“Sailing is the passion of my life. Exploring the world at the slow pace of a sailing yacht is pure magic. Near or far. A sunny Sunday day sail or a long passage. They are like branches on the same tree.”
Rode Orm
Author Archives: Schooner Mahdee
Stuff going on
Well, its busy as usual. I’ll endeavor to take some pics and get them up here in the next few days. The deck beams are done, the foredeck installed, starting on the raised deck.
David is out of town taking care of business for a bit, so John and I are on our own. That means John’s on his own since I don’t “do” structural things on the boat as the guys are so much faster, better than me!
Friday, the fellow who had the Egg Harbor power boat next to us decided to move it. So, that was a little disturbing. The owner of San Diego Boat Movers had to, move our huge piles of planking and decking woods to get that boat out of there. The positive thing is that we’ll be able to work much closer to our own boat. The negative is that moving piles of wood around is a waste of time and potentially damaging to the wood.
We now have sunlight on the east side of Mahdee, though, and this is a good thing. Its been so very cold in the mornings with the Egg Harbor blocking the suns warming rays.
More later,
Brenda
Compression (Tension) Post “driving”
Its been a busy month. John and David have worked on getting the deck beams and associated stuff in place for laying the new deck. Here’s a picture of David using a sledge hammer to get the 5/8″ bronze rod down through the rather tight 5/8″ hole through the mast partners and into the compression post below. It appears that John has drawn the short-straw since he’s the fellow stuck holding onto the bronze as David pounds on it. Everyone calls it a “compression” post but really it seems to be a “tension” post from its function. This post is a wood post with bronze rod inside it installed about 6″ forward of the main mast that the deck pulls up on (post in tension) while sailing. If the deck is pulling up putting the post in tension, the 5/8″ rod then helps hold the deck “down” because the rod is bolted thru the deck on one end and thru the mast step (down in the bilge) on the other end. There are two of these posts–one right in front of the main mast and one right behind the foremast. The tension comes from the fact that the sailing loads on the chainplates place a load inward literally squeezing the hull. The cambered deck beams will arc further up allowing more hull movement without this post in place. Why it is called a compression post is beyond me unless the folks calling it that are thinking about the poor boat getting squeezed! But, it is the tension in this post that comes to the rescue preventing the squeeze/compression!
