthead. After getting the running lights working and remounted I installed 4 led arrays around the top of the post in center of cabin that the mast is above up on deck. For some reason I can’t find pictures of all four right now. This picture shows two on port and starboard there are now two more forward and aft on the post.
Not very bright but at night they light up the entire cabin. I still have to wire the sump pump up to the distribution panel. It is run from a portable battery unit at the moment. Distribution panel $36, 4 led arrays $ 60, misc wire, connectors, and bulbs $30.
I pulled the rubber bumper strip off both sides of the boat that go over the deck/hull joint. It was falling off in a couple places. scrubbed it and joint down with wire brush and then glued it back in place with 3M 5200. Worked like a charm.
Bought fire extinguishers, flare gun kit, noice maker/horn, some floatation cushions to meet USCG requirements and put together a tool kit for the boat.
Took her out for the first time March 25? a thursday.
Chris went with me and we put in under the bridge in north myrtle beach/little river and motored to the inlet. With the engine at what I estimate to be about 75% or 80% it was pushing her against the current at 4 to 4.5 mph according to the GPS unit.
Setup took about an hour and a half. We spent a long time re-arranging the running rigging before putting her in the water. The mast went up in just a couple of minutes. We also rigged the sails and tied them down before putting her in. The trailer neck extension is a necesity. It slides out to extend the trailer tounge about 6 more feet. Even with that extended we put the rear bumper of the van in the water to get her to float off.
It took us about an hour and a half to get to the inlet and out on the ocean. Beautifull blue sky with winds from about 4 to 8 knots. She sails like a dream. Chris helped me out the first 30 min or so and then kicked back and let me do most of the work. For my first time sailing I felt very comfortable tacking and jibing. I played with her on all points of the wind and even sailed running before the wind for a bit with the jib and main wing and wing. It all just seemed to flow almost no uncertainty at all.
She turns on a dime. With out slamming the boom over you can tack in about 7 seconds and even have the jib over and lines reset in another 10 to 15 seconds. though to be honest we forgot to put the keel down. We sailed her all day with it up, it was only as we were going back in that we remembered it. So I’m not sure how that down will affect how she sails and turns. Our best speed of the day under sail was 5.1 mph with an average of about 3.5 mph.
Here are pictures of the the first day’s sail.
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