Repair Day

Few long needed repairs got checked off the list today:

If you have been reading you know this Winter has not been kind to our chocks. The two on the bow where pulled off and had to replace the hardware during a storm to keep from some major damage. The two stern chocks fared even worse and met their demise by breaking off. For the new ones I decided to for go the suggested #12 screws to hold them tight and through bolt them with a pair of 1/4" stainless bolts. The chocks also are slightly beefier in the base plate so hopefully this will hold up for a while. Second long overdue fix was new gaskets on the portlights!

They have leaked since we got the boat and after the Winter under cover dried out even more. The portlights are another Cape Dory design that I am not quite sure what is going on, for some reason it was deemed a good idea to make them with the sill at a slight negative pitch so any water on it just pools up against the portlight. Went with a 1/2" Bomar round fexlible gasket and after lots of scraping, trying to avoid useing chemicals where elbow grease can work, got the old gaskets out.

Quick degrease and cut the new gasket to shape. They went in with ease and next week when the plastic comes off we will hopefully no longer have leaking portlights.