Topic: Cockpit wood

[Sawlty Dawg]

The teak on the top of the cockpit coming was split on the port side where the jib sheet ran over the wood coming off the winch.
My boat (hull #160) had the winches mounted on the fiberglass in cutouts in the wood, there are cutouts for both primary and secondary winches. I have looked at pictures of other 8.5s and they seem to have solid boards with no cutouts, you can see one or them in the attached pic.
Does anyone else have boards with cutouts on their 8.5?

I am in the process of removing and replacing them, its going ok.   

[Holdech]

Does the winch bolt into the recess or over the top of it?
There are a couple of 8.5's at our club. I'll see if I can find out about them via email.

[Sawlty Dawg]

Mine were mounted directly to the fiberglass, an changing that, I am going to put plywood in the depressions where the winches were and fiberglass them in and then re-drill the holes and mount them on top of the boards.

I wanted to add some pics to my post but I keep getting an error that tells me we are out of disk space, I will send them to you to upload if you would be so kind.

Sawlty

[Holdech]

No problem. Here they are.
And I've also fixed the problem.

Chris

[Dan Sullivan]

My 8.5 (1973 hull #7 ) has no wood in the cockpit. I wonder when Aloha started adding the wood as shown in the pics.
The previous owner put a teak step pad on the boat and there is wood trim where the Combi  was but that is it.
Looking good Sawlty !

[Sawlty Dawg]

Sailboat data says 1983 but mine is an '82 so I guess they are off a bit, maybe they were still working out the kinks in '82 which could be why mine needs to be fixed.

https://sailboatdata.com/sailboat/aloha-85

[Sawlty Dawg]

Bit of progress today as the varnish arrived, Interlux Schooner Gold.

[Sawlty Dawg]

Varnish finished and curing.

[Bill Hutton]

Great work Liam.  Looking good.  Bill

[Sawlty Dawg]

Into a slight delay, hurt my back so that is slowing things down, decided to leave the wood off until after launch so no one scuffs it while its still pretty soft, some good thinking right there.

Also after a bit of thinking decided to order some new Harken ST winches, if I am going to drill holes in my new wood to mount the winches I figure I might as well upgrade my winches now rather than do this twice and have a bunch of old holes left over (filled the old ones).

On the plus side the boat is in the water and I now have a halyard for my jib installed, no mainsheet as I had to order a new one to fit my new 6 to 1 main sheet system, it should be on tomorrow I think.

Cockpit cushions are in the basement still, got them recovered this year, the vinyl was in pretty good shape for 38 years old but the piping was cracking every time I used them so it was time. The old vinyl did have quite a yellowish hue to it, it was old.

[tmack]

What type of varnish?  I am experimenting with Waterlox Marine formulation this spring on some of my wood.  I recently built a kitchen table with furniture version and was impressed enough to try the marine version on the boat.  I have used Cetol in the past, but it looks like plastic after too many coats.

Tim

[Sawlty Dawg]

I am using Interlux Schooner Gold.
There are some reviews of various varnish here: https://www.practical-sailor.com/boat-maintenance/paints/the-best-marine-varnish-exterior-wood-finish-tests

We shall see how it holds up, I imagine I will be redoing it every couple of years for the rest of my life.

Sawlty

[Sawlty Dawg]

UPS sucks!
 They tell me my winches are arriving Wednesday, then tell me Tuesday.....then Tuesday comes and goes, no Winches.
Now they tell me Thursday. Ugh!

Oh well its not like I have anywhere to go but still.

Sawlty

[Sawlty Dawg]

There!
Still need to put the headsail on and actually try it out, and a bit of caulking to do yes but basically its done.